Tag Archives: rest

WHO MAY DWELL?

Pastor's Desk,

Dear Family

I am enjoying our “Journey through the Psalms” on a Sunday morning so much. Never before did I realize just how rich and complete the psalms actually are. It’s clearly no wonder that these were used by the ancient (and present) lovers of God to express their devotion, confidence in, inner feelings, fears, faith, hope and pure love for the God of Gods. They are filled with real life people, in real life situations, with real life questions and answers as they interact with a real life God.

One of the many questions which can be found in the Psalms is David’s human attempt to understand who is actually entitled to be found in God’s presence. In Psalm 15 he provides an answer to his question, “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary”, listing 11 things:- blameless walk, does what is right, speaks truth, no slander, no wrong to neighbour, no slur against fellow man, despises a vile man, honours those who fear the LORD, keeps his word, lends money without interest, does not accept a bribe. That’s quite a list! It would become a burden above burdens were we to attempt to follow that for the sake of following it by the letter, every day, all day. If you think otherwise, just start with always walking blamelessly and always doing the right thing or being righteous. It’s just not going to happen—if you think you are then you’ve already missed the plot!

I prefer to think that these things are the fruit of true God-lovers. These things will follow those who follow hard after God, who love him with fullness of heart, soul, mind and strength. God’s attributes flowing through his people. The new covenant teaches us in many different ways that “It does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” It’s really all about what he has achieved on our behalf—his righteousness become ours because of what he has done for us. What a relief! My end of the agreement to is keep loving him and allowing him to change what needs to be changed. Co-operation with his ways, led by his Spirit is what’s needed, not an exhausting attempt to keep a list of rules and regulations. When I look around at the practices of some “Christian” churches and see the cloaks of religious practice in order to please God, I am just so thankful that this is not what Jesus came for! I choose to enter His rest rather than my struggle.

Inescapable Grace

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INESCAPABLE GRACE

Let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account. (Hebrews 4: 11-13)

God is inescapable! Does that terrify you?

God’s word, God’s eyes are all around us; He is nearer to us than our breath! Did your mother frighten you as a little child with these words, ‘God is watching you!’? What a cruel thing to do to a child – treating God as though He were some great big celestial policeman who is waiting to pounce on any little kid who puts a foot wrong!

David was also aware of the inescapable God who knew where he was, what he did, where he went, and even what he was going to think before he thought it, but he was not afraid. On the contrary, it made him feel very safe because he knew that God’s nearness and His scrutiny were to bless and protect, not to judge and destroy.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (Psa. 139: 9-10)

He welcomed and invited God’s all-seeing eye to search and test him because he wanted to stay on God’s path where he would walk in safety and reach his desired destination.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psa. 139: 23-24)

God’s word is like a mirror. When we look into it, is reveals both what we are really like and what we should be. Mirrors don’t lie. They reflect back exactly what we are. Every time God spoke and His people disobeyed and rebelled, their hearts were exposed. Like a surgeon’s scalpel, His word opened up their innermost being and showed them what was in their hearts.

Take Peter, for example. Jesus warned him that he was heading for a crash. He failed to heed His warning and fell headlong into the pit he had dug for himself by refusing to listen. What was the outcome? Did Jesus discard him as useless and worthless? Was He out to ‘get’ Peter because He knew how cocksure Peter was of himself?

No, His intention was to reveal Peter’s heart to Peter’s head, so that he would be aware of his weakness and rest in Jesus’s strength in him. That’s what the scrutiny of God’s word is all about – not to catch us out so that we can get the punishment we deserve for our foolish independence but to make us aware of the flaws in us so that we can throw ourselves on the mercy and grace of God.

Paul had his own experience of weakness. He called it ‘a thorn in the flesh’. It was so invasive that he pleaded with God to remove it. Every time he encountered hardships and persecution, he reacted. The way people treated him pricked him, exposing what was inside his heart. He begged God to put down His ‘sword’ because he didn’t like what he felt. God said, ‘No, Paul, you need the sword because it is exposing what is in you. I won’t remove the sword but I will give strength to keep going.’

Paul’s experience of God’s s’word’ revealed his weakness and right there, in his weakest spot, God provided strength to endure, but not only just to hang on with white-knuckled stickability – but to rejoice because he knew what grace was and how it worked for him.

If only the Israelites had had the maturity to realise what God was doing. Unlike the gods they insisted on worshipping, He was out to refine and purify their trust in Him so that, when the real fight was on in the land of Canaan where there were giants and walled cities, taking over would be a piece of cake.

What is God’s sword about? Not to cut us open so that the world can see all the foul stuff that is inside us? No! To show us what’s there; unbelief, disobedience, rebellion, suspicion, mistrust, fear, anger, guilt, shame, hatred, bitterness, offences and an endless list of imperfections that obscure our view of God’s love. God is passionate about setting us free from all these things so that we can live in His presence without shame or fear and enjoy Him forever.

Don’t fear the sword. Welcome it because it is a surgical knife which cuts with precision to remove the ‘cancer’ that will destroy your life.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Rest From Our Works

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REST FROM OUR WORKS

And again in the passage above He says, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’

Therefore, since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience,

God again set a certain day, calling it “Today”. This He did when a long time later He spoke through David, as the passage already quoted: ‘Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his works, just as God rested. (Heb. 4:6-10)

What is the rest about which this writer was speaking?

If we follow his rather intricate argument, he was using the Promised Land as a picture of the rest into which God invites us when we trust the work Jesus did for us on the cross to fully satisfy God’s justice so that we need not do anything more to be  accepted by Him.

For God’s people in the wilderness it required faith in His promise to go into a land full of giants and walled cities and drive out the inhabitants. God’s intention was for them to take over the entire land with its buildings and its flourishing agriculture so that they would have to do nothing but possess it and settle down in it. If they trusted what He said, it would have been an almost effortless process because He would have gone before them and fought for them just as they experienced when they took the city of Jericho.

However, in spite of all their experiences during their forty-year migration through the wilderness when God supported them and supplied their needs all the way, they refused to obey Him. Twelve spies went in to check out the land. Twelve came back with a glowing report of the land’s bounty, but only two saw the obstacles as challenges which they could easily over come through God’s help. Ten saw them as impossibilities because they refused to view them through God’s promise.

For forty years the people had tested God’s patience by murmuring, complaining and threatening every time they hit a snag. They just didn’t get it! They saw difficulties as the reason to get mad at God and at Moses and to pack their bags and go back to Egypt. God was trying to get them to grow up in their confidence in Him, because a big task lay ahead for them, one that required absolute trust and implicit obedience.

They were not interested in learning to trust God. They wanted their comforts and they wanted them now! They had no idea what lay ahead and how important it was to have confidence in God and to obey His instructions. By doing that, they would have entered into both a land and a lifetime of plenty and blessing. As long as they did what God told them to do, the conquest of the land would have been easy. God would do the fighting and they would gather the spoils.

Just as it didn’t turn out like that for them because they refused to trust God, so the writer warned his readers that they would never gather the spoils of Jesus’s victory over the devil if they refused to trust God. The rest He invited them to share with Him was the rest of entering into a victory already won. They had to do nothing but enjoy it. God required nothing of them but to accept all the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice and live in them.

The time for entering into and enjoying this rest is “today”. That means that every day is “today” as long as the day of God’s grace is still “today”. There will come a “day” when the door of grace will be shut forever, and those who refuse to enter will be shut out. The bridegroom will come and the door to the wedding feast will be closed. “Today” will be gone as time will cease and eternity will be upon us.

‘Don’t miss it,’ he pleaded. Today will not be here forever.

This is not a message specifically for the ‘outsider’ although outsiders are included in the invitation. This is for the people of God – for those who think that they have to add something to what Jesus has already done. We cannot add anything to His completed work. ‘It is finished!’ No good work, no ritual, no keeping of rules, no anything can complete what Jesus has finished.

Only one thing is necessary for us to do – believe it and . . . rest!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Promise Of Rest

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THE PROMISE OF REST

Therefore, since the promise of rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed.

Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God said, ‘So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’

For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in these words, ‘On the seventh day God rested from all His works.’

And again in the passage above He says, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ (Heb. 4: 1-5)

What exactly is this writer on about?

He seems to be using the words ‘faith’, ‘obedience’ and ‘rest’ interchangeably. The Israelites who disobeyed Him never reached the Promised Land. They perished on the journey because they did not believe that there was ‘rest’ for them in the land of Canaan. They refused to ‘rest;’ in God’s word which would have taken them to their destination had they done what He instructed them to do.

God’s rest was a cessation of His creative work on the seventh day, not because He was tired but because His work was complete. He had done everything He had to do, and it was up to what He had created to continue by carrying out His instructions.

Israel’s journey through the wilderness is a picture, a visual aid, of our journey through life. They had left the land of slavery through the miraculous intervention of God. He destroyed the enemy and set them free from their old lives of bondage to their slave drivers to follow God’s ‘way’ to the land He had prepared for them. All they were to do was to trust Him, do what He said, and stay on His ‘way’. If they left the ‘path’ they would get lost and perish in the desert.

His word was their road map, and obedience to His instructions guaranteed that they would keep going in the right direction. He gave them ‘landmarks’ to keep them on track, teaching them how to relate to Him as their God, and to one another as members of His ‘family’, His people who were to resemble Him in the way they lived together.

The Israelites didn’t get it. When God tested them to check on their trust, they turned on Moses and they turned on Him, accusing Him of bringing them into the desert to destroy them because He hated them. What a terrible accusation in the face of God’s evident love for them! He had proposed to them at Mount Sinai, calling them into a relationship with Him as intimate as marriage and giving them the promise that He had a place for them where they could rest in His love.

Had they believed His word and trusted His motives and His power, their journey to Canaan, as tough as it was, would have been over in a matter of weeks. They would have taken possession of their very own country and settled down to live in the houses and on the bounty that was already there, prepared for them by the inhabitants they were to drive out. It would have all happened smoothly and without stress because God was with them and for them.

What an amazing picture of our journey through life! God has already done everything to rescue us from our enemy, the devil, through the intervention of His Son. He has given us His instructions for navigating the journey of life. He has revealed His love and faithfulness to us by the miracle of new life in Jesus. He has forgiven our sin, reinstated us as His sons and daughters, promised us everything we need for the journey and, best of all, given us His presence in us by His Holy Spirit.

All we have to do now is to rest in what He has done and what He has said, do what He tells us and trust In His love and power to take us home. Every test is not, as the Israelites accused Him, His way of destroying us. It is His intention to reveal His glory by showing us His love through His power. He calls for trust, not complaint, and obedience, not resistance.

Faith, obedience, rest! This is the way home. The alternative is unthinkable – get lost and die in the wilderness, never entering His rest and never seeing the Promised Land.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

How Many Bricks?

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HOW MANY BRICKS 

“The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’

“But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ‘So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’ “John 5:9-11 (NIV)

The Sabbath — a hot issue for the Pharisees, but why? Anyone who violated the Sabbath got them going. Was it because it was the one thing they could control? Breaking the Sabbath was an outward violation of the law and they could come down hard on the culprit to show him who was boss.

However, to them Sabbath-breaking wasn’t about “breaking” the fourth commandment as much as it was about contravening their petty laws which were added to the fourth commandment as their interpretation of God’s law. The fourth commandment was about keeping the Sabbath, not breaking it, and it all depended on what was meant by “keeping” the Sabbath!

In order to understand the Sabbath, we have to go back to when and where this commandment originated. It was part of God’s marriage covenant with them at Sinai when they came out of Egypt. Why was it necessary for God to give His people an instruction like this? Was it to put restrictions on them? No, it was to set them free.

The only life the Hebrews knew in Egypt was a life of slavery. Seven days a week they made bricks. Their value for their masters lay in what they could produce. God sent Moses to deliver them from Egypt and everything Egypt stood for. Without an instruction like that, they would have gone on thinking that their only worth to God lay in what they could achieve or produce and not in who they were.

They had to be reprogrammed to realize that their work did not make them who they were. They were of worth to God because He had created them in His image to be a reflection of Himself, not only for His own sake but also to train them to treat one another with dignity and respect.

When God’s work of creation was complete, He rested but He did not sit back, fold His arms and do nothing. He supervised what He had created to ensure that everything functioned together in perfect harmony. He wanted these newly-freed slaves to remember that it was He who set up the Sabbath as a legitimate day of rest and it was the Egyptians who had contradicted His instruction.

For the Jews the Sabbath was intended to be a gift from God to set them free from viewing themselves in terms of what they could produce, and to give them time and opportunity to catch their breath, recover their strength and get ready for another six days of labour. They were to remember that God set it up for them because He had rested on the seventh day after His work was complete. It was a “sign” of His covenant with them set up at Mount Sinai.

“Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.'” Exodus 31:13 (NIV).

The religious leaders had turned the Sabbath into a day of restrictions and religious rules so that they could monitor what the people were doing and jump on them when they stepped out of line. They prescribed what “work” was in such petty detail that the people were hardly able to move.

Jesus refused to be dictated to by these religious slave-drivers. He was not intimidated by their accusations and threats. Carrying a mat was not work; it was part of legitimate daily activity. He insisted that the Sabbath was a gift of God’s love, not prison bars to dehumanize them, and that He was the author of the Sabbath, not some human rule-makers who failed to understand why it was needed in the first place.

The Sabbath was a visual aid of a rest that went much deeper that just one day of not working. It was prophetic of a day which God called “today” in which we would rest form every effort to please God by our own “work”. When we enter into Jesus, we enter into His rest, because He satisfied God’s requirement for a perfect life and then died to pay the debt of our imperfection. He calls us to enter that rest by trusting in His finished work.

Have you entered His rest?