Hebrews 4:9-10 (NIV)

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;
for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

Two people were driving in separate cars to another city.

Joe knew little about cars, and worried that the car would break down. He worried that it would run out of gas, oil, water, or something, and that he would not be able to complete his trip. At every gas station he stopped and checked all these things just to make sure. Between gas stations he worried about when he would have another chance to check and make sure the car was ok.

Jim knew a little about cars, enough to know that a full tank of gas was plenty to complete the trip. He also knew a master mechanic who had gone over his car and pronounced it to be in A-1 condition. Confident in what he knew of the car, and of the master mechanic, he drove to his destination and enjoyed the scenery along the way.

Both were going to the same place in the same way, but one understood rest while the other did not.

We are promised many things as Christians. We are promised salvation of course and that is the biggest thing. There are many other things we are promised in the here and now, between the time we are saved and when we get to Heaven. These things include victory over sin, forgiveness for our sins, fruit such as love, joy, peace and so forth.

Another promise is rest.

This rest is entered into by faith, just as we have been reading in Chapter 4. The Children of Israel did not enter because they did not believe. They remained God’s people, but they did not receive the blessings they were promised. They did not because they refused to believe.

The promise still stands for us today, and as the people of God, we may enter that rest. The only requirement is faith, which is believing that God will do what God said he would do.

As it says, we may enter the rest from our own work, just as God rested from his work after creation.

In our modern culture this may seem kind of preposterous as most people, Christians included, are so busy they can’t squeeze one more activity into their schedules.

The problem may be that we are so busy because we are working instead of resting.

The resting from one’s work, could mean something like, us stopping trying to accomplish things through our own efforts and let God do it instead. Now we would still “do” the things God wants us to do, but it would be His responsibility to bring about the results.

Instead of worrying, or banging our heads against a wall, it might be better to just trust God with that wall and leave it alone.

This could be kind of scary though, because it would be depending on God to accomplish things. We would have to depend on the unseen to accomplish things in the seen world.