A disciple must understand the difference between “rest” and “works” if he is to be successful. The Bible says, “We who have believed enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:3), but that refers to the rest of not having to strive for our salvation. It does not refer to the rest of not having to strive for our victory. That is why we read, “Let us … be diligent to enter that rest” (v. 11).
Too often we evangelicals have a carry-over attitude toward our Christian life. Because we are saved through faith alone, we feel that victory comes to us the same way. While of course we trust God to help us and see us through, we are not exempt from suffering, struggling, and striving in order to achieve victory. The land of Canaan, while promised to the Israelites, had to be fought for, maintained, and worked before it began to yield its fruit of possession to them. So it is with me. Christ has provided me all the provisions I will ever need for my Christian life (and more), but those provisions will never become mine practically simply by believing that they are there. They will become mine as I need them in the struggle, just as Canaan became Israel’s by warfare and hard work.
I conquer my Canaan by working it. I work it by hard work in prayer, in self-denial, in witnessing to a hostile world, in facing opposition, in living according to the Bible, in obeying God’s Word regardless of the obstacles, in challenging Satan’s right to trespass.
That way of life is anything but easy. But when Canaan begins to yield its fruits, what blessing and what glory! The victory will not come without a battle, but my faith is like Caleb’s: “Give me this mountain … the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them [the enemy] out, as the Lord said” (Joshua 14:12, KJV).
“Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of yon should seem to have come short of it” (Hebrews 4:1).
Daily with the King 