The Daily Word of Righteousness

Pressing Into God's Rest

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. (Genesis 2:1,2—NIV)

God made all things, from light all the way through to the new heaven and earth reign of Jesus Christ, in six days. Then He rested. Your life and mine were completed from the beginning of the world. God is resting and observing while His Word is bringing His vision to pass. All we are required to do is cease from our own works and enter God's rest.

But we are being resisted by many forces that are attempting to lead us away from God's perfect will for our life.

We do not realize it but we are living in a hovel, bound with many things. We are slaves to the world system, seeking to find security and survival in it.

We are slaves to the compulsions to sin that reside in us and are part of our personality. The compulsions to sin are transgressions against the eternal moral law of God, of which the Ten Commandments are an abridged, covenantal version.

We are slaves to our self-will, our personal ambition, our desire to create our own heaven and earth. We do not trust God. In the beginning Satan planted mistrust of God in the first two people. This mistrust has continued to the present hour, and so we continue in chains, living in our hovel.

God wants to release us into the fullness of life lived in Himself. The world, sin, and self-will must all be removed from us so we may flow with the fullness of resurrection life.

Canaan, our land of promise, is the rest of God. It is life lived in the flowings of the Godhead. We begin our Christian life in chains and finish in total freedom in Christ—not total freedom to do as we please but total freedom in Christ.

The Sabbath-day commandment was that we cease from work on the seventh day, that is, Saturday. But the new-covenant fulfillment of the Sabbath day is the life lived as Jesus lived—in the Presence and will of God. We are to live as Jesus lives, in the Presence and will of God. But this is to be seven days of the week, each day bringing us more fully into the Presence of God.

When Jesus healed on the Sabbath He was living in the Presence of God. He was fulfilling the Sabbath commandment even though the Pharisees did not understand this to be true.

Let's look at the heart of the Sabbath commandment, as set forth through Isaiah.

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, Then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah 58:13,14—NIV)

To be continued.