Sabbath Rest – Rest of God

A good friend of mine made a very interesting statement the other day, she said: “We are called human beings and not human doings”. This is a profound truth concerning how God intended for us to live. We spend our lives trying to do things instead of being. We were created for His pleasure, to be all God intended for us to be. We accommodate the wrong idea or thinking about ourselves, due to all our own experiences in life. We often make the mistake of judging ourselves in the flesh and as a result we try our best to become better people. So we work and labour more. We are busy and we can’t seem to relax in His opinion of our lives. We need to live in His rest.

“And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all the hosts. And by the seventh day God completed His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” Gen 1:31, 2:1-3
“I know that everything that God does will remain forever, there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God so worked that men should fear Him.” Eccl 3:14
We need to realise that man was not created on the first day, to give God a hand. In fact, the first day man woke up to, was the seventh day of creation, the Sabbath rest. Man awoke in the provision of God. He awoke in the satisfaction of His Father, because God was pleased with everything He had created and completed. God rested from all His works, because He was satisfied. Man realised he could not add to anything or take away from what He had created.

“Therefore, let us fear, lest while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest…” Heb 4:1-3
“There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who enters His rest has himself also rested from his works as God did from His” Heb 4:9,10

God designed and purposed for us to live in His rest.
“For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” Matt 12:8.  Jesus declared himself to be Lord of the Sabbath. For Him to be Lord of the Sabbath He had to rest from all His works. This as impossible unless He had finished or completed his work.

What work did Jesus come to do?
Jesus came to restore man back to His rest.
“For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Eph2:10 “Ascribe greatness to the God our Rock His work is perfect” Deut 32:3,4
“Look to the Rock from which you were hewn and the quarry from which you were dug”

God is not a panel beater, but a master craftsman who did a perfect work in us through Christ Jesus. He didn’t need our help in the process. We are His workmanship, His masterpiece. If I should add a stroke of paint to a painting of Van Gogh, I would depreciate the value of the painting. Likewise my contribution is not to feel I have to add to his work, but to simply adore and appreciate His finished work.

“While the house was built there was no sound of a hammer or axe or tool” 1 Kings 6:7 God encouraged us not to find our confidence in our own labour, but His labour on our behalf. Our own strength only leads to us being heavy laden. He desires us to soar like eagles, like those who wait on the Lord. Eagles soar in the slipstream of the wind and rely on the strength of the wind to take them higher and faster.
“Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” Matt 11:28 God desires that we find the unforced rhythms of grace to propel us in life. His grace is more than enough.
“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand”
“But by the grace of God I am what I am and His grace towards me did not prove vain; but I laboured more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” 1 Cor15:1;10
The Sabbath rest is not the absence of work but it is an inward attitude of confidence in the finish work of Christ on my behalf.
Grace is all God did in Christ on my behalf.
By grace we have been saved through faith and not by our own works and His grace is sufficient for us.
God does not want us to work harder but rest harder.
The most active state we can be in is to live in the rest of God. (Inward attitude)
We need to rest in God’s goodness and enjoy the “God factor”.
“Return to your rest, O my soul, For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.” Ps116.7
Don’t worry that things will not happen if you don’t make them happen.

He became sin so that you might become…………
He became poor so that you might become…………
He became sick so that you might become…………
He became a curse so that you might become…………
He became all that you were so that you can be all that He is.

So what is it that we must do?
Have faith in His finished work on your behalf.
Just believe. Your unbelief will disqualify you from His rest. The disciples asked Jesus: “… what we must do, to do the works of God?” Jesus’ reply was: “Just believe in whom He has sent. We don’t do in order to receive something from God in return. We realised that grace is all that we have already received as a result of what Christ did, that enable and energises us to do.

One ‘doing’ in order to receive, is one who is untrained in the knowledge of God and totally unaware of what he has received in the finished work of Christ. It is like someone being troubled by a bill of R1000 when he is oblivious to the fact that he has millions in his bank account.

Be aware what you manifest and carry. You are a God container. Exodus 34;29, Ps82:5-7
Set your mind on His goodness. Col 3:1-4
Refuse to doubt , being swayed by different opinions. A double-minded man is unstable in all His ways and will fall from his high position in Christ. James1:7-9, 1Kings18:20, 21.

God’s Sabbath is no longer a particular day of the week.
“He again fixes a certain day, “Today”, saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.” Hebr4:7-8

God so desires for us to enter His rest. We are the celebration of His love, the reason for his satisfaction. We are the product of His labour and what He saw pleased Him so much that He entered into His rest.
God’s rest is not another day; it is YOU.
“Jehovah has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling-place. This is My rest forever; here I will dwell; for I have desired it”. PS 132:13: 14 (MKJV)
God is so at home in you that he came to make his permanent abode in you. He is comfortable in you and pleased to reveal Himself through you.

(by Tanswell Davidse)