Enter into God’s Rest

From this scripture in Genesis, the writer of Hebrews calls his readers to enter into God’s rest. I have been reflecting on the idea of rest for the past few days.

Rest is something that our culture lacks bigtime! Everyone seems to be in such a hurry. To slow down and rest is very counter-cultural.

God was gracious to Israel to give these former slaves a day of rest, known as the Sabbath. It is like getting 52 days of vacation!

As Christians, we are not under the Law of Moses, but the principle of Sabbath keeping is very much in line with what we need.

Too often I have squandered the gift of Sabbath. Traditionally, the body of Christ has designated Sunday as a day of Sabbath.

This is in line with our eschatological view of the resurrection. Christ was raised on the first day and so Christians have traditionally celebrated a Sabbath on “the Lord’s day”.

Jesus said the Sabbath was made for “man”, not “man” for the Sabbath. It is a gift of grace, not a law that he gives us so we can enjoy rest.

What is rest for you? If you work a physical job all week, maybe relaxing and reading a good book along with worship is rest.

If you are on the computer all day, maybe rest is a nice walk in the park along with worship. For me, I am in the process of trying to eliminate unnecessary things from my day of rest.

I am choosing to not watch news. All it does is “work” me up and rob me of mental rest! Our culture does not know how to rest! Jesus can teach us how to rest.

He rested. He was never in a hurry. I want Jesus to teach me how to eliminate hurry from my life. I am definitely not “there” yet. But I am beginning to take steps. I hope you can too.

Pastor Fred