Wow, this is an intense verse, but it awakens me to the reality of how God places a vital priority on rest. If I was living in the old testament times they would have put me to death along time ago. Thank God for Jesus who fullfilled that law of sabbath rest. He now is our rest. So in order to observe the sabbath we must stay in Jesus. We must put to death ourselves daily, recokening our flesh dead daily so we may truely live from the place of the Spirit.
In a sense the new testament and the requirement is even more intense because in order to truly live, we must choose to die daily to our fleshly, selfish desires( which is never rest but stress, )to come into Christ who is our Sabbath rest. There are definite benefits of still keeping the physical sabbath law, but we are not0 under law but we are in Christ and in order for Christ to live in us daily we must choose to die-rest daily in Him! I guess you could even interchangeably use those two words rest and die in Christ. They basicly mean the same thing. When you die in the natural you have to let go and surrender everything because your body is no longer able to sustain life in the natural. You do enter into a eternal rest if you know Christ. Those that never have truly given their ALL to Jesus have never really entered into Christ- Sabbath rest.
So today what is Christ asking you to die- rest in? Is it a friendship? A relationship? A strong desire to succeed or be known? Motherhood or a career?Today Christ is asking us to allow Him to be our all in all. To come into Christ to allow His Charachter to truly be formed in us. To let go of our pride to truly humble our hearts to our enemy and die to the desire for justice, to have to be right. To repent, take the blame for our own hatered toward the one who we feel rejected by to truly ask for Christ’s love. This is why it is impossible to die to ourselves unless we truly say yes to the heart of the Lamb.
We must desire His heart over anything in our lives. Until this is our motive to bring Him glory and that He would truly be our ALL in ALL we have not truly entirely entered into rest, the Life of Christ. Instead we are living out of Adam in our own strength which is death but a different death that does not lead to life but hell and torment. Today we can have heaven- life and life abunduntly here on earth! But it is our choice to surrender everything to Him- die and truly enter into our Sabbath rest.
Hebrews 4 English Standard Version (ESV)
4 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.[a] 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Jesus the Great High Priest
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 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.”
