Conversing the Kingdom: Fearful Striving

Hebrews 4:10

There are two types of fear. The first is a good type of fear that drives you in the moment. Like in times of danger to oneself or others that spurs to action. If a baby was crawling too close to an open fire this type of fear can drive you to action to prevent the danger. You body chemistry is even built that way and in these moments one can often exceed normal physical boundaries. I remember the story of a man who when he found himself in the middle of the street facing a fast oncoming car was able in the moment of fear to jump clean over it. The second type of fear however is a debilitating one. This is the fear associated with identity and self worth and is often associated with the word anxiety. This anxiety type of fear can often cause our bodies useful fear responses to be switched on continuosly this can be low levels day to day but can ramp up in periods of high stress. This can cause physical deteriation as the body physically feeds on itself to maintain the called upon levels. It is this type of fear that is linked to the rest that the Hebrew writer talks about chapters 3 and 4. It is this type of fear that is produced by a spiritual strivings for worth, for security, for peace all the things that the Lord offers in his rest. But these are all the things that we strive for as human beings because of our disobedience. The Lord made us for his rest he made us for relationship with him and he made us for obedience. When we turn our back on him in disobedience or even as Christians we forget about the rest he offers our spiritual strivings produce fear. This fear is debilitating and physically draining in the end we break down, we were never built to run outside this rest. The sooner we realise that the Lord is the only one we need and it is in him that we find our worth our security and our peace, the sooner we will learn to follow one of the Bibles most common phrases "do no fear!"

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Conversing the kingdom: Know Me

Hebrews 3:19

When the Israelites were being rescued from Egypt one phrase was repeated by God in connection with the plagues, "That they might know me." This phrase was as much for the Israelites as it was for the Egyptians. Yet despite all that the Lord did in showing himself to the Isrealites in all the ways that he presented himself personally to them they still did not get it. The Lord was bringing the Israelites out of Egypt so that they might enter the promise land and his rest. But what they failed to understand was that the rest they thought the Lord had for them was not a rest from the rulership of Pharoah, some easy life in the promise land but a new rulership in his kingdom. You see the Lord's rulership is different it is a personal relationship of knowing him and that is what brings the rest. But those in the wilderness who rebelled against the rulership of the Lord, who wanted nothing to do with this knowledge of him through a personal relationship, never found the rest they were looking for because they were looking in the wrong place. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it "So we see that they were unable to enter (the Lord's rest) because of unbelief." The Lord brought the Israelites out from under the bond of salvery to Pharoah that through the process of the Exodus they might come to know him and find rest. And this was a foreshadow of Jesus' sacrifice that enables us to be brought out from under the bondage of sin that we might know him and find rest.