The Daily Word of Righteousness

Laying Hold on Eternal Life, continued

Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.'" And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. (Hebrews 4:3—NIV)

In the beginning God created all things, including all history through to the coming down from heaven of the new Jerusalem. At that time the place in the Kingdom of each member of the elect was established. The works were finished from the foundation of the world. Then God rested.

If we have been called in Christ we are not to plan our own destiny. We are to present our body a living sacrifice that we may prove God's will. We do not know even our true name let alone our role in the Kingdom of God. We can discover our true identity only by following the Lord Jesus patiently each day.

What we are to accomplish in this world and the next is known only to God. When we make plans we must remember we are only dust, a mist on the face of the earth that soon will vanish.

Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. (James 4:13-15)

All boasting is excluded. Nothing of worth is accomplished unless it is performed by the Lord. Why, then, do we wear ourselves out trying to do something when we do not know whether or not God is with us? This same question can be asked in both secular and religious work.

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. (Psalms 127:1)

You may have spent your life attempting to accomplish something, and if it was not God's will for you you have accomplished nothing of value. In fact, you have wasted your life because you did not do that for which you were born. Like Adam and Eve, you ate of the tree you were not supposed to touch and you did not eat of the tree that would have given you eternal life.

Each healthy child of Adam has a desire to accomplish something of worth. He must go to the Lord and find out what God wants him to do. When he obeys God's will for his life he enters the rest of God.

He may wait many years for the Lord. Meanwhile he is to do with all his strength and ability the task set before him. We all must work. Whoever is not willing to work will never find the Lord.

Even though we may have spent many years waiting, and have accomplished much that seems important to us, and perhaps to other people, yet, when the Lord speaks, we must leave all and obey the Lord.

To be continued.