God wants to give us peace and rest not just after we die but right now. We learn from these verses that if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. If we are unfaithful, unbelieving, turn away from God, refuse to do what He says and harden our hearts toward Him, we should not expect to have rest and peace. We will be restless just as the Israelites were for 40 years even though God showed them they didn’t need to be and He would take care of them through miracles. God help me to trust in you, do what you say and remember how you provide for me time and time again to give me what need so I too can share in what belongs to Christ, including peace here on earth and in heaven one day.
“There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. So I was angry with them, and I said, ‘Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’ So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’”
For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. Remember what it says: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.”
And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn’t it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn’t it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief they were not able to enter his rest.”
Hebrews 3:9-11, 14-15, 17-19 NLT
-LMM
Scott Maxon 