Our True Rest
by Norman Grubb

 There has to be the preliminary breaking up of the fallow ground, before the seed of faith can be sown and fructify. We saw in justification that the Spirit must cut faith free from its false moorings in righteousness by works, before it can set sail in the winds of the Spirit for its true haven in Christ. And that loosening process, the conviction of sin till the soul is desperate for salvation, often takes a long time and may involve drastic dealings. Only when there is the hunger and thirst of a faith in a vacuum can there be the simple reception and enjoyment of saving grace.

And the same in sanctification. It is not now a question of the outward sins which subject the sinner to the wrath of God, but the indwelling sin which enslaves the saint; and once again faith has to be loosed from its false moorings. The saint has to learn that even in his new nature, self is as powerless as in the old; and that faith in any vestige of his own efforts to keep the law or work the works of God is like leaning his hand on a broken reed; it will pierce him; for law and sin are confederates in exposing the helplessness of self.

Only by the hard way will he learn through wilderness privations and frustrations that faith, once more in a vacuum, must desperately seek another resting place; and only then can his eyes be opened to the inner meaning of these great truths we have been gazing upon. Then need is lost sight of in the recognition of the secret of supply; recognition is followed by glad reception, and reception by realization, "We which have believed do enter into rest."

–From The Deep Things of God