God measures everything we are by the perfections of His Son; that is the gold standard.
According to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians God “….has blessed us in every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ………; that we should be holy and blameless before Him:………………being predestinated……..that we should be to the praise of His glory”.
Most Christians try to work this out for themselves, striving to be holy and blameless, beseeching Him for the spiritual blessings promised. But that is to miss the point; “doing” is the enemy of “being”, which is what we are called to; when we cease to do, then God is able to begin. God’s grace towards us is unlimited but we can receive little of it until we learn to rest in Him; as contradictory as it may seem, we can only grow in Christ as we learn first of all to rest, not struggle.
The work of creation was done before Adam came into the world; he was made on the sixth day; therefore his first day was the seventh day; God’s day of rest. What this means is that all was done for Adam before he came into being and he was just meant to enter into God’s rest, not go about making decisions on his own account.
In the same way, the work of redemption was also completed before any one of us was born; we are called to enter into the rest offered by Christ in our redemption.
Consider, for example, the following scriptures:
“Rest in the LORD” (Psalm 37:7).
“Come unto me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
“And to whom did He swear that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient?” (Hebrews 3:18).
“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:1).
“For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his (own) works, as God did from His” (Hebrews 4:10).
The secret of resting in Christ is not to struggle but to know what He has done for us; our deliverance from sin and our redemption from the hands of the enemy are not the outcome of anything we have done or can do; nor is it the outcome of anything God is going to do; it is the outcome of what God has already done! It is only as we realise this and take it into our spirits that we can find rest; as long as we are struggling against sin and Satan, we are vulnerable to failure, deception, frustration and despair; in that condition, we turn to religion and its panaceas for comfort; we are like drowning men who, through the fear of imminent death, struggle against our rescuer in the vain hope that we can save ourselves. Little do we know that God is waiting for us to reach the point of despair, for it is only as our own strength is spent that He can truly redeem us; once we cease struggling, God will rescue us fully.
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