GOD RESTED FROM HIS WORK
To rest is to stop from an activity that was tiring for us. When we read the Bible, we see that God is tireless (Isaiah 40:28). Yet it says that on the seventh day God rested from all his work (Genesis 2:2). In reality, God did not rest to resume the work he had begun. Genesis 2:2 that God had finished, i.e. completed his work. God’s rest thus marked the end of his work and of everything he had already planned for that work. We can therefore say that after this rest, God did not continue to create his work.
WHAT IS GOD’S REST?
The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-29 Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. The rest that the Lord Jesus speaks of here is the same rest that God offers us.
What you need to know is that resting also means trusting someone. Before knowing the Lord Jesus, man acted on his own. Resting his efforts on him or on a man like him, he thinks he will be able to do whatever he wants without getting tired. But very quickly, fatigue sets in. When God asks us to enter into his rest, it is not to lead us to cease all the works we are doing, but to do them differently so as not to exhaust ourselves in vain. So the rest that God offers us is to trust him. It means no longer relying on our own strength, abilities or thoughts to accomplish our works. It means relying on him, who has already completed everything for us at the creation of the world.
God’s rest is all that God has set aside for us. He has done this so that we can lead a life in accordance with his will, i.e. without stress or worry, turned towards total dependence on him in order to accomplish not our works but his.
HOW DOES GOD GRANT US HIS REST?
He grants us this rest through his son Jesus Christ. Christ, like the Father, accomplished everything at the cross (John 19:30). By this accomplishment, he gives us the possibility of entering into God’s rest, accomplished since the creation of the world. To this end, he says in Hebrews 4:7 that he who hears his voice should not harden his heart.
If we want to enter this rest, we must prepare our hearts to walk and live according to the gospel. By doing so, we testify that it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (Galatians 2:20). And since Christ and the Father are one, the Father also lives in us through the Holy Spirit. And just as the Father has completed his work since the creation of the world, everything in us, for us and about us has also already been completed. So we have nothing left to create, imagine or invent. We just have to follow the plan that God has already formed for us and make sure that we fulfil it. In doing so, we are assured of being in God’s rest.
We are no longer dependent on ourselves or on someone like us. We are reassured of a life not necessarily without difficulty but without stress, worry and fear as promised to us by the Lord in Isaiah 41:10. Christ is there to give you rest. Take it now.
Aucun commentaire