Why is it Considerably Tougher to Enter His Rest than Receive Salvation or be Filled with The Spirit?

As we were being saved, we stood helpless under His convicting power.  There was nothing we could do except finally say "yes" and receive His Salvation.  But where did Jesus get this deliverance for us?  By paying the price of total submission to please His Father -both in His life and on the cross . 

Now it is our turn.  We have met the Lord, but now we desire the fullness of what we have tasted.  So now it is our turn to pay the same price of "all".  "All" means "all". This means both our good and our bad within. When we have paid this price, then there is nothing left within to hinder Him.  We are then ready to be saved INDEED.  Our every thought and every desire has not only been laid at His feet, but forsaken there.  If we will go on to  live out any of it, it is no longer our concern; for we have covenanted to do only His Will.   He then finally says 'yes' and accepts this sweet smelling offering of a submitted life.  This life is then taken out of this world and into His bosom though still on this earth, and so becoming  " in the earth, but not of it".  The good things given up for Him, become everlasting treasures of memorial and honour before Him. The bad things are burned by His Holy fire.

With salvation, we receive the benefit of His total sacrifice.  But now, at last, He receives our willing and appropriate response -our total sacrifice.  A sacrifice costs.  Costs are tough.  But if the cost is omitted so is His crowning Grace, which is the victory over all.

"And to whom did He swear that they should not be admitted to His rest, if it was not to those who were disobedient?"  Hebrews 3:18  Wey

Do you see the difference?  In salvation, it was our decision to accept Him.  In our entire sanctification is His decision to accept us.  He cannot be fooled.  There is no way to fudge your qualification.  As it is for simple entry to Heaven, there are unavoidable qualifications to enter His Rest.

You see, receiving tongues etc., is not a work of foundational grace.  It is simply releasing the deposit of His Spirit that was already present from your salvation.  You just weren't fully aware of it.  It also released some spiritual abilities ( "gifts") that were part of the initial package.  Entering His Rest is completing your salvation with a second application of foundational grace fresh from the Throne.  In contrast, pentecostal blessings are just opening up potentials within the existing elementary grace. Perhaps we could say that this means all those dry but saved Baptists etc., have just as much blessing as any Pentecostal; they are just not aware of it since it is mostly dormant.

Entering into His Rest does not give more gifts.  It seals you  within His Favour and Presence - a place where every existing gift and grace naturally and effortlessly flourishes.

You may have the impression that His Rest is an optional extra of the gospel experience:  

" Therefore let us be on our guard lest perhaps, while He still leaves us a promise of being admitted to His rest, some one of you should be found to have fallen short of it."Hebrews 4:1  Wey.

This scripture implies that it was normative!

Consider this:  we pentecostals identify easily with John the Baptist's call to the repentance.  We also easily identify with Jesus when John baptized Him, and the dove of His Spirit was seen by all.  Being filled was as easy as pie. But the very next part we conveniently omit:

 "Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him." Mark 1:12 

During those forty hungry, lonely and bathless days in the wilderness He obtained victory over every temptation that was inherent in His claiming high office as the Son of God, the "second Adam"  He single-mindedly pleased God in every part and separated each part to His Father in trust.  This was His time of consecration and trust in His Father. Only now was He was ready to minister:

"And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from Him for a season. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all." Luke 4:13 

O yes, we go out with His Spirit in us, but not IN the power of the Spirit.  That is the difference. We skip the tough and sweaty battle which is the price of entering His Rest -which is where the incorruptible power is hidden.  We omit our season of travail and consecration. We avoid our spiritual "Waterloo".  We miss Him receiving our consecration that we trusted into His Hands, and we miss being made white. The results of this is that we think we have it "all" when we do not even know what "all" is.  

"Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ ——and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked——  "I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.  "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.

 "To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."‘"  Rev. 3:17-22  NKJV

"A son is not a son in Hebrew life until he has willfully chosen to be completely identified with the purposes of the father, and he does so, knowing that he will no longer have any right to his own self-serving purposes and will. It is a radical 'crossing over' and a resting in the father and his purposes. When the father recognizes that consecration, he 'adopts' or 'approves' the son, and says, "this day I have begotten you." Until then, the son was treated as a servant, and his actual sonship waited on a total consecration to the purposes or will of his father." Simon Hensman

But the biggest reason it is so tough, is that the appointed time to obtain it, is directly after salvation -while the heart is still tender and full of saving faith. This initial "first love" soon fades into an uncertain and fluctuating mixture of temptation, blessing and battle, where the initial child-like trust is seldom even a memory.

This child-like trust is an essential requirement to obtain pardon of sin, just as it is to obtain purity from sin: complete removal of the fallen nature, which is the remaining open door (double mindedness -the old man) within that allows us to actually entertain temptation and possibly to commit further acts of sin.

"But Jesus called them to Him and said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.  "Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it." Luke 18: 16-17