Hebrews 4 has these words for us: "God's promise of entering His rest sill stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. For only we who believe can enter His rest. So, let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall." If our worship is authentic it will lead us to the following:
First, we must believe with all our hearts there is a rest in a life of faith. We have to speak and believe that there is rest into which Jesus can bring us into a complete trust in Him. Worship brings us to the point of knowing that God keeps us every hour in His mighty power. Second, we are brought to the experience of believing that the grace of Jesus proves sufficient every day, every hour bringing us into a life of rest in Him. Third, as a result of our worship we come to know that because of our union in Christ, "I can do all things through Him that strengthens me" and "we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us". As we come to truly know Him in worship, He gives us the strength to stand firm in His victory.
This is no effort of our own. God must bestow it on us. We can not take hold of it without Him. We are brought into a conscious realization of utter helplessness and self-despair. Only then is He able to draw near and ask us to trust Him completely to work rest into our hearts. God gives the rest. We must give up ourselves to the holy and everlasting God, for Him to lead us into this perfect rest. When we do, we can trust God to make it all real to us in our experience with Him. Our worship should lead us to live a life not in our own strength, but a life in which God shall be our all in all. Pray today: "Oh, God, I ask, I expect, I trust Thee for it. I enter this day into the rest of God to keep me every hour of every day." He will take you and the work will be done, and we will find that worship leads to rest and rest leads to worship. mjm
