Tag Archives: rest

THE GOSPEL IN HEBREWS – 6

Bible Study, ,

Since Jesus is superior to Moses as the Son over God’s household and the Old Covenant, the writer to the Hebrews warns his readers of the danger of unbelief.

Hebrews 3:12-13 NLT
[12] “Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. [13] You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.”

During their journey through the wilderness, the children of Israel repeatedly tested God’s patience by complaining against their hardships…hunger and thirst for example, despite the miracles He did for them.

“Don’t be like them! Through their unbelief, they failed to enter the rest God promised them in the Promised Land.”

Hebrews 4:1-2 NLT
[1] “God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. [2] For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God.”

There is an even greater rest for those who are faithful in suffering…the rest of faith in Jesus that frees us from the hard work of trying to earn our salvation.

Hebrews 3:14 NLT
[14]”For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.”

The Israelites who rebelled against God never saw the Promised Land. They died in the desert, leaving behind the next generation that entered Canaan and took possession of the land God gave them. However, what the Israelites failed to understand was that their new life in the Promised Land was to be a life of faith in God and obedience to His commands. They would have rest from their enemies around them and from the struggles of life through their faithfulness to God and in His care.

The Israelites rested from the hard work of travel and war, only to suffer punishment because they failed to trust God. There is an even greater rest for those who believe in Jesus, a rest from the ravages of sin and unbelief.

Hebrews 4:6-7, 9-10 NLT
[6] “So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. [7] So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted: “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts…”
[9] So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. [10] For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.”

So, the writer urges his readers, “If you go back to Judaism, you will never enter the rest of faith in Jesus.” God’s rest is a rest of heart and conscience from the penalty and power of sin. Don’t miss it through unbelief in God’s Word.

Hebrews 4:11-13 NLT
[11] “So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.
[12] For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. [13] Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.”

As the Israelites of old, we cannot dodge the scrutiny of God’s Word. God sees and knows the depth of the human heart. He knows when there is unbelief in our hearts that refuses to obey Him. He responds to those who truly believe His Word and trust in the one He sent to deal with our sin.

As David prayed…

Psalms 139:23-24 NLT
[23] “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. [24] Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”

… let us, also, willingly invite the Father’s scrutiny of our innermost being. Then we will enter His rest, escape the penalty of our sin, and enjoy all the benefits He has promised us in Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation.

To be continued…

SEEING JESUS IN THE FEASTS OF ISRAEL – LESSON 2 cont

Christian Life, ,
  1. THE FULFILMENT OF THE SABBATH

Firstly, why don’t we, as Christians observe the seventh day as our day of rest, as God commanded in Genesis 2:2? How did Sunday observance originate?

In the 4th Century AD, during the reign of Constantine, he tried to eradicate the Jewish roots of Christianity including the Sabbath as the Christians’ day of rest.

“Sunday actually made very little headway as a Christian day of rest until the time of Constantine in the fourth century. Constantine was emperor of Rome from AD 306 to 337. He was a sun worshiper during the first years of his reign. Later, he professed conversion to Christianity, but at heart remained a devotee of the sun. Edward Gibbon says, “The Sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine.”

Constantine created the earliest Sunday law known to history in AD 321. It says this:

On the venerable Day of the sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits: because it often happens that another Day is not so suitable for grain sowing or for vine planting: lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

Following this initial legislation, both emperors and Popes in succeeding centuries added other laws to strengthen Sunday observance. What began as a pagan ordinance ended as a Christian regulation. Close on the heels of the Edict of Constantine followed the Catholic Church Council of Laodicea (circa 364 AD):

Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday (Sabbath), but shall work on that Day: but the Lord’s Day, they shall especially honour; and as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ.”

(http://amazingdiscoveries.org/S-deception-Sabbath_change_Constantine)

Did Jesus keep the Sabbath and why?

This is a very broad subject which we cannot deal with in detail here. The gospels make it clear that Jesus fulfilled every requirement of the Law, including the Sabbath, but not the requirements of the religious leaders who made the Law burdensome by their petty additions.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.” Matthew 5:17. His intention was to show His people how to interpret and live by God’s teachings so that the world would see what God is really like.

He resisted their attempts to force their legalism on Him. He lived by His yoke – His way of interpreting the Torah, by practicing mercy, not judgment. And He could say:

“Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” John 8:46.

Then why did He keep the Law when believers are no longer under the Law?

“But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights as sons.” Galatians 4:4. Jesus did two things: He showed us how to interpret and live God’s best way according to His teachings (torah/law); and He obeyed the Law perfectly so that He could be a perfect sacrificial lamb to pay the price for our failure to keep the Law.

How does the Law apply to believers?

Jesus fulfilled the Law for us and gave us the free gift of His righteousness because we cannot obey the Law perfectly. The Law was given to expose our sinfulness and our inability to save ourselves.

“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Jesus cancelled the Law by His death on the cross. That means that we are no longer obliged to try to keep the Law because Jesus kept it perfectly for us and then tore it up so that it no longer becomes the standard by which we are to live.

“He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.” Colossians 2:13b-15.

We no longer need the Law because the sin that the Law was intended to expose has been forgiven and removed.

“For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit to death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that w

We serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.’” Romans 7:5-6.

We are motivated by another law, the law of love.

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8.

“The key to understanding this issue is knowing that the Old Testament law was given to the nation of Israel, not to Christians. Some of the laws were to reveal to the Israelites how to obey and please God (the Ten Commandments, for example). Some of the laws were to show the Israelites how to worship God and atone for sin (the sacrificial system). Some of the laws were intended to make the Israelites distinct from other nations (the food and clothing rules). None of the Old Testament law is binding on us today.

“When Jesus died on the cross He put an end to the Old Testament law (Ephesians 2:14, 15).

“In place of the Old Testament law, we are under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2), which is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). If we obey those two commands, we will be fulfilling all that Christ requires of us: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40). Now, this does not mean the Old Testament law is irrelevant today. Many of the commands in the Old Testament law fall into the categories of “loving God” and “loving your neighbour.”

“The Old Testament law can be a good guidepost for knowing how to love God and knowing what goes into loving your neighbour. At the same time, to say that the Old Testament law applies to Christians today is incorrect. The Old Testament law is a unit (James 2:10). Either all of it applies, or none of it applies. If Christ fulfilled some of it, such as the sacrificial system, He fulfilled all of it.

“This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

“The Ten Commandments were essentially a summary of the entire Old Testament law. Nine of the Ten Commandments are clearly repeated in the New Testament (all except the command to observe the Sabbath day). Obviously, if we are loving God, we will not be worshipping false gods or bowing down before idols. If we are loving our neighbours, we will not be murdering them, lying to them, committing adultery against them, or coveting what belongs to them.

“The purpose of the Old Testament law is to convict people of our inability to keep the law and point us to our need for Jesus Christ as Saviour (Romans 7:7-9; Galatians 3:24). The Old Testament law was never intended by God to be the universal law for all people for all of time. We are to love God and love our neighbours. If we obey those two commands faithfully, we will be upholding all that God requires of us.”

(http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-law.html#ixzz2wrzUdtAJ)

How did Jesus fulfil the Sabbath?

“Is there a Sabbath after Calvary? Yes! Hebrews 4:9-10 says, “There remains then a Sabbath-rest to the people of God. For anyone that enters God’s rest, he also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.” There are two words not found in those verses, “Sabbath” and “day.” It is because our rest is no longer a calendar day each week, but every day, which includes the seventh, and thus we keep the Sabbath by living a godly and blood-washed life every day. For we have ceased from our old works.

“Some people who haven’t come to an understanding of what covenant they are under will point out that Paul often went into the synagogues on the Sabbath. If we look at those incidents, however, we see that it was to bring those who hear out of the synagogue and that system of death. Here is what Paul the Apostle said about the seventh day as found in Romans 14:5-6: “One man considers one day more sacred than another, another considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does do to the Lord…”

“We know that the Sabbath law is fulfilled in Jesus Christ and He abides within us. The seventh day Sabbath was not eliminated but fulfilled, and our Saviour added six more days to that rest and gave us the timelessness of eternal life. Thus, the seventh day is kept holy with all the other days. We can worship our Lord any day and every day. We know that Sunday is not the Sabbath but rather one of seven days, any of which can be used for worship.

Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week, we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.”

(http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract8.html)

THE PROMISE OF REST

Bible Study, ,

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.

MOLLY AND ME – GLOOMY DAYS

Christian Life, ,

MOLLY AND ME – GLOOMY DAYS

Molly loves cold, rainy days! Her favourite spot is on my lap under the red “blankie”, soaking up the warmth we make together.

Now don’t get me wrong. Molly is a sun worshipper. Like a little reptile that can’t get moving until it has been re-energized by the sun, Molly lies stretched out on a scrap of carpet, soaking up the sun on the hottest of summer days.

However, no carpet, no matter how soft and comfortable, can take Mom’s place when it comes to closeness and companionship. Her dead weight on my legs and a gentle snore tell me that she is totally at peace.

Father God invites me, on gloomy days when my world is caving in around me, when the storm rages outside, to stretch out on His “lap” under the red “blankie” of His presence and feel the warmth of His love. There is peace in the shadow of the Almighty – the calm assurance that He will be now what He has always been then.

You see, because God is the source of all light, He cannot cast a shadow… but, though I cannot see His “front”, where He is going with me, I can see His “back”, where we have been. My past stretches out before me as an unending testimony to His faithfulness.

In this I can rest, knowing that He works in all things for my good because He knows where He is taking me. Gloomy days no longer make me insecure and afraid because I rest on the lap of my perfect Father.

MOLLY AND ME – REST

Christian Life, , ,

Molly’s favourite spot in the early morning, when I have made my coffee and settled myself in my recliner under my red “blankie”, is on my lap under the blanket. She goes to sleep again, content as a baby at its mother’s breast.

She is a very active little dog, but there are times during the day when she needs the reassurance of my lap, her warm little body resting on my legs. She relaxes with a sigh and goes to sleep like switching off a light. An hour or so later she wakes up, refreshed and ready for another excursion in the garden to chase the same ball or hunt the same “aliens” she hunted yesterday and the day before.

Rest! When Molly is on my lap, she is completely at rest.

She makes me think of the big subject of rest in the Bible. How often God calls us to rest in Him. We still have, buried deep in the old nature, the idea that God is only happy when we are “working” for Him.

I had a months-long struggle to come to terms with the fact that God was okay with my retirement. Day after day, I struggled with the guilt of not being actively involved in some or other “ministry” to prove my worth as a child of God.

Time and again, as I read through the Scriptures, I was reminded that God calls His children to a rest of faith. It’s not what I can do for Him that has any value, but what He has done for me, both in sending Jesus to take my place on the cross so that I could receive His gift of righteousness, and in supplying everything I need to live a godly life.

I reread the story of David who had been made king over all Israel after seven years of rule over Judah and Benjamin. When he had brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem and settled in his palace, he expressed to Nathan, the prophet, his desire to build a permanent place for the Ark.

Nathan encouraged him to follow his dream, but the Lord told him to tell David that He had never been dissatisfied with the tabernacle as a resting place for His presence. Instead, He pledged to build a “house” for David, a permanent dynasty that would continue until one came who would rule on David’s throne forever.

David was reminded that God was taking the initiative, not him, to build the house. David was once again overwhelmed with the goodness of God. It was all about Him. He would choose the one to build His house. David’s response was a grateful, “Do as you have said.”

How often, when we think we have done something remarkable for God, does it turn out that God has done something even more remarkable for us! Let us never think for a moment that God is beholden to us for anything.

How much better it is to settle down on the Father’s lap and rest in His love and goodness which He pours on us freely for no reason at all other than He loves us. My prayers in the morning, with Molly on my lap as a reminder, are peppered with times of resting in the love, goodness and favour of God, asking for nothing but grateful for the joy and privilege of being His daughter, holy and beloved because of His grace.

Life is too full of struggles and conflicts to allow them to intrude into our fellowship with the Father. He calls us to rest in the rough and tumble of life in a fallen world, and we would be foolish not to accept His invitation gladly and gratefully. There is no place more secure and peaceful than in the eternal love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.