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“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” -Hebrews 4:16
Hebrews 4 is a fabulous bit of scripture that ends with the sentence above.
However, it begins with, “Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.
Fallen short of what? Entering His rest. Resting in the Lord is a commandment or a mandate. It’s where He wants us to be. We sure have a good God, don’t we? What are we supposed to be doing? Abide, just rest in Him.
Always easier said than done.
Whenever I am stressed out, scattered, worried, fearful, or confused, it’s always because I am not resting in Him. Rest can be complicated too, because it involves trust and a willingness to let go of control.
Back to that last verse however, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace…”
It is one thing to let go of control and to trust in God to the point of being able to just rest in Him calmly, it is an entirely different matter to do it with confidence.
I started out in my life with a score of somewhere around negative twenty on the “let go of control, trust in the Lord, and do it with confidence” scale. Half a century later, the Lord has gotten me to past zero and up around a five or six. A bit tongue and cheek with the scoreboard here, but I want people to know that it has been a long journey, a vast wilderness, and that God has been good and faithful to get me through it.
So I can tell you with complete certainty that God is trustworthy and that Hebrews 4 has some great wisdom hidden within it. “Rest” is not necessarily inactive or passive. I tend to “rest” best when I am walking or doing something that keeps me occupied, and often the simple act of resting in the Lord, can move mountains. Rest is not “doing nothing,” it is enabling the Lord to do what He does best, by getting out of the way.
Rest, assured of His grace.
Rest, assured of your salvation.
Rest, assured that His hand is on you.
Rest assured knowing, “that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
One last treasure from Hebrews 4 that I just love. They are speaking of the sabbath, a day of rest and the Bible says, “he appoints a certain day, “Today.” It doesn’t say he just appoints a “Sunday,” it says “Today.” Today is the time to rest, not in the past, not the future, but in the present. Spend the present, resting in His presence.
His presence is in the present. (God of course is everywhere, all of the time, but we encounter Him in the present.)
So much of what God is wanting to do in the world and in our lives is often hindered by us. If you really listen to the sound of God in the Bible, He is often speaking to us much like parents speak to small children. Be still. Be quiet. Listen. Rest. All that frantic energy, all that distress, all that running about, makes it harder for Him to put our shoes on so we can get where we’re going.
Resting in the Lord is a spiritual state of mind that proclaims His victory with confidence.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
So all my running about make it hard for him to put my shoes on me. Yes, that is my problem. I find him much better when I sit here, rest and wait. “My heart is open, Lord. Fill it while I sit a bit.” Lovely words, IB.
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Thank you, Oneta. His word is lovely, so kind to us, so focused on our well being. Jesus says, I give you my peace, and then i sometimes proceed to reach for anything but His peace. 🙂
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Amen to putting our shoes on. I note that Moses and Joshua being told to put off their shoes, may actually be the Lord saying “Take your shoes off, make yourself at home, I have to talk with you, and it may take sometime”
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That’s a really good point! I never noticed that before, but it does sound like “take off your shoes, sit down, and stay a while. This is Holy ground.” In Hawaii everyone tends to wear flip flops and take them off when they go inside. I remember churches would sometimes have dozens of sandals piled right outside the door. 🙂
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Jewish commentators tend to read it as an invitation to get comfortable and listen rather than showing reverence to the piece of ground. In the case of Moses and Joshua they must have been quite lengthy conversations. With Joshua scratching his chin rather thoughtfully as he listened to Commander Angel’s battle plan. ….. 😏
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How ironic that God says “rest” and his people tie themselves in knots trying to obey this command. Some make long lists of what they may or may not do on a certain day of the week. Others find different ways to muddle this simple directive. “Rest”: how complicated can it be? J.
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Ha! “Rest, how complicated can it be?” should probably be printed off on tee-shirts. We people are really good at making muddles out of everything. 🙂
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AMEN1 Rest without peace is an oxymoron. True peace allows rest / real rest is always very peaceful.
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Amen, MJ! Another word for rest would be restoration. It’s His peace that restores our souls, kind of like the way sleeping restores out bodies.
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“Rest is not “doing nothing,” it is enabling the Lord to do what He does best, by getting out of the way.”
Amen, well said. It says that God rested on the seventh day. This level of rest speaks volumes about how God sees anything that could possibly come against His kingdom. There’s nothing that could make Him worry or even break into a sweat! That’s why there’s no warfare or disturbance of any kind around His throne (“sea of glass”). And when we position our hearts there, seated in heavenly places in Christ, we experience His peace!
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