our faith rests in His labors — A.W. Tozer

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Hebrews 4:9-11

“The quality of our Christian faith is in direct proportion to our resting in God, which is a result of totally embracing His finished work… The majority of Christians frantically try to be what God wants them to be but will never be until they rest, that is, cease from their own labors & enter into His finished labor…

If you were in debt to the government for unpaid income tax you would be properly worried. Yet, if somebody came along and said, “Here, you owe $10,000 in back taxes, and the government is breathing down your neck; I will take care of it for you. I will pay your debt. Here is the receipt.” You certainly would rest, wouldn’t you? You would relax for the first time and sleep well at night. You would say, “I am not worried when I see a police officer anymore. I am not thinking he is after me. He is just walking down the street, looking for criminals, and I am all right. I have earned rest of mind; I have entered into my rest. Not mine, but the rest of another.” That is exactly what the Bible teaches here.

The Christian’s rest is based upon the work of another. It is not his own work, for that he could never do. It is the work of another, who is capable of earning that rest, capable of procuring it. The Christian is not capable; nobody is capable. You and I cannot deal with the matter of holiness outraged. We cannot deal with a matter of justice violated. We cannot take care of question of sins committed and a moral debt… The debt we already owe is so great that it would send us into hell. So now we have to pay that before we can rest. We owe a debt we cannot pay, not to a government but to God Almighty, to the eternal God…

I believe the Bible is clear in stating that we cannot pay our own debt… What happens then? There is someone who comes and lays down His life, the just for the unjust, who pays the debt that He did not owe and includes in that debt all of our debts. He propitiates for violated holiness; He atones for justice that is broken. He does all of this. He is capable of it…

We either have to satisfy God’s holiness, satisfy His violated justice and pay the moral debt, or we have to have somebody do it for us. The book of Hebrews declares that somebody did it for us. The eternal Son did that work.

Many people do not want this kind of rest. They want another kind… Many people are anxious to do meritorious deeds… We want to go out and do something big. When we come to think of God and the things of carnal world, we want to do virtuous deeds. We want to be known as a virtuous person…

I heard a Methodist bishop once say that he had found, as a pastor, that 70 percent of his parishioners were not ready for heaven. They had to cram for the examination at the last minute before they felt free to get in. They were not resting in what Christ has done. They were vaguely hoping about what they might do or had done. Somebody heard the bishop and said, “Bishop, are you not a bit rough there when you said 70 percent? Is that right?”

He said, “I am telling you the truth. It’s 70 percent.” Then he said, “I counted them. Only about 30 percent of my parishioners were ready to go.”

More than two-thirds of those who went to church for a lifetime, sang the hymns of Zion, heard the Scriptures read, listened to prayers and engaged in them and heard great preaching (for there were great preachers in those days). But when they came to die, they had not entered into rest. They could not go without fear.

I want God to lead me to a place where there is no fear in dying because I am resting in God, resting in what Jesus Christ has done for me. God did His work and entered into His rest. His Son Jesus Christ did another work, and we enter into that rest. Let us see that we do it.

When I rest wholly and completely in Jesus Christ and His finished work, faith leaps up and alleviates from me the frantic labor of trying to make it. I rest perfectly and securely in the labor of Jesus Christ.”

— A.W. Tozer, A Disruptive Faith: Expect God to Interrupt Your Life