Living Out of Rest

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

Hebrews 4:9-10

Here is a revolutionary new principle of human behavior, on which God intends man to operate. It is from this that man fell, and it is to this, now, in Jesus Christ, he is to be restored. Unless this principle is operative in our life, we can have no assurance that we belong to the body of Christ. This is the clear declaration of this writer throughout the whole of the book.

We all have been brainwashed since birth with a false concept of the basis of human activity. We have been sold on the satanic lie that we have in ourselves what it takes to be what we want to be, to be a man, a woman, to achieve whatever we desire to be. We are sure we have what it takes, or, if we do not have it now, we know where we can get it. We can educate ourselves, we can acquire more information, we can develop new skills, and when we get this done we shall have what it takes to be what we want to be.

We do not have what it takes, and we never did have. The only one who can live the Christian life is Jesus Christ. He proposes to reproduce his life in us. Our part is to expose every situation to his life in us, and, by that means, depending upon him and not upon us, we are to meet every situation, enter into every circumstance, and perform every activity. We cease from our own labors.

This is the way you began the Christian life. You came to the place where you stopped trying to save yourself, did you not? You quit trying to be good enough to get into heaven. You said, I'll never make it, I'll never make it. You looked to the Lord Jesus, and said, If he has taken my place, then that is all I need. Thus, receiving him, and resting on that fact by faith, you stopped your own efforts, you ceased from your own work, and rested on his.

Paul says in Colossians, As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him, (Colossians 2:6 RSV). As you have received him, dependent on his death on the cross, so live in dependence upon his life in you to do all things through you. Step out upon that, and what is the result? Rest! Wonderful rest! Relief, release, no longer worrying, fretting, straining, for you are resting upon One who is wholly adequate to do through you everything that needs to be done. He does not make automatons of us, he does not turn us into robots. He works through our thinking, our feeling and our reasoning, but our dependence must be upon him.

Lord Jesus, thank you for this wonderful surgery that sets me free. I rejoice that there is a rest remaining into which I can enter. Grant that I will.