July 2004 Update

The Great Divide
Hebrews 4:20 says, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." What a powerful verse. Many of us at some point have probably memorized this verse as our "word of God" memory verse. And a great verse it is. However, I have been contemplating the context of this verse for some time now and have some thoughts. I have always wondered why this verse shows up right after the writer of Hebrews has just given a detailed explanation of what it means to enter into our Sabbath rest as believers. If we read all of chapter 4, he tells us that the Israelites failed to enter into the rest the Lord had offered them because they were disobedient by not acting in faith to the Lord's word. Instead of receiving by faith they chose works in an attempt to please God and earn His favor. (Remember that it is by faith that we are saved and not by works.) The antithesis of faith is not necessarily unbelief. I believe that often times we show our lack of faith by trying to work for the Lord instead of trusting Him completely to accomplish His purposes.

Once the writer makes it clear that there still remains a rest for all of us today he makes a very powerful statement in verses 10-11, "For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience." I have emphasized what I think to be the key phrase in these verses. What is the Lord saying to us here? I believe what He is trying to tell us is that if we have truly entered into our rest in Jesus, we will also cease from our attempts to "work for Lord." Now there are some out there that will come with the typical religious response, "Shouldn't we work for the Lord and show Him how much we love Him and want to serve Him?" This sounds fine and well on the surface. But, unfortunately, the answer to the question is "No." If we have entered into our rest in Jesus we will rest also from our works. We will no longer see ourselves as always needing to work for the Lord. But, you may ask, "What is wrong with working for the Lord?" Our focus verse begins to take on new meaning now. Look at verse 12 again. The word of God is living and active and able to divide between the soul and the spirit. This is what I call the great divide. The word of God is able to come along and separate that which originates from our soul and that which comes from the spirit within. The soul represents everything that comes from ourselves--our thoughts, motives, intentions, ideas, feelings, ambitions, opinions, etc. The spirit is our receptacle for the Spirit of the Lord by which we receive His commands and out of which we obey to produce fruit for God. The problem is that we get the two mixed up all the time. This is why the word of God is so important because it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So what is the bottom line? God is not concerned with how much we do for Him, i.e., our works. If we have entered His rest, we have rested from our works. What He is interested in is the intentions and motives of our heart. He wants to make sure that the motives and intentions are for Him and not for ourselves! If we serve the Lord to be noticed, to receive a reward, or to get approval, the motive is wrong. Our only purpose is to be pleasing to Him (Col. 1:10). The only thing that pleases God is our faith (Heb. 11:6) and anything done apart from faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). So as we live for Him we should always be in a state of rest, then when the Spirit speaks to our spirit and gives us something to do for Him we respond by faith, finish our task, and return to our rest. Our intention is to be obedient and pleasing to the Lord.

So let's allow the Lord to make the great divide in us so that we can hear the Lord and respond in the spirit at all times and not be led into serving Him with our soulish understanding. Only in this way will we be pleasing unto Him.