Hebrews Ch4: God’s Place of Rest

God’s word revitalizes a consistent theme of ‘rest’ for the Christian soul. As I read Hebrews chapter four, I was amazed at how many times the word ‘rest’ was mentioned. It was mentioned a whopping 13 times. I know, that’s exactly what I thought! Thirteen times for one singular word is ridiculous, but its true. The word ‘rest’ is used so often in this chapter because Paul is making a point. We need to enter God’s place of rest.

The idea of rest is so crucial to the believer’s soul for so many reasons. One of which Is that it cultivates a deeper level of intimacy with Christ the crucified. In our ‘rest’ time, our soul recalibrates to His glory. What do I mean by this? I mean that while we rest our whole being is drawing closer to Christ. There is a unique imprint of glory received during rest. It is our resting period that our greatest come-back is achieved. And our come-backs are to admire the one who paid it all. Our resting periods make way for new spiritual blessings!

There is something I’d like to call the ‘activation process’ of Christ revealing Himself to us. An aspect of this process is only achieved through resting. What rest does is help us grow in maturity not just fluidity. Fluidity is going from one situation to the next with ease. But maturity is recognizing depth as the main priority. In order to evangelize to the earth, there must be a mature faith in oneself as priority. Through this maturity we are able to evangelize more effectively.

Believers are naturally driven individuals. I have rarely in my walk met someone who was not equally or more driven than I was in advancing the Gospel. Being driven is important, but what is of equal importance is rest. Proper rest activates the second tier level of faith that helps us grow. It is far deeper than our own inside view of faith and extends into outward faith. Faith is meant to stretch the soul with visible signs, wonders, and miracles. If you have never experienced any of these, then I question your faith. 

We are meant to explode in the Gifts of the Spirit as a ten-acre field explodes in harvest. The aspect of faith that catalyzes this result is through proper rest. What is proper rest? Yes its though reading the Bible. Yes its though an extensive prayer life. Yes its though evangelizing. But what draws us deeper is set times of recreational rest. This is where an expansion of Christ’s grace grows like the Redwood forests.

As believers we want an expansion of His grace. We want an explosion of signs glorifying the King. We want all these things and Paul writes to us saying that its achieved through rest. Proper rest cultivates an explosion of signs, wonders, and miracles. This might sound contrary to extensive fasting, praying 7hrs a day, and reading 20 books of the Bible. (What I hold myself back from doing). But resting is too important to miss.

What does God’s place of rest look like? It looks like the active Word cutting deep in both the Soul and Spirit. In this blog post I’m going to fixate on these two entities:

1. Soul (v.12).
2. Spirit(v.12).

In the following verse it says that ‘no creature can hide from God. Everything is uncovered and exposed for Him to see. We must answer Him.’ Through both our soul AND spirit, nothing is hidden, and every aspect of faith is manifesting! In our belief in Christ, the manifestation of faith unfolds in a much deeper way. Both our soul AND spirit will bear the mark of Christ!

1. The Soul.

Our soul is the seated personality dedicated to bringing Him glory. This is why in Psalms we cry out saying ‘bless my soul Oh Lord.’ It’s not saying bless my mind to praise thee, but my soul! There is something deep down in the pit of our beings that long to worship. Our soul is what is designed to cry out. From our soul comes the abundance thereof. What do I mean by this? I literally mean that there is a welling part of our soul that brings God joy. When we worship Him in the fullness of our being, we are blessing the Lord from our soul. This is amazing!

2. The Spirit.

We are designed to praise Christ in Spirit and in Truth. Spirit is the gifting that is unlocked by the Holy Spirit manifesting His glory. Since we have the guide of the Holy Spirit, we start to manifest His gifts in our lives through prayer. What do I mean by this? Well in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, there is a variety of gifts given through the Holy Spirit. To be specific, there are 9 different gifts. From these 9 gifts, the outpouring of God goes deep inside our soul and spirit.

You might be asking, whats the difference between soul and spirit? According to google definitions (which I don’t trust too much) apparently a ‘spirit’ is the animation of a living being. Our spirit; however, is centered on Christ through being re-born. When we gave our lives to Christ, we were saying ‘no no’ to the old and saying ‘heck yes’ to the new. If you’d like to read about living the new life, I recommend reading the book of Colossians!

Yours Truly,

Destiny Rose Nielsen.