Are you familiar with the saying, “No rest for the weary?” When applied to the world as we know it, sadly this is a stark reality. But not so, or at least it should not be so for the Christian.
Allow me to explain…
We live in a society in which most Biblical principles have been, to put it mildly, throw out the window. Two such principles concern working and resting. People have made not working an art-form! However, if we look to Genesis, to the original plan, Gods plan for work and rest, we see God Himself was not exempt from either.
In fact, He is the originator of both—listen, “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (Gen. 2:2).
Scripture clearly indicates that God worked six days and rested on the seventh, but Gods work was not a striving to accomplish a thing as it is too often with you and I. God worked in perfect ease, peace, and unity with both Jesus and the Holy Spirit. (Gen. 1:2; Jn. 1:1) And He expects nothing less of you—all else is prideful and futile. And it brings weariness and separation from Him. As in your work, so in your rest. Deviate, and all is reduced to mere striving and striving leads to separation and weakness.
So to better understand these above two principles, who better to glean from other than the Father and the Son. Each a model for work and rest. Each a teacher of the effort required us, a measure of Faith…
Nothing that exists would exist outside of Gods labor. Nothing. Let that sink in a moment. I would no longer need to be faithful in writing what God has placed on my heart for you, because you would not be here to read it! The world as we know it, would be a blank canvas—a void. “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Gen.1:1). Look around you right now—go ahead, I’ll wait…not dark or void is it?
You are witnessing the benefits of Gods work model. A model plainly laid out for us to follow. The view outside your window, work. The eyes you are reading this with, work. Nothing you have or are is free, it cost someone something. In the case of God, His Only Son. For Jesus, His life. But, blessed one, you get to have it all, use it all, and you did absolutely nothing to earn it…
No labor on your part, not a single day of work and yet, here you are… receiving.
That’s an inconceivable benefit wouldn’t you agree? And, if you’re reading this—you have it! Now ask yourself, have you ever had or heard tell of, any employer, anywhere in the world, that provides such benefits? No, No you haven’t.
Why? No such creature exists.
There is only One who was willing to work for you, to produce all that you are and have. His name?
Jesus, The Word—listen… “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.…” (Gen. 1:1-3). Emphasis added.
His intentions were multifarious. You see, in Gods economy, He does something once, and He does it perfectly. And within His singular effort, within that one “thing”, a seed was placed so He never has to go back and do it again. God works smart, not hard—there’s a lesson in there if you caught it…
Yet notice, that first God worked and then He rested.
Resting…requires effort.
And, providentially for us, God gave us what we need to do the work of resting in Him.
Faith. it is the standard by which we correctly appraise ourselves. (see Rom.12:3)
Rest requires us to use our faith. We must trust in God and His promises to be able to completely rest in Him as Jesus did. And do it now, in this world. Resting in Christ requires us to enter a covenant relationship with Him. You’ll simply never trust a person you don’t know. So it was in the Old Testament with the Israelite’s, and so it is with today with many.
“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. (Heb.4:2).
How can you trust God with your life if you don’t trust the very One asking for entrance into it? Impossible! You’ll forever wrestle for control over it. Trust requires faith. And faith will result in leading you gradually into Gods rest.
As we see in the above Scripture, many of the Israelite’s missed out on the rest God was trying to lead them into because they would not believe. Their faith in God was wanting, hardened, works orientated, resulting in their missing entrance into Canaan. Their preordained promised place of rest, providence, and the provision God had prepared for them.
Which delivers us to the door of His intentions for our rest…
On the sixth day God rested, and, when Jesus finished His Redemptive work on the Cross, He too rested at the right hand of the Father. These examples were meant to model for us the necessity for resting from our labors. All of our labors. And to come into the welcomed awareness that outside of Christ we can do nothing. But with Him and through His power and providence, we can do all things and never enervate.
Man was not created to live apart from God. We were created in His image, to work and have fellowship—communion and rest in Him. “And God saith, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” (Gen 1:26).
It is into His Rest God is calling you, now—while it is still today. A rest from your striving, struggling in your flesh, in a useless effort to try to attain godliness. Just read Romans chapter 7 to see how that ends. Rather, Chapter Eight of Romans teaches us that as a Christian you must live in the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised the dead body of Jesus from the grave. By the working of His Spirit in you, you are able, in part, to live a godly life, (see Romans 8:1-17).
This is resting, or abiding in Him (John 15:1-14).
Which leads us into our closing—The rewards of rest.
When you choose to live free, abandoning yourself to receive the redemptive work of Jesus, then and only then, might you enter into salvation’s rest. Freed from your striving and misconceptions, you’ve now come into the knowledge that Jesus took care of all the work that will ever need to be done to make you, “good enough”. You need to stop striving after Gods approval—from always working to gain something you can’t have outside of faith in Jesus.
Because outside of His righteousness and sanctifying work there is no “good enough”. Trying to gain God by being lawful and religious, minus a genuine relationship with, and faith in Jesus, will only end you up like the Israelite’s. Dead in the desert.
You will never be—good enough. Stop it. Stop trying to fix yourself by yourself. You can’t.
But the good news is there is One that worked for you. He made certain that if you wanted Him, if you wanted to taste rest from all the stuff you’ve known in your life; He’s made a way for you to do just that.
Listen, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). After His death and resurrection, He gave us a Comforter, The Holy Spirit. And in Him we have a deposit in these fleshly vessels, a taste of His rest now. An installment on the payment in full that is to come when we are in the presence of God eternally.
You can have it today, that rest…
Regardless of what anyone has ever told you about you, or worse yet, what you have told yourself about yourself.
But as with Joshua (a forerunner and allusion to Christ) who couldn’t deliver the Israelite’s where their faith wouldn’t take them, so it is with Jesus also. He can’t deliver someone who refuse to be delivered. He will never take you where you do not want to go. Even though in His great love for you, He died to ensure His rest might be yours.
And speaking of His rest, listen… “God again set a certain day, calling it Today. This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb.4:7).
God has sent me to tell you that it is “Today.”
Please, don’t follow the example of those that died in the wilderness when the Promised Land is awaiting your arrival…
May God Bless you and guide your steps, In Jesus Matchless name, Amen.
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