Lighthouse scribes

In Nigerian parlance, ”rest” is a complete statement; sometimes that implies that a person desists from making an effort on something, or an argument. It’s not asking you to give up your labour for your good but to accept defeat. 

God’s offer of rest to us is so that we can enter His perfect will. It is the best invitation and advice anyone can receive. These are the things we know about God’s rest (v3-7);

• Everyone gets the offer to enter into it.
• It has been ready since He created the world.
• Entry requires continuous faith and obedience.
• It is really about following His will for us.

For the Israelites, entering God’s rest meant trusting Him through their time in the wilderness and bringing them into the promised land. But for most of them, they struggled to accept His sovereignty, just as many of us do today. We have things, thoughts, and mindsets that we exalt above God, and as a writer rightly put it, many of us may even be caught up in the idolatry of good things. 

In this chapter, we learn that God’s rest is leaving the weariness and pain of human labour to fit into God’s righteous plan. 

God’s rest says, ‘Stop trying to do the work of salvation and holiness, but believe in the finished work of Christ.’ v11, 1 John 2:2

God’s rest says, ‘Come to me all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens.’ Matthew 11:28-29

God’s rest is an invitation to both unbelievers and believers. We enter God’s rest when we receive Christ into our lives, and we continue in it when we daily submit to His sovereignty. 

Verse 12 seems quite out of place in some way, because how did we go from talking about what rest is to what the word of God is? Yet it is in place. The word of God is like a filter by which we can separate the good from the bad and like an X-ray that exposes what is in our innermost being, a part of us that no one can see. The word of God reveals what is buried deep within us. The word is alive, active, and a complete force. The word of God is where God meets us, examines us, gives us our diagnosis, and treats us until He makes us whole. The word is the tool the Holy Spirit uses to work powerfully in and through us. No one can stay in God’s rest without the continuous activity of the word at work.

Jesus, A High Priest that Cares.

As the chapter closes, we are reminded that we have a High Priest who understands our weaknesses and temptations. This is a reminder that God has never expected that we will wade through the stormy rivers of life by ourselves, mortifying the flesh with our strength (impossible), and struggling to be his poster child. No. God wants us to live from Him daily. Could you John 15 again? To be a branch is to be an offshoot of the trunk. To flourish, the only option is to abide. So, why not give up trying to do bad all by yourself and accept that you will never be self-sufficient? We were never wired to be without God. And He invites us to come boldly (not proudly or timidly); as the AMP version puts it, we are asked to come with privilege and confidence to God’s throne to receive what we need to live a prosperous life.

Love,

Osi

P.S. I find the book of Hebrews to be enough doctrine against the OSAS argument and the argument that if people unrepentantly continue in sin, then they were never saved in the first instance. In 1 John 2:18–22, John spoke about the antichrist and antichrists, and he also defined who they were. Proponents of OSAS do not deny the Trinity. They have just created a doctrine outside the Bible that permits them to live wilfully, and that doctrine is a great risk to the soul. 

P.P.S. Jesus was tempted, but James 1:13–15 does not apply to Him. When we read the account of Jesus’ temptation in Matthew 4, we will see that he was tempted on the basis of His natural appetite/humanity (anyone who fasts for 40 days will be famished), His divinity (He is the Son of God), and His omnipotence (by Him and through Him were all things made). Like us, Jesus was tempted, and we can trust that our Saviour can relate to that, and He will always provide an escape route.