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Understanding Our Need for Sabbath Rest
Many Christians today don’t appreciate the value of rest or keeping the Sabbath day holy. Like me, many Christians live on the exhausting performance treadmill. Rest allows our mind, body, and soul to renew and start with even more strength and focus. It is a prescription for future usefulness. Without taking time to rest, we relegate ourselves to actually being less effective in our endeavors.
The Bible makes it very clear that we are to have a Sabbath rest. There is no question about it. Wow. It is one of the 10 Commandments. We are to honor the Sabbath and pursue rest. In obedience, we simply must choose to hit the pause button and rest. The Lord knew about our need to physically rest, but also to rest in Him spiritually. We must be very intentional to guard this time! Once again, I believe that our obedience to this command will be rewarded. Most of us do not recognize or realize the powerful impact of Sabbath rest.
I love Lysa Terkeurst’s Sabbath consideration: “It’s not just a day for me to give to God. It is a day God established for me. He wants to give me something, if only I’ll slow down enough to receive it.” She reminds us that the Sabbath isn’t a day to merely be observed but to be preserved. When we slow down and seek the Lord’s rest, we can breathe and remember that it’s all about God and not our own agendas. We can reflect and therefore live in His bigger story instead of living in our own little self-centered ones.
The enemy of our souls wants us to live with anxious unproductive hearts. This will indeed limit our ministry, health and well-being. He targets our minds. He lies to us. He does not want us to have an intentional sabbath REST with the Lord. He wants to keep us running and remain exhausted. Our busyness is one of his greatest tools. It is the enemy’s sneaky way to get us off-track and away from rest and peace, leaving us vulnerable.
The Lord assigned our days to include sabbath rest, to nourish our souls for greater usefulness. We need to REST and take time to REMEMBER.
Ponder:
Ponder your obedience when it comes to the commandment to take a “Sabbath Rest” even if is not exactly on Sunday.
Prayer:
Lord, I need You to help me shut down the performance treadmill and embrace Your precious gift of “sabbath rest”.
About this Plan
In a day of unprecedented uncertainty, where can we find rest for our souls? Is this even an option? Or are we relegated to struggle on the performance treadmill where we are infused with anxiety and exhaustion?
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