Genesis 2:2 On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work.
Why do we find it so hard to simply rest. We are such a busy people that we rarely take time to just sit and rest from all our work. I’m talking right now about our physical work. Is it because we feel guilty if we’re not doing something? Do we think we’re wasting time if we’re not laboring at something? Or is it because we’ve placed upon ourselves such a high demand of accomplishment that we have no time for the truly meaningful things in life? That being resting.
It seems like nearly everyone works their whole lives to make a life and then when they get older they spend all that they’ve earned to stay alive, never having lived the life they thought they were working toward. Even when we go on vacation, we rarely truly rest. Oh sure, we see the pictures of the beach and a nice cool beverage. Or the Cruise Ship and the beautiful water. Even the mountain cabin and the calm forest around it. But are we truly resting in those places?
What is it we’re laboring at, even if it’s just in our minds. Are we thinking about the emails that are piling up in our inbox just waiting for us when we get back. Is that person who’s supposed to be covering you while you’re gone going to mess things up that you’ll have to work hard to fix when you get back. Heck, lots of us just take our laptop with us and find time to work remotely while we are on…..vacation.
Now, so far, I’ve been talking about resting from our daily jobs, our daily duties, and our daily tasks. It seems that the moment we get up in the morning, our minds are on go and the schedules of the day and the future are flashing on our screen of life. It’s garbage day, gotta get the trash out. Mow lawn Saturday. Big meeting at 1pm today, but first a telecon at 10am. Have to travel next week. Get pants from cleaners after work today for that trip. Send an email to so and so as soon as you get to work. Pick up birthday card for daughter. And on and on and on. How can you rest from that?
Guess what? We do the same thing in our spiritual lives. We just don’t know how to rest. We think rest is a lazy, do nothing position, but rest is an action. Resting in what God has already done means to “step” into the promises and provisions of God. He even warned us to put aside our labor and rest. Let me just use the entire chapter 4 of Hebrews here for a moment. Let’s look at it piece by piece. By necessity, this will be in more than one part.
1 Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
Wow! What a direct admonition. Let us therefore fear, lest any of us should come short of it? God promised that we could enter into His place of rest and the Easy to Read version says “So we should be very careful that none of you fails to get that promise”. In other words, even entering His rest, takes an act of rest. I mean, resting in the promise He made that we could enter into His rest. Not striving to get there.
2 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
How many people are just like “them”. Talking about the children of Israel. They hear the truth of God’s great grace, great favor, great love for them, but they just can’t receive it. They have no faith to step into the truth that there’s nothing they can DO to win anymore favor from God, or convince Him to love them more. They have been trained wrongly to believe they have to strive and perform in order to be recognized by God as someone worthy of His grace, love and affection. That’s so far from the truth and requires total repentance.
What I mean by repentance is changing your wrong thinking to line up with Kingdom thinking.That being there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more and there’s nothing you can do to make God love you less. If you are a believer in what Jesus did at the cross and beyond, then you are as righteous as you’re ever going to be. Nothing you do can change that either positively or negatively.
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Here again we see that something I’ve said before is confirmed in scripture. Believing is obedience. We which believed DO enter into rest, as He said. So, He said enter into my rest. We believe that and are obedient, because when we believe it we do enter into rest. Wow! So, if we just believe God then we are obedient.
I like the way the NAS says these verses in certain areas, just because the KJV translation never really quite says what it means. Here’s the NAS for this verse. “For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, ‘As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest,” Did you catch that word….THEY? So is He talking about us? NO!!! He just said in verse 2 that the word preached to them did no good, because they didn’t have faith in it. So, get this straight. He’s not talking about us. God so wanted us to understand this that He repeated it in verse 5. Look at it in the NAS translation that I’ve added, but first Genesis 2:2 is confirmed in the next verse. Again, God is all about making sure you understand Him so you can believe Him.
4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
Again, I like the way the NAS says this. It almost makes me chuckle. “For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; I had to laugh when it said “somewhere”. That somewhere is Genesis 2:2.
5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
Here’s the NAS version – “and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.” This is what I referred to above when commenting on verse 3. Once again the scripture says THEY. It’s as if God is saying “did you get that? I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about them”.
6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
Oh Oh! Is this verse saying that if we fail to enter into His rest and keep striving, and performing and laboring, that we are in unbelief? Well, you just read it, you tell me?
7 Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time; as it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
For this verse, I like the Easy to Read Version (ETV). “So God planned another special day. It is called “today.” He spoke about that day through David a long time later using the words we quoted before: “If you hear God’s voice today, don’t be stubborn.”
So He planned another special day and called it today. Are you getting that. Even as we study and discuss this verse TODAY, scripture is saying to quit worrying about yesterday, stop living in the future and stressing over what’s ahead, I’ve got something so special for you and it’s something you are experiencing right now. It’s called TODAY.
Then it goes on to say, if you hear God’s voice TODAY, don’t be stubborn. Like I said before, when you absolutely prove through scripture(s) that the grace and mercy of God cannot be earned, and that we’re perfect, and that we are no longer sinners, and that we’re holy and righteous, many just stay stubborn to their wrong believing. Some people are just not willing to give up their empty boats in favor of casting their nets on the “right” side (that’s a message for another day). That’s the grace and rest side.
I'll stop here for now, but there is much more to come. We'll move on to verse 8 in the next blog. Grace and Peace.
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