The devotional - 133 - Faith/Rest

Thought for the Day – 133 – Faith/Rest

Proverbs 16:17 – Our experience in life can parallel with travel, the path or the highway is well trodden, but no one ever seems to be on it with you. This is especially true for the upright, but do not fret you are not alone since the road is intense with traffic and it is the keeping of one’s own way that distracts from gossiping about the others.

  

Comments and challenges

Mark 2:27-28 – And he said to them. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also LORD of the Sabbath.” In Genesis 2:3 Moses writes that God blessed the seventh day and set it apart from the other six days in that God worked the work of creation, but on the seventh day He ceased from work and rested.

In Exodus 23:10-13 – Moses explains that the Law of the Sabbath extends beyond the day of rest but includes a seventh year Sabbath. Also in Exodus 20:8-11 and Deuteronomy 5:12-15 the first and second events of the giving of the Law we see that Old Testament saints were commanded to obey God by keeping the Sabbath. (One thought that comes to my mind, even for the first time is that the command to obey the Sabbath is sandwiched between man’s upward obedience to God and his horizontal responsibility to mankind).

This causes me to put the brakes on and think this through a bit before continuing and in doing so I see that these commandments of God are for “believers” not “unbelievers” in the first part of the Ten Commandments believers are mandated to worship God in the Spirit as the apostle John reveals in John 4:23-24 that the true worshippers of God will or must worship Him in the Spirit and not in the flesh, in a carved image, in the likeness of anything in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, in the water or under the earth.

God is a Spirit; in Deuteronomy 33:26-27 we see in the final blessing that Moses places on Israel and I just have to write out these verses, notice: There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to help you, and in His excellency on the clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, DESTROY!”

So we can see that God is awesomely revealed as worthy for believing people to worship that the first part of our failure in a believing response toward God is to return to idolatry; believing Israel did this often. And as the writer of Hebrews states in Hebrews 11:4-7 that from the dawn of history; men having believed, sought to please God on God’s terms and that in doing so God rewarded them, thus condemning the actions of the world, thus becoming heirs of righteousness according to FAITH. Not just a faith in any manmade object but faith in God who created all things.

Now all of the above is in response to a homework assignment by the pastor who is presently teaching through the book of Exodus with a side step in Hebrews 3 and 4 of entering into the faith/rest life that God has prepared for us saints! Now when I first thought of the assignment, I thought “a piece of cake” a few comments and I can get an “A plus” and now I see that my thinking was heading for a big fat “F minus”. Also the devotional at the present time is focused on Mark 2 and 3 allowing us to take a look at Jesus who is: LORD of the Sabbath.

With all of this said, we will be taking a tour in the scriptures concerning this homework assignment, I am so excited about this I can hardly wait to see what is in store. One: God commands us worship to Him in Spirit and Truth. Two: God requires a New Testament Faith/Rest revealed through the truth of an Old Testament Sabbath Rest and this requirement is for “believers only” since the unbelieving world around us cannot enter Faith/rest without the knowledge of God.

Three: God commands obedience of believers in two major commands that are the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments. Matthew 22:34-40. Breaking in at verse 37… “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets”.

To fail at the first commandment is to worship the creature instead of the Creator and to fail at the second commanded is to dishonor parents by lying, stealing, cheating, murdering and coveting. Now what is critical is that the power of faith/rest or Sabbath is like a standard; or a like an omniscient Eye. On the one hand God monitors our faith in Him and on the other He monitors our obedience to Him. He is the Head of the household of Creation; our parents are the head of the household of the living. Faith/Rest or Sabbath Rest is the pilot that keeps us off the shores of the sin of deception.

Deception while worshipping God alone in faith and deception by association with the unbelieving world; who observes all of what we do and any of what we do that is of the flesh in either direction is “Deceit” thus it is the Sin of unbelief discussed by the writer of Hebrews. It is sin which we do not talk enough about and the only one directly connected to the hardening of our hearts; are better worded in Hebrews 12:12-17. Now I know I have crammed a lot of thought into this but standby; there is more to come.