There remains therefore a rest for the people of God Hebrews 4:9

The rest that the writer to the Hebrews speaks of here, is both eternal rest, and here and now rest. In fact eternal life, the life of the age begins now. It is as with the kingdom. The kingdom is here, and not yet. So it is with the rest.

If we are to enter into the fullness of life that Jesus promised, then we need to operate out of the place of rest. What does this look like? Well what it does not look like it is striving and worry, stress, outbursts of anger and similar works of the flesh.

In the context of the Scriptures that were looking at this morning, we can fail to enter into rest because of disobedience (verse 11). But we are also told in chapter 3 and verse 19 that Israel could not enter into rest because of unbelief. So that is both disobedience, and the lexicon as adds stubbornness in its definition of this word, but also unbelief. In fact worry is both of these things. Firstly because Jesus tells us not to be anxious about anything. It is a command. And of course with the command, Jesus also gives the wherewithal to do what is commanded. It also has to do with faith. Worry is the exact opposite of faith, except that it can be thought of as faith in what might go wrong.

So it is possible to enter into this rest in the here and now. But again the command is to be diligent (verse 11 again), or as some other translations say strive to enter into rest. In particular when we catch ourselves worrying we need to take authority over our thought life. Likely we will need to repent, confess that we are worrying, and that all worrying is both unbelief and disobedience. We then need to ask God to fill the empty place with faith and a spirit of obedience.

Father, forgive me for the times that I have worried, fretted, allowed negative thoughts and fears to overwhelm me. Cleanse me from such. Give me your joy, your peace, your rest in Jesus name.