You won’t come short of God’s promised rest

Hebrews 4:1 Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. We continue to follow the author’s line of reason in warning his readers to take great care that they not have evil unbelieving hearts or drift away from the great promise of Christ to bring many sons to glory in a new world to come—a promised eternal rest. He directed their attention to the Israelites, who fell short of entering God’s promised rest because of unbelief. He wanted to encourage the Hebrews of his day not to make the same mistake. It’s interesting that the Holy Spirit encouraged them to let fear motivate them to hold fast their confidence in Christ and the boast of their hope firm until the end of their lives. We usually don’t think of fear as a divine motivator, do we? But this is a good fear! Since the recipients of the gospel promise had not yet arrived at the eternal place of rest and this world is filled with daily testing and trials, there’s a strong pull to become hardened to God’s promises. They must not be afraid of the storms of life, rather they are encouraged to be afraid of not keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus and falling short of God’s promised rest like the hard-hearted Israelites did. I would like to encourage you in a similar way, but through the eyes of living to love with Jesus. Jesus invited His disciples to take up His yoke so they could find rest for their souls. Jesus’ yoke was to live to love with His Father, meaning He didn’t do anything apart from Him. He lived that way because He and the Father were one. We are one with Jesus, and as we live to love with Him, we don’t need to be afraid of drifting or falling away in unbelief. Our confidence lies in Jesus’ faithfulness, therefore we enter into His rest. Life isn’t burdensome, it’s a blessing and joy to love with Him. To the point of the author, if we live in Jesus’ rest now in life, we certainly will not fail to enter His Promised Rest in the new world to come. So, let us live today in the rest God has provided us in Christ. If we live intentionally to love with Jesus, we know we will receive whatever we need to love and fulfill His will for His glory. We will not fall short of entering into all that God has promised us.