How Can You Enter Into God’s Rest?

How Can You Enter Into God’s Rest?

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

People use their senses in all the circumstances into which they come. They believe they can understand everything, or they want to understand everything. They do not reckon with God, and they do not read God’s Word to receive guidance in their circumstances. For example, we read, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Rom. 12:20-21. To obey that Word one has to believe, and then one experiences the truth of God’s Word and enters into rest—God’s rest.

You cannot overcome darkness with darkness, or coldness with coldness. Therefore God’s Word has to divide between soul and spirit. We cannot comprehend God and His plans with our senses, but only through faith in God and by exercising our senses to discern between good and evil. Heb. 5:14. Therefore when Paul received grace to proclaim the gospel, it was meant to work the obedience to the faith among all nations to the glory of His name. Rom. 1:5.

When God’s Word has separated our senses—the things we understand and feel—it can judge the thoughts and intents of our heart. Then we have to do only with God. Everything is naked and open before Him. We learn something from the twelve spies who went to spy out the land, which they were to conquer. When they returned, they all agreed that it was a good land, and they showed the fruits they had brought back. But they had seen the people that lived there; they were men of great stature, etc. Num. 13-14.

However, Joshua and Caleb stayed on God’s side. They did not consider the giants in the land. They believed God and said: “If the Lord delights in us . . . they are our bread.” They only had to do with God. They rested in God’s leading and did not rely on themselves or judge the circumstances according to their senses. The two who had to do only with God could enter the land, but none of the others who were over twenty years old when they left Egypt entered in. Because of their faith in God’s leading they had rest in all the situations into which God led them.

We must reckon with God if we are to have rest in our circumstances and not rely on our own senses or on our own strength. Then we will experience miracle after miracle in our life.