Where do we go from here?

Is this a wake up call for us? Should we change? If this effects everyone in the world, should I change? Alot of new and different questions to think about in our life.

The biggest thing that I see and perceive with society, and even christians is that we all have problems with the idea of rest. We don’t know what to do with ourselves when we don’t have work, or we don’t have a schedule of things to do in our normal life. There is no indication that we cannot just rest just for the sake of rest.

Using this as a marker, we need to see why the need exists, why we feel the need to do. It has been ingrained in us for centuries, thru many reasons, sometimes being no fault of ours. There is this need to just be busy, to work, to play, to go and not to be still.

Rest is talked about in the scriptures multiple times, in fact it is mentioned almost 300 times in the NASB. The bulk of the time the ‘rest’ is mentioned in the old testament, which should tell us that emphasize was there with the Israelites from early on in their journey with God. But why? Why would or should we be concerned with the notion of ‘rest’.

Let me digress here for a moment, I have always had a few questions about groups of people or individual’s that didn’t look back at their heritage or their history to see if their were problems that they had created or were not going along with what God had deigned them to do, and why they didn’t see this. This is one of those moments, and questions I have for the Israelite’s.

If God had designed a world for us and the only thing that we were to do, was to rest with God, why would we do anything else?

God’s design for us, or for a better word to use is our ‘vocation’ in this world was to be an ‘image’ of God , which leads us to vision us as image in the God’s world. Ironically, this is exactly the picture we see later with God’s, chosen people, the Jewish people, the Israelite’s in their Temple model, that God set up for them to be ‘near’ him. Just one dot, in the whole world, as opposed to being with his people in all of the world.

And we still can’t see this in our world today!

and on the 7th day He rested.

Doesn’t this sound of familiar. We have heard it a thousand times in sunday school, church,mom and dad and every evangelist out there.

And also, you have heard the meaning of the statement at least a thousand times. We are to take a day off from work and just chill and watch the football game on that day, right.

We haven’t done a very good job of taking the day off the last 30-40 years so lately, we have made sunday the day to go out and “do” multiple things such as shopping,eating out(making other people have to work),and just going away for the weekend.

I believe that this understanding of what we are supposed to do is fringed on the “7th day” part of the statement. This connotation of the 7th actual day of our work week we are to stop what we are doing and rest because God rested is where we are today.

Let me make a bold statement here, “We have no better understanding of what God was telling us than the Jews took of this statement.” 

God’s desire for the Jews, as His people, was to be with Him,all the time. It was His desire from day one was for His people to be His forever. Now if we take this logic, and then apply it to this statement in Genesis 2:1, we have to understand that this is not an reoccurring cycle of every 7 days, but of from the 7th day on we are to have rest in God.

This has been the stigma of the Jewish community and for us in that we have set aside a “day” for us to rest in Christ to satisfy the commandment. I wonder if the Lord works in weeks or months or years like we do?(I doubt it)

God’s creation is solely for the community,fellowship,communion with Him. period. Why have we decided that it is all about all the things that we bring up in christianity?

Church,politics,programs,jobs, government, organizations, singing this or that, this pastor or that pastor, this group or that group, why have we made it into all this qualifying things that matter to us when all God wanted was to commune with us in the garden to begin with?

I know! The next question from your mouth is now what! That little or big word depending how you look at it is “faith”, do we have it or not. This my friend is the biggest question we have to ask ourselves individually, and then act on it.

I am personally at this stage right now and it is a big moment for me. I pray that you and I can come to the realization at this point that we know what the answer is.

I will be praying for you and for me, let our faith be in God, with our body,mind and spirit,let us be sold out for Him. In Jesus name, I pray.