FAITH REST

Faith rest is that quality of life where we instinctively claim the promises of God in situations of pressure.  To instinctively claim God’s promises requires a relationship with God and knowledge of his promises. 

We need to know God as our heavenly Father and know he is able to fulfill his promises (Hebrews 11:6) and believe his word (Psalm 19:7-11; John 17:17). 

Knowledge of his promises must be part of our conscious thinking, where we are able to categorise those promises to life’s situations and recall them in times of need, Hebrews chapter 4.

An academic understanding of God will not suffice; it must be knowledge from a personal experience in his abilities and his grace.  This is not something we gain overnight or by being able to recite the list of his attributes.  It comes by experiencing the fulfilment of his promises, the truth of his word. 

            1. God is holy, but until we experience the pain of his absolute and constant condemnation of sin in our lives, we cannot rightly understand his justice and his righteousness. 

            2. God is love; but until we experience his graciousness in our lives, his absolute and constant capacity to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1John 1:9) we cannot rightly understand his love. 

When this knowledge is attained the claiming of God’s promises becomes almost inherent for we have learnt to love and trust him.

The instinctive claiming of God’s promises is the ability to find peace and rest, when, in pressure situations we look to him, believing that he cares for us.  This is the Faith Rest life that is contrasted to Israel’s testing and failure in the wilderness (Hebrews chap.4). 

After she was brought out of Egypt Israel was a redeemed nation, bought by the blood of the sacrifice, and was a picture of the individual believer in Christ.  From the time of her redemption to the moment she first arrived at the river Jordan, her faith was tested (the Chariots of Pharaoh at the Red Sea; Moses’ delay at the Mount of Law Giving; their dissatisfaction with God’s provision of manna; the report from the spies into the promised land), but in each of these tests of faith she failed, and because of her lack of faith Israel did not enter into the promised land.  That adult generation, except for Caleb and Joshua, did not enter into the Promised Land (the place of rest), but died in a wilderness because of unbelief. 

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews in 4:1 warns us as individual believers, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.”  And he could very well have added, lest we also spend our lives in a spiritual wilderness. 

Faith Rest is a life of victory through faith in God and his word.

November 2011