Are You Resting?

Reading: Hebrews 1-4

It’s such a simple truth.

“Then again God set a certain day, calling it ‘Today.’ This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day, 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 4:7-10, NIV, emphasis mine).

It’s still God’s “Today,” the day of salvation.

That salvation, that “Today” of rest was proclaimed from the beginning of time. Creation tells the story. After God had finished His work of creation, He rested. It wasn’t because He was tired from all the activity because God never gets tired. He never sleeps. He never takes a day off or goes on vacation. God “rested” in order to give us an advance preview of what salvation was all about.

When we come to faith in Christ, we enter that Sabbath-rest that the writer to the Hebrews is telling us about. We can stop working for our salvation—as if that could have ever saved us. We rest our destinies, not on our own efforts, but on the divine provision for our forgiveness that Jesus bought and paid for on the cross. He did it all so that we can stop trying to do what is impossible for us. We can stop working and rest in the grace of God, the undeserved favour that He shows us when He forgives us.

It’s still “Today.” But it won’t be forever, hence the warning not to “harden your hearts.” In the meanwhile, the invitation is still extended. We are invited to drop all our efforts at the foot of the cross and to rest in Him. As Paul reminds the Corinthians: “…now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (1 Corinthians 6:2, NIV).

Come in and rest.