There is a Sabbath-rest for the people of God. Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own heavy, driven, striving efforts. (Hebrews 4:9-10) God wants to invite you to share His rest with Him.

God’s rest is not a matter of inactivity, for God is active even at this very moment. His rest is related to His completed work. God completed the work of His creative order, and then He rested. (Genesis 2:2-3)

God has always invited His people to rest with Him. The practice of keeping the Sabbath as one of the Ten Commandments has stood as a directive and picture of this rest for generations and centuries. At the coming of Christ, however, we see an even deeper invitation to rest. He opened the door to real and deep spiritual rest. Jesus completed God’s redemptive work through His death and resurrection. As there is nothing that can be added to creation, so there is nothing that can be added to the salvation purchased in Jesus Christ.

So, God continues to invite us into His rest. He wants you to rest from your self-reliant, pressure-filled existence. He wants you to enter into His provision. Such rest begins in the Spirit, but it impacts every arena of your life. Jesus said, “The work of God is [simply] this: to believe in the One He has sent.” (John 6:29) To enter God’s rest is to receive His completed work in Christ.

Our rest must be continually renewed through active worship. We must consistently declare who Jesus is, what He has done, our allegiance to Him and our reliance upon Him. If such declaration sounds or feels fanatical or “over the top” to you, you may well be living by your own soul strength and effort. If this is true, be encouraged, God has much more for you. He is inviting you to enter into and enjoy His rest.

As we enter and renew our rest through worship, we sustain this Sabbath-rest through obedience. (Hebrews 4:11) We cannot declare our faith and reliance upon God yet continue in clear disobedience. Our obedience expresses and demonstrates our faith.

God has a wonderful, restful life for you in Jesus. He did all He could to provide for this rest-filled life. He will bear the weights of your life. He will lighten the inner load and handle the outer circumstances. Yours is to believe in Him, to practically worship Him in each setting and to obey His direction. Such a life is full of deep, spiritual and emotional rest.

Pastor Tom Griffith

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 Friday @ the River. Subscribe to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.