Genesis 1:26-31; 2:1-3 God’s image and likeness - God is a God of work and a God of rest, therefore, we are a people of work and we are a people of rest.
Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha - a heart distracted, a heart that has entered God’s place of rest, peace…
Mary entered God’s rest
Martha did not
We might ask ourselves “But, if entering into God's rest means to just sit and ‘do nothing’ how do we get anything get done?”.
I don’t think that’s the point - we need to understand that the key term here is not “work” but, “distracted”
Distracted from what?
Entering into God’s rest
God is a God of rest. That time and place of rest was and is the place we attentively commune with Him - attentive, engaging, abiding.
God’s rest is where we
Charge and recharge
Recount and celebrate
Look back and look forward
Contemplate and dream
Hear and are heard
Breathe deep sighs of satisfaction and enjoyment, of wonder and amazement
Rest, be at peace, in the knowledge and experience of being His, here now, with Him
None of this happens without - rest. And, without entering into God’s rest, there is no peace
“...and peace to those on whom His favor rests…” Luke 2:14
This, this rest, this peace, begins with God Himself - the person and nature of God. Why? If we were made in God’s image and likeness - we can trust that what is good for Him, is good for us.
God loves Himself (God; Us, and Ours) and He loves us, His neighbor, or others, as He loves Himself
Matthew 22:34-40
Eph 5
We can trust that His commandments, His ways, His way of life is best and that we, having been intentionally and purposely made in His image and likeness, are designed to live that way - His way - work and rest.
And resting takes faith - a growing faith. And, faith takes work and this is the work to rest in peace
Therefore, there is work and there is rest, and in that rest, we find our peace. And that work, is the work of God, and work of God, His kingdom, and that work is to believe… as our belief is validated or affirmed our faith grows, our assurance deepens, and our peace increases - because we become more and more confident. And it is in that belief, our believing, more and more, that we rest and find our peace.
John 6:29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
Hebrews 4:11
It is Jesus who establishes for us, peace with God through grace, by faith...
Hebrews 3:1 “ therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess… Christ (Jesus) is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold on to the courage and the hope of which we boast. See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. but encourage one another daily, as long as it is today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first (Rev 2)
Having had this peace established, let us enter, daily in this rest, that our assurance would grow…
Hebrews 4:1-3a “..since the promise of entering God’s rest (still) stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we have also had the gospel preached to us (just as the Israelites in the desert had - but the message they heard was of no value to them because those who heard did not combine it with faith)… Now we who believe enter that rest,..”
...making every effort to enter that rest now established…
Hebrews 4:9-11 “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God, for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following (the disobedient Isrealite’s) example
2Peter 1:1-11a
