First of all, to enter into rest, one needs to rest from his own work. Entering into God's rest is not about having all the talents and things. God's salvation is not accomplished through intelligence and strength, but purely by the grace of God. God's salvation cannot be added to or subtracted from, it is solely the work of Jesus. All we can do is to rest from what we think we can accomplish, and allow God's salvation to be in control.
When Moses was young, he discovered that he was a Jew and tried to resolve an argument between two Israelites by his own strength. One day when he saw an Egyptian mistreating a Jew, he killed the Egyptian in anger. The next day, he tried to resolve an argument between two Jews and onen of them said, "Do you plan to kill me like you killed that Egyptian?" Moses was afraid and ran off into the wilderness. 40 years later, God called him to rescue the Israelites. 40 years ago, Moses would not have hesitated to do so. However, 40 years later, Moses found all kinds of excuses because he recognized his own limitations. But praise God, in the last 40 years of his life, Moses experienced how nothing is impossible for God. And God used him mightily to accomplish great things. Moses' life can be divided into three stages. One is the "I can" stage, second is the "I cannot" stage and third is "I can't, but God can" stage. This is what you and I will experience when we serve God.
Moreover, we need to make every effort to enter into that rest. This is in contrast to the latter part of this verse, where there are those who fall because of their unbelief. Hence we need to be very careful so that we do not neglect such a great salvation. From this perspective, we need to make every effort. Making every effort is about our heart attitude, not what we can do on the outside. We need to be constantly reminded to have a child-like faith and to pursue God more than anything else. We should not be like the Israelites back then. People are usually influenced by their environment. When the environment is good, we will praise God, but otherwise, we will grumble. The grumbling of the Israelites is a recurs frequently in the church history, except in a different time and place. Aren't we like the Israelites ourselves at times? When we face difficult circumstances, we grumble as well. May the Lord have mercy on us so that we will not be weak and fall. May our attitudes be corrected so that we will turn to God and the enemy will not have a foothold.
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