An excerpt from the book “Enter Your Rest”

Hebrews 3:7-11…‘Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, they do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest)’.

Hebrews 4:3-4…‘For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, as I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works’.

I would like you to note that the promise of rest is not an automatic promise. That a promise is made does not necessarily guaranty everyone would receive what is promised. According to the scriptures, God had made a promise that He would give the land of Canaan to Israel. Sadly, many of them did not appropriate that promise to themselves.

Our second cardinal scripture passage in this chapter seems to be quite unsettling and perhaps, confusing. When work is finished, rest naturally follows. But not in the case cited in the scripture I am referring to here. The word of God says that God had finished His work, yet some people did not enter into rest. Rest is cessation from work or labour. But how could work had finished and the people still did not rest?

Here’s the simple reason: it is possible not to rest on the finished work! My personal discovery is that rest which comes from God is predicated on embracing God’s finished work. In other words, it has been done already. What has been done, has been done. Once it was performed, it was performed. Once it had been implemented, it had been implemented. It is a done deal.There are three dimensions to this finished work:

1. The Finished Work of Eternity

Whenever we hear the word ‘eternity’ our minds always race forward. To create a construct of eternity in the future sense is absolutely correct. But to create a construct of eternity only in the future sense is abysmally incorrect. There is more to eternity that just the future. There is eternity ahead no doubt but there is also eternity past. Eternity speaks of timelessness. Before time began, there was a period of timelessness–a period when time did not exist or count.

The Bible in Genesis 1:1 say ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’.John 1:1 says ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’.Both verses speak about a particular period of timelessness. If the Hebrew language had correctly translated those passages, we would realize that God did not create the heaven and earth in the beginning. He created the heaven and earth in the timeless past.

Revelation 13:8 says, ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’. Jesus Christ was slain in eternity past. He was slain in the plan and programme of God. God had planned and programmed everything in the realm of the spirit. He finished everything about it before He started to implement it. Even before Jesus was born, was a done deal!

You are here today according to a programme that was set before the foundation of the world. God’s books and records were written before the foundation of the world. Your life was written before it was formed.Jeremiah 1:5 says, ‘Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations’.This implies that God already knew you before your formation. Your life was written before the foundation of the world. You never would have come into this world if you hadn’t been passed as successful. You must rest on this knowledge.

2. Rest in the Finished Work of Creation

‘For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works’… Hebrews 4:4.

The idea in scripture is that once God began to rest on the seventh day, He has remained in that state of rest till now. You wonder why? This is because the works were all finished. They were all finished in potential form: the cars had been created, the airplanes had been created and everything else you can think of!

The raw materials for their creation were all in the land that God separated from the waters in Genesis 1. The clothes were inside the trees. At creation, everything was in potential form, awaiting physical manifestation. So everything you will ever need–financially, physically and materially–was already made.Your body was in the soil. Your spirit was inside Adam. When Adam was created, all humans were created too. The work was already completed from the beginning. The fact that God rested means that work was done and the work was finished. Everything was already successful. Failure was impossible.

God did not ask you to enter your own rest but to enter His own rest. It means that someone did the work and is inviting you to come and share in the reward. This invitation to rest is to partner with God with an attitude that says ‘success is already guaranteed’.

3. Rest in the Finished Work of Calvary

‘When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost’…John 19:30.

Which work was Jesus referring to? The work of the redemption of man from sin and all consequences of sin. Romans 3:23 says ‘For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God’.

Jesus went to the cross and bore the sin that caused man to come short of the glory of God. On the cross, He was separated from God and He screamed out of desperation, ‘My God, my God; why hast thou forsaken me’.

He was banished from the presence of God so that we might be welcomed there. He was made sin so that we might be made righteous in Christ Jesus. He was made sick so that we might be healed. He was made poor so that we might be rich. The work was finished. Every barrier between God and man is broken in Christ Jesus. The curse is broken.

Galatians 3:13 says, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us’. Now, the blessing of Abraham is ours. Rest in that finished work. Romans 4:13 says, ‘For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith’.

The promise is that we own everything. Rest on that reality!

Victor Adeyemi