“Come to me… and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 (NIV)
Once you see everything that God has called you to do in the Ten Commandments, you may say, “But I haven’t finished!”
We struggle to embrace God unconditionally. We struggle to worship God as He is. We have not honored Him in all things. We have not finished the work of keeping God’s commands, and the longer we live the more obvious it becomes that we’ll never finish this work. So how are we going to enter God’s rest? That’s the great question.
When Jesus says, “Come to me… and I will give you rest” (11:28), He takes us to the heart of the gospel. Our work is never finished, but His work is complete! When Jesus died on the cross, He took on Himself all our unfinished business. He bore in His body all of our falling short of the law of God. Then He cried out in a loud voice: “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
Jesus says, “You have not finished what God has called you to do, but I have. I can give you a rest that you can never achieve by your own works. I will give you rest for your soul.” Christians worship on the first day of the week to remind us that we begin our work from a position of enjoying peace with God through the finished work of Christ.
As you go into another week, God has work for you to do, but you don’t do that work to earn salvation. You don’t do it to work your way into heaven. You do it as an offering of love and gratitude to the Lord who has already completed the work.
Are you resting in the finished work of Christ?
