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Blessed And Holy Rest
Brian Mashburn
September 6, 2015
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Blessed And Holy Rest
Back at the very beginning, after God worked for six days to create this beautiful setting within which we live, God took another day and... rested.
He then did something else concerning that day, something that He didn't do with any of the other six days. "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested." (Gen 2:3)
Not only did a God who needs no sleep (Ps 121:4) decide to rest, but He paused to make a special note of it. He set this one day out of seven apart from the other six, declaring it sacred. Built right into the very first and initiating story of our faith is the priority of rest.
The Hebrew word for "rest" is "sabbath," and evidently God wants His children to live with a very blessed and holy version of it. His example should be enough, but just in case, He gave it the force of law, literally engraving it in stone as the 4th of the 10 commandments that would serve as His people's unique code of conduct: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." (Ex 20:8).
By the time of Jesus, the Sabbath, or Rest, day had become so full of burdensome religious rules and prohibitions that stole the restfulness originally intended. As we tend to do with all of God's things, they had drifted to a place of missing the point. It was into this that Jesus came and spoke with the refreshing, originally intended invitation: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matt 11:28).
These words are as inviting and on point now as they were then, are they not? Have you slipped into the weary, restless life that is outside of Christ?
If so, it is not because God hasn't done His part.