And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
The cross is a symbol of sacrifice. Are we willing to sacrifice self-interest in order to have Jesus in our lives?
- Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? - Matthew 8:20
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Comparing these two verses places us in a position where we might be able to see that God provides for our needs but not our wants. Not having a place to lay His head is an indication that having a lavish home does not allow Him to find rest.
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
- Hebrews 4:10
for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. - Hebrews 4:11
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
What sort of disobedience is the writer of Hebrews speaking about?
So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Before we jump into a misconception that they could not enter into His rest we should not take one line of verse to answer all our questions. We should look closely again at Hebrews 4:1 and attach the word promise to this important issue.
These were a people set free from the slavery of Egypt and were supposed to enter into the Promised Land. Every one of them died in the wilderness that came out of Egypt except Joshua and Caleb who spied out the land and believed God’s promise.