WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT REST?
“There remaineth therefore a rest to the
people of God” (Heb. 4:9). We have rest when we learn to discern between what
is God’s job and what is ours. Sometimes we look at the godly things we’re
praying for, and we think God is working too slowly in getting them done. We get
tricked into trying to help God out, taking on burdens
and tasks that are not ours. When we do that, we discard any rest we might have
had. Our actions bring frustration, stress, sore muscles, and various pains. In
the case of the Hebrews who escaped Egypt, their weariness with God’s timing
ended in death. God planned a great future for them in a beautiful land, but their
impatience and arrogance kept them out. Arrogance hardened their hearts and they could no longer rest in God.
Moses was in direct communication with God and
went up the mountain to receive God’s will for the people. But the people got
annoyed.
“And when the people
saw that Moses delayed to come down
from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to
him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the
man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become
of him’” (Ex. 32:1)
Aaron and the people were quick to come up with
their own solution.
“So Aaron said to them, ‘Take off the rings of gold that are
in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold
that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a
graving tool and made a golden calf.
“And they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought
you up out of the land of Egypt!’ (Ex. 32:2-4).
That was a big lie. The one true
God brought them out of Egypt, a God who they couldn’t see with their eyes. Instead
of trusting Him, they took matters into their own hands, thinking they had a
better way to get themselves through the
wilderness and to a better place. They wanted something they could see with
their physical eyes, so they sacrificed their precious possessions and made a
golden calf.
When we try to do God’s job, we sacrifice our
precious possessions as well. We sacrifice our peace and replace it with
anxiety. We sacrifice our rest and replace it with strained and worried
muscles. We sacrifice a healthy mind for a pained body. These things are not
good.
“And
the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out
of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves” (Ex. 32:7). The people became corrupted because they lacked patience. We’ve
all been there when we forge ahead with our ideas and try to force God’s hand.
We don’t do this on purpose, but we need to beware if we start.
When a thing gets corrupted, it gets perverted
and doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. The corruption can be either be a diminishing or an addition. Rust is an
example of addition. Rust perverts a good clean pipe by growing on it,
distorting it and it eventually takes over. Once I had a plumber take out a
rusted u-joint. It had so much rust on it that the pipe’s interior was barely an eighth of an inch opening. Arthritis
is a corruption of bone cells where it grows extensions that shouldn’t be
there.
We need to keep corruption out of our prayer
life and our thought life. A good way to do that is to come into the rest of
God. Let God do His work. Be patient and trust Him to do His work.
Genesis 2:2 tells us: “And on the seventh day God
ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his
work which he had made.” God rested from His work, and that’s a good lesson for us.
Hebrews 4:9-10 tells us: “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people
of God. For he that is
entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”
The
Bible is telling us we need to cease from pushing our ways and trust His ways
instead. Don’t get impatient with God; it will corrupt us. “Wherefore as the Holy
Ghost saith, ‘Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in
the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness’” (Heb. 3:7-9). The
Hebrews brought calamity and catastrophe to themselves by trying to do what
they thought God wanted instead of doing what He actually wanted.
The Lord already knows that impatience comes easily, while
rest does not. When we get started on a thing, it’s hard to stop, especially if
we think it’s a righteous, God-ordained thing.
We need to know when to pray and when to stop and let God do
what He does. Impatient, pushy prayer doesn’t move God any faster. It just backfires on us, and God doesn’t want that. Like His plan for the Hebrews, to go to
a good place, God has a good plan for our health and welfare too. It’s vital
for us to be open to when God says for us to rest. Trust Him, don’t push Him.
FREE THRU TUESDAY: WINGS SAMPLE G –
SPIRITUAL EYES
In this sample book, I’ve chosen five chapters specifically about seeing life’s incidents from a
spiritual point of view.
Chapters include: OUR
SPIRITUAL FIVE SENSES
GOD'S SPIRIT TOUCHES OUR
SPIRIT
NO GLASS CEILINGS
GENERATIONAL CURSES
A DIFFERENT TAKE ON
ANGER AND FORGIVENESS
PAYMENT FOR SIN and
TELLINGS THE DEVIL WHERE
TO GO
