Too Tired to Find Rest.....

   Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it...... For we who have believed do enter that rest. ........ There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. (excerpted from Hebrews 4:1-10 NKJV) 

 

   Rest? What's that? 

 We Christians today often lead a haggard, anxiety filled existence while quietly reassuring ourselves that we can rely on Christ -- if we can just find time to get around to it.  We conceive that rest is an inactivity only to be engaged when no possible activity can replace it. Even church activity can overwhelm our capacity. Do we really think this is what Jesus meant when He said, Come to me all of you who are weak and heavy burdened and I will give you rest?

   John Owen, bible commentator, cited five attributes of resting in Christ:

1-  Rest means peace with God.

         

      We should find great rest when the Lord lifts our sin burden. Knowing the eternality of our peace with God should be a fountain of daily peace.

2-  Rest means freedom from a servile, bondage-like spirit in the worship and service of God.

       Paul often repeated that he was a bond servant to Christ, but meant an indenture induced by his love for his Savior rather than at the hand of a tyrant God.  

3-   Rest means deliverance from the burden of Mosaic observance.

      This should be a no-brainer for every Christian, but it is not. It is very easy to drift into a mindset of law abiding works, where our service becomes erroneously a pleasing payment that tries to earn the gift that Jesus has already given us.

4-  Rest means the freedom of worship according to the gospel.

      How often have we stood in worship on the brink of exuberance, only to tamp it down out of concern what some other Christian might think of us? Oh, if we would only worship with childlike abandon!

5-   Rest means the rest that God Himself enjoys.

    

      God never experiences anxiety or worry. Ever. As animators of Christ's attributes in and to a hurting world, we need only to receive His rest to animate it visibly in our lives. This takes first a restructuring of our priorities. There will be no peace without sufficient daily prayer and time spent in the Word. While seemingly obvious Christian solutions, these are often supplanted by human busyness. We need to relive ourselves of the mistaken view of Christianity as a state of constant doing, and replace it with a view of our constant awareness of our eternal peace with, in, and from the Lord. 

        We have submitted to His authority. Why do we find it so hard to submit to His rest?

Psalm 116  -- Return to your rest, O my soul,For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

Copyright 2014 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com 

Revealing the Cross of Christ

Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,  explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ." (Acts 17:2-3 NKJV)

    I intended to begin writing about 1 Thessalonians today, but realized that to do so I needed to begin in Acts, Chapter 17, where the contentious planting of the church in Thessalonika is fully described. If you Google "missionary" you’ll find more resources, ideas and information than you can possibly sift through in a lifetime. What endless Google results make seem complicated is really very simple. I often describe myself to people as a missionary. They typically ask, Missionary to where? I usually just name the place where I am standing. Missionaries are missionaries wherever they are. Paul had three mission centric resources when he entered the capital city of Macedonia, and these resources remain available to all missionaries today. 

   Verse 1 says -- Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica… In any work we begin for God, it is critical to remain sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. God often pre-softens stony hearts to be receptive to the Gospel as He did for Paul’s work here. Paul’s discernment carried him through many places before he arrived at the specific place where God had a plan in place. It is easy to convince ourselves we can decide what God wants done and where He wants it done without ever asking Him for input, and  thereby miss the blessing He has planned. When we do this we end up with our ministry to which we attach His name. Paul wisely kept walking until the Lord revealed the spot where He wanted to establish a new church.  

   

   Paul reasoned with them from the scriptures. Paul’s scriptures weren’t  our scriptures. He had only what we call the Old Testament. For him it was the Only Testament. Could you sit and reason with someone, could you make reasonable representations that Jesus was the Messiah from the Old Testament alone? Many people we encounter have no idea that the Old Testament is about Jesus. From shadows and types like Boaz in the Book of Ruth who was Ruth’s kinsman redeemer as a type for Christ, our Kinsman redeemer, to the specific details of the birth, life, death and resurrection found in the Psalms and Isaiah, the Old Testament points to Jesus. We are equipped with the Old Testament scriptures Paul had, plus so much more. Have you equipped yourself to reason with others from the scriptures?

   In Philippians 4:16 we read -- For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Paul didn’t just go, He was sent - both by God and by the church in Philippi. The success of any missionary is greatly increased with sufficient funding and prayer support from sending believers. Many are called to Christ’s Gospel mission, but more are called to support with prayers and funding. Do you support missionaries with prayers and funding? Ask God to reveal a missionary for you to support and begin sending monthly financial help. Even small support can produce huge Gospel results in the distant reaches of the Earth. If you can’t be a go-er, become a sender.

  If you are following the leading of the Holy Spirit, you have been strategically placed by God in a Gospel opportunity. Paul got busy in Thessalonica -- explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ." Today, to whom are you explaining and demonstrating that Jesus is the Christ? Or, have you abandoned God’s mission for one more of your own design and liking? 

    

Copyright 2014 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission if a link is provided to  http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com 

Chained to a Pillar of Shame

"You shall not plant for yourself any tree, as a wooden image, near the altar which you build for yourself to the LORD your God.  You shall not set up a sacred pillar, which the LORD your God hates. (Deuteronomy 16:21,22 NKJV)

   Sacred “totems” were common among the pagan Canaanites. Some were carved similarly to those we are familiar with from Northwestern indigenous tribes, having images of actual living things. Others were carved with created images, and some were left uncarved. Both Alaskan and Canaanite ancients had another similar totem called a “pillar of shame”.  In modern Alaska, a few remain. One has the image of Exxon’s CEO. It is a “pillar of shame” for the perceived unpaid debt to Alaska for damage done when the Exxon Valdez spilled oil and polluted the local environment. The concept is that the pillar will stand until the debt is paid. Images carved on totems tell a story, and pillar of shame totems repeat at every glance the story of unpaid debt. In Croatia, an ancient pillar of shame still stands. People who had committed various misdemeanors were  chained to it for a day of public humiliation.

   The worship of God must be pure. Yahweh commands that we don’t worship anything but Him. You shall not plant for yourself any tree…I know I’ve erected several totems to myself over the years. Before I knew Christ, I enjoyed being exalted. When I read this verse today it made me consider that I may have also erected some pillars of shame. You shall not set up a sacred pillar…. I didn’t cut down any trees to do it, but instead tried to carve someone’s sin into a permanent pillar by repeatedly  mentioning it, ….which the LORD your God hates. Although I haven’t initiated a Christian sin totem carving class, I have too often repeated the past sin of others. When I preserve someone’s pillar of shame by mindlessly gossiping about their sin, I am denying the existence of Christ’s work on the cross. The damage done to a fellow Christian by verbally re-carving their sin stories is small compared to the damage to our Lord. Sin gossip can turn Christ's church into a minefield of unrelenting shame.

   I know that nothing I have done or can do has remitted my sin. Amazing Grace is God’s alone, but sometimes I seem to want God to require more than that of others. Grace seems like a sentence too light for them. I want and enjoy immediatef reedom from my transgressions of the law but prefer if my cellmates aren't paroled before their due time. The bible says of Jesus -- He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. (Hebrews 9:26b) If I erect a sin pillar of someone's shame, I deny my Lord’s plan and purpose. If I repeat the sins of others I re-animate their sin, and I am saying that the blood sacrifice of Christ is an insufficient payment. And it’s not enough to just stop repeating the sin totems of others. I need to stop listening to them, too. Listening to Christian gossip is sin. 

   The Lord is not absent minded. He chooses to forget my sin. He is a just God and his unwillingness to even hold the memory of my forgiven sin reveals His justice. My sin is gone to prove it is forgiven, to validate the righteousness and finality of the sacrifice and the One who was sacrificed to remove it. OK God. Help me stop carving pillars of shame. Praise the Lord, let it be so.

Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1:29 NKJV)

Copyright 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted in whole or in part if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com