To enter into God's rest, we must renounce our own efforts and sweat. Faith alone admits us into this perfect rest: "For we which have believed do enter into rest" (Hebrews 4:3). Simply put, we are to set our hearts to believe that God is faithful to deliver us in every circumstance, no matter how impossible it may seem.
My wife, Gwen, was thirty-four years old the first time cancer was found in her. We were devastated when we got the news. We had just moved our family to New York so that I could start a ministry to street gangs. Now, as I walked the streets preaching to gang members and addicts, I had to fight back tears of anguish and fear. But the Lord continually reassured me, "I am faithful, David. I won't abandon you or your loved ones." God walked with me through that frightening ordeal with cancer, and every one that has followed.
There exists a place in Christ where there is no anxiety about the future. In this place, there is no fear of sudden calamity, of affliction, of unemployment. There's no fear of man, of falling, of losing one's soul. This place is one of total confidence in God's faithfulness. The writer of Hebrews calls it a place of perfect rest.
The world longs to see a testimony of God's keeping power. And it will keep asking us until Jesus comes, "Oh, Christian, I see you serving God faithfully. You fast, pray and testify of His glory and power, yet now you're in the trial of your life. Tell me, has your God sustained you through this ordeal? What is your testimony now that you're in the lions' den?"
What will it take to reach a lost and hurting world? A small army of soldiers that has been enrolled in the school of hardship and trials! God is seeking those who are willing to be tried by fire, whose faith He can refine and bring forth as pure gold.
Beloved, the Lord didn't save us simply so we could bask endlessly in His goodness, mercy and glory. He had an eternal purpose in choosing each one of us and that purpose goes beyond blessings, fellowship and revelation. The fact is, God still reaches out to lost humankind. And He's searching for a believing, trusting people He can shape into His greatest evangelistic tool.
Of all the sins we can commit, doubt is the one most hated by God. According to both Old and New Testaments, our doubting grieves the Lord, provokes Him, causes Him much pain. We see a prime example of this in ancient Israel after God had delivered His people from the hands of Pharaoh.
The Psalmist laments, "We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea" (Psalm 106:6-7).
Most of us equate power with something visible, flashy, earthshaking. Yet this doesn't hold true with spiritual authority. Peter says God entrusts spiritual authority to “the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4).
The Greek word that Peter uses for meekness means gentleness. And the word used for quietness means assured, undisturbed. Peter is speaking of a heart that is always at peace with its position in Christ. Such a heart possesses real spiritual authority.
Paul speaks of our having an inward man (see Romans 7:22). To the Corinthian church Paul said, "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16). Indeed, there are two such selves in all of us. There is both an outward man and an inner, hidden man. The outward man is always on display before others but the hidden man is known only by God. This inner man doesn't display himself conspicuously. He resides where nobody else can see the work being done in him.
David declared, "I will fear no evil" (Psalm 23:4). David's hidden man remained unmoved, undisturbed in heart, no matter what Satan threw at him. Why? Because he was fully at rest in God's faithfulness to perform His Word.