With the church as the Body, God is expressed and Satan is dealt with (Eph. 1:23; 3:19b; 6:11-13). Whenever and wherever God is expressed and His enemy dealt with, there is the foretaste of rest. This is also true in our home life, marriage life, and personal life. If you buy something that will not help you to express God and to deal with Satan, you will lose the foretaste of rest. If you express God and deal with His enemy in whatever you do and wherever you go, you will have a sweet foretaste of the coming rest.
In the church life don't argue and don't murmur. One night I received a phone call, telling me that a certain church was in poor condition. Two people were on the phone, the one confirming what the other said about the poor and sick condition of the church. They stopped their talking and wanted to hear what I would say. Immediately I said, "Don't talk this way. From now on forget about your talk. If you say that the church is bad, the church certainly will be bad because you are bad. If you say the church is wonderful, the church will certainly be wonderful because you are wonderful. What is the church? The church is you. When you say that the church is bad, you are condemning yourselves." I further told the brothers that they must be aware of the subtlety of the enemy. They said, "What shall we do? To whom shall we go?" I said, "Don't go to anyone. Don't talk! Just go to the church meetings and praise the Lord." They asked, "Shouldn't we pray?" I replied, "Yes, you should pray, but don't pray negatively. Pray positively. The church has no problems. The church is glorious. The church doesn't need you to pray, 'O Lord, there is a problem.' You are the problem. The more you pray about the problem, the more you become the problem. Don't cause a problem and there won't be any problem. Go to the church meeting, praise the Lord, and pray positively."
We all must see through the wiles of the enemy. From now on don't talk about the condition of the church. Just go to the church meeting and praise the Lord. The church is the church. So, we have rest. Whenever you talk about the condition of the church, you will lose your rest. You will never have the foretaste of rest. If you go to the church meeting and praise the Lord, you will immediately be in the foretaste of rest.
The fulfillment of rest is the rest of the millennium, the thousand-year kingdom. According to Hebrews, there is a rest promised for God's people, and we all must labor to enter into that rest (Heb. 4:1, 3, 9, 11). If we do not endeavor to enter into that rest, we will miss it. The way to enter into that rest is to experience the foretaste today. If we have the foretaste, we will certainly enter into the full taste. If we don't have the foretaste of that rest today, we will miss the full taste to come. During the rest of the millennium, the saints will be fully like Christ, expressing God's glory (1 John 3:2; Col. 3:4; 1 Thes. 2:12). The saints will reign with Christ (Rev. 20:6).