Where have we gone wrong? We have not done what the Scripture tells us to do. We are not seeking the Lord with all our heart. We are not selling all to buy the Kingdom. We are not assembling with fervent saints. We are not praying often in the Spirit of God. Because God did not respond immediately when we wanted to serve Him we have gone to the other extreme. We have turned back into the world. We no longer are vitally interested in the life lived in the Spirit of God.

We have sought a rest of distraction, occupying ourselves in the world and supposing we are waiting for God to make some grand pronouncement concerning us. But it is not a true rest, it is deception.

We feel saved and in the Lord but we are not obeying the Scriptures. No human being can make his way prosperous in God and have success in the Kingdom of God unless he is meditating continually in the Scriptures and practicing what the Spirit of God is teaching him.

How terribly deceitful passivity and world involvement are! In passivity we wait for God to "move" us or tell us what to do, whereas God prefers to guide our steps. In world involvement we are engaged busily in the world while we are waiting (we think) for God to speak to us to go as a missionary or to perform some other outstanding service. But meanwhile we are neglecting the "small" tasks, such as carefully raising our children in the church, or serving in the local assembly, that the Lord has placed before us now.

We are mistaken. God does not, ordinarily, come down on an uninterested believer, shake his bedroom with thunder, and send him or her as an apostle to the ends of the earth.

Passivity and world involvement are counterfeits of the true rest of God. Neither passivity nor world involvement are a part of death to self-centeredness and self-seeking. In fact, they spring from self-centeredness and self-seeking.

The true rest of God is entered by the blood-washed, cross-carrying saint who is pressing forward diligently toward the prize set before him. He is not rushing out presumptuously to do "big things for God," nor is he fully involved in the world, waiting for God to break in on him and "speak" to him, nor is he, having lost his own power of decision-making, being led about by feelings and voices. Rather, he is moving steadily forward, bringing forth fruit with Kingdom patience. This is the true rest of God and it requires a genuine death to our self-love, self-centeredness, and self-seeking.

We must "go over this Jordan." "This Jordan" represents the third death the saint dies—the death to self. It is time now for the members of the Body of Christ to turn to the Lord in humility, to cease from our own dead attempts to build a religious kingdom.

To be continued.