To rest or not to rest…

Genesis 2:2 “By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”

Hebrews 4:9-11 “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest…”

Entering into rest requires an action on my part. On the one hand, it demands that I move towards rest, while on the other it leaves no option for my own works to accompany me.

And the illustration for this is the seventh day of creation and the completion of God’s work and how He blessed and sanctified what He had done by resting.

I find that I enter more readily into my own works than into God’s rest. When I see a need, I take it on and think that I must “do” something. Interestingly enough, we are charged to be “diligent to enter” that rest so that we will not fall into disobedience.

My inability to believe that God is able to do what He says He will do is a serious lack of faith. Romans 14:23 clearly says that “whatever is not from faith is sin.”

The call of rest is the call of faith. It is not my works or "my doing" rather it is God’s faithfulness aptly revealed through my rest.