Sunday, October 27, 2013
A Comforting View
Yesterday was an interesting post for me to write. One thing was I somehow titled it originally with the incorrect month. I don’t know if it gave you a laugh, but I had to laugh at myself this morning when I sat down to type and saw it.
The post yesterday was most interesting to me because of the subject of the sabbaths, both the place of perpetual rest that was promised from the beginning, and the weekly sabbath that Paul says remains for us all (Hebrews 4:9). I continued to think about what Paul was saying, trying to better understand it. He had made a connection between the weekly sabbath and the faith that brings us the opportunity missed by the children of Israel in the desert to obtain that place of rest forever with God. I say this because Paul connected the faith to enter in to the rest with God to the weekly sabbath by saying “Therefore” which indicates he is drawing this as a conclusion. In verse eleven he goes on to talk about working at it. So what does all this mean?
Faith has and is accessed by a pattern. If we can believe God enough to follow the pattern (the weekly sabbath), it will help to build our faith for the bigger prize, that of eternal rest. Interestingly enough the simple pattern of the weekly sabbath was broken in the desert at least once by the children of Israel.
Exodus 16:27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.
This is just one of the recorded instances where the children of Israel in the desert demonstrated a lack of faith in God through their disobedience. Faith has a pattern.
These passages from Paul also imply that we can have the eternal rest beginning now. We obtain it through faith. The place of this eternal rest comes through faith in God being who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do. What happened for me was that I began to see that there is a “place” we can be in our hearts and minds that allows us to see a circumstance as something that my God is about to deliver me from as opposed to something to complain about or be afraid will overtake me and my family. And if I find myself in a place where I feel overwhelmed, then at that moment I have the wrong perspective, and I need to find the perspective that allows me to see God about to work. This view is a great comfort.
The truth is God did not take the children of Israel out in the desert to die, and He has not brought us to the desert to die either. We need to believe that God is who He says He is and trust that He will do what He says He will do.
Prayer
Father, thank You for this day today. Thank You for the demonstration of the commitment to us that You make with the very creation around us every day. Thank You for all that You have already done for us, and for the promise to deliver us daily. Please reach out to Your people today and heal their hearts and minds. Please provide the wholeness for today that is needed for today. In Jesus’ (Yeshua’s) name. Amen.