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God rested. God didn’t rest because he was exhausted, but because he was exhilarated.
(1 Corinthians 3 v 16). We are the temple. But do we have the time—do we make the time—to Sabbath, to experience a time holy to God? That’s what Sabbath is. It’s the time-temple.
In the West, we’ve managed to take something that has in every culture until recently been a vice and, through the magic of repeating a bad idea for long enough, have turned it into a virtue! “Oh, I’m so busy this week,” we say. But what we’re often really saying is, “Look how important I am. I have many things to do, and I must do them.”
Sabbath rest is the time to be, without being busy. Saying, “I’m too busy to rest” is a bit like saying, “I need too much oxygen to exhale.” It just doesn’t make sense.
Peter Scazzero’s book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,
A book to look into.
At its worst, good-stuff-for-God puts us in charge and lets us feel like we have deserved blessing. Or it lets us hide from the fact that we are not sure we even know the real God.
Rest is not a religious action item to be added to a list. It isn’t a duty to be performed; it’s a delight to be enjoyed. If you can’t rest because you’re busy doing all these things for God, then pick some of the ones that are optional and stop doing them so that you can obey his non-optional command and invitation to rest with him.
REST IS ABOUT WHO RULES
Regular rest is the practice by which we say with our lives, “The God who made the world rules the world, and I trust him to do it better than me.”
Resting requires you to admit that you are not sufficient, and to acknowledge that there is One who is. You are not a sufficient explanation of your own life, nor are you enough in yourself to find true and lasting Sabbath rest in this life. Embracing a rhythm of rest means seeing God as sufficient and letting go of your own claim to that attribute.
You won’t lose anything by resting that you need to keep, and you won’t gain anything by overwork that you won’t one day lose. He is the rescuer.
the ritual of biblical rest reminds us of our God, and his story. Rest is given for us to remember God, ourselves, and the true story of the world.
This isn’t the bogeyman of fundamentalism returning to tell you, Come ye out from among them!
Come out from among them is the Word of God, and not meant to be used to poke at anyone.
Contrasting with Jesus’ peaceful demeanor are the Pharisees—Jewish religious ninjas. I use that term because at this point in history they had constructed 39 rules around the practice of resting. That’s right—these people came up with 39 ways to correctly do nothing. So when they saw that Jesus’ disciples were rubbing grain in their hands to release the husk from the fruit on a Sabbath, they panicked.
we’re just as wrong in our Sabbath ignoring as they were in their Sabbath policing.
Anxiety is what unbelief feels like. Therefore, our feelings about rest betray whether we really trust Jesus—with our time, our work, our weeks, and our lives.
If anxiety is what unbelief feels like, then restful peace is the inheritance of those who trust Jesus.
We are situated on the receiving end of the gifts of God, not on the earning end.
Rest will produce anxiety in the person who does not rely on Jesus as Lord; but the person who knows Jesus as Lord will rest to resist anxiety.
the truth is that you only come into contact with your truest self when you come closer to Christ. You won’t find you by clambering about in your own subconscious, but by bringing your whole self to him.
Dissatisfaction gives way to self-incarceration.
Every problem started with a worship problem.
First, ask yourself if you’re really interested in having a relationship with God.
Second, ask yourself where rushing is ruining your relationships with God and others.
Third, in what unhealthy ways have you tried to silence your own inner murmur of self-reproach?
it is the forgiveness of our heavenly Father that silences that murmur,
Fourth, will you stop waiting to rest?
you weren’t free to linger in his presence and put down your labors, because it wasn’t Sabbath time.
I do not necessarily agree with this thought. The OT saints were free to meditate on the Lord and His Holy Scriptures any day of the week, apart from the sabbath.
Where Old Testament laws no longer apply as Christian requirements, they can and should shape the wisdom of Christian practice.
Not taking a day of rest each week is not sin—but it’s probably stupid.
