REST DAY!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!

 

Favorite Scriptures Day #12

It's Friday, my SABBATH DAY. I treasure this day in my week. No, it's not because I despise my work. I love the work the Lord has given me. No, it's not because I am exceptionally tired, although I do get a little tired. I love my Sabbath day of rest because it is a gift from God and I am thankful for this gift among all the blessings I have been given. I will probably get a couple of naps today, do some reading, pray over my sermon, ponder the weeks events and how I see God working, and piddle around in my workshop. Today will be a day of peace, joy, and REST.

As I was reading my next "Favorite Scripture" I was struck by the contrast between my day today and the heart of this scripture. Read one of the most intense parts of Isaiah 53:

"He was despised and rejected -- a man of sorrows, acquanited with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet, it was our weaknesses he carried: it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion: crushed for our sins, He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own." (Isaiah 53:3-6, NLT)

I can feel the joy and peace of a Sabbath day of rest because of that pain and the death of Jesus on the Cross. He suffered greatly so that I can experience joy, rest, and peace in the middle of a crazy life schedule. But, sadly, so many people don't get a REAL DAY OF REST. Yes, they might get the occasional day off. They might have a week long vacation on the beach or on a cruise. Yet, that is rest from the world's point of view, not GOD's REST. 

It saddens me to know there are people who don't get to experience real rest. But there is hope for true rest:

"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. 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. For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, 'In my anger I took an oath: 'They will never enter my place of rest.'' even though this rest has been ready since he made the world." (Hebrews 4:1-3, NLT)

This rest spoke about by Isaiah and the writer of Hebrews is both rest today and rest in eternity in the age to come. We can experience Sabbath rest right here and we can also experience Sabbath rest in our future home on high. Either way we will get to experience a peace tha so many others will never know. That should make our heart pursue evangelism and discipleship with a sense of urgency. Go now because the time is short and we want people to experience a real Sabbath rest. 

Thank you Lord for peace, joy, and rest. I treasure these precious gifts from above!