Hebrews 4:
New Testament Greek has seven different verb tenses. This allows you to say things in Greek with one sentence that would require three different sentences in English. The New Testament can use a single Greek verb to say “God saved me,” “God is saving me” and “sometime in the future God’s salvation of me will be completed.” Quite often in the New Testament, the Greek word for salvation uses the verb tense cited in the example above. When talking about entering God’s rest, we come up against the same situation. Entering God’s rest is something that we as Christians have done, it is something that we are doing, and it is something that upon our death we will complete.

Vs. 3 says, “Now we who had believed enter that rest.” At the instance of our belief in Jesus for salvation, we receive reconciliation with God the father. We receive pardon for sin, and we receive a taste of what it means to rest in the presence of God. As Christians, we have, although imperfectly, entered God’s Sabbath rest. Having entered God’s rest, we rest from our works. This does not mean that we discontinue working; as long as we live on this earth, we will always have work to do. It means we discontinue from our works aimed at gaining salvation. You do not need to work to gain something that God has given as a gift of love. Once you have received a salvation of grace, we no longer make a vain attempt to achieve a salvation of works.

Even though we entered God’s rest at the time of our salvation, today we must live in the center of that rest. Resting is not easy when we think there is so much we need to be doing. Resting is difficult when we are afraid. We must have enough faith in God that we can rest no matter how terrifying the storms of life rage. If we are faithful in our obedience, and our faith remains strong, we have the assurance that someday God will calm all the storms, and we will enter his rest for eternity.