Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007).
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Day 11
There is something better than trying to work our way into God’s good graces. It is resting in what Christ has done for us.
Read Hebrews 4:1-11.
God does not intend for us to wear ourselves out with meaningless religious activity, filling ourselves with theological knowledge, working for him but never knowing what it is to enjoy knowing him and being known by him. Neither does he intend for us to go through this life on our own, unaware of him or estranged from him.
There is something better. And it is not working harder or trying harder. It doesn’t require more sacrifice on our part. All it requires is that we receive what he wants to give to us—that we enter into what he has prepared for us.
God is offering us something better . . . and that something better is rest. Real rest. Rest from the weariness of feeling that we can never measure up to God’s standards, rest from trying to be good enough or do enough to earn God’s favor. The something better is resting in what Christ has done for us, resting in knowing him and being known by him.
According to 4:2-3, how does a person enter God’s rest?
How do you reconcile the offer of rest with the command in 4:11 to “make every effort” to enter that rest? How are both true in the life of a Christian?
In what ways would you like to have more rest in your spiritual life?
–Nancy Guthrie
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