Gift of Rest

I’m not talking about oversleep or being lazy.

Although having a good sleep is part of the grace of God and his design for us in having a healthy lifestyle.

The First rest. Eden

Place of pleasure

Work was enjoyable

There was no worry about tomorrow

Humans care about each other

Humans experience love from God.

Today most people don’t have that. But God’s rest is still available for all.

I would argue that our sin is the main reason we cannot experience God’s rest.

For most of us our life are more like dry wilderness.

- Were the pleasure that we enjoy is temporal and leaves us empty

Where work is hard and little rewarding

Where our ideas about the future bring anxiety

Where other humans have hurt us or we have being the source of pain for others.

Where love is hard to find, even from God

I don’t know about you but I can use some Divine Rest.

That’s actually the whole purpose of Sabbath. Where we stop once a week from our daily activities to settle in and enjoy creation.

The goal of Sabbath is to remind ourselves that we are not the owners of our destiny, God is...

He is the one that brought us into existence

He is the one that placed me at Patch

He is the one that gave me this day to live, the air that I breath

He is the one that gave me my family, friends and community.

Sabbath is supposed to remind us that our whole being, and reality depends on Him. So we stop and trust in His care. That’s rest!!

God wants you to experience his rest for the rest of your days, not only one day of the week.

The Jubilee

Leviticus 25:1–23 NET

The Lord spoke to Moses at Mount Sinai: “Speak to the Israelites and tell them, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land must observe a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years you may sow your field, and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the produce,but in the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath of complete rest—a Sabbath to the Lord. You must not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You must not gather in the aftergrowth of your harvest and you must not pick the grapes of your unpruned vines; the land must have a year of complete rest. You may have the Sabbath produce of the land to eat—you, your male servant, your female servant, your hired worker, the resident foreigner who stays with you,your cattle, and the wild animals that are in your land—all its produce will be for you to eat. “ ‘You must count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, and the days of the seven weeks of years will amount to forty-nine years.You must sound loud horn blasts—in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, on the Day of Atonement—you must sound the horn in your entire land. So you must consecrate the fiftieth year, and you must proclaim a release in the land for all its inhabitants. That year will be your jubilee; each one of you must return to his property and each one of you must return to his clan. That fiftieth year will be your jubilee; you must not sow the land, harvest its aftergrowth, or pick the grapes of its unpruned vines.Because that year is a jubilee, it will be holy to you—you may eat its produce from the field. “ ‘In this year of jubilee you must each return to your property. If you make a sale to your fellow citizen or buy from your fellow citizen, no one is to wrong his brother.You may buy it from your fellow citizen according to the number of years since the last jubilee; he may sell it to you according to the years of produce that are left.The more years there are, the more you may make its purchase price, and the fewer years there are, the less you must make its purchase price, because he is only selling to you a number of years of produce. No one is to oppress his fellow citizen, but you must fear your God, because I am the Lord your God. You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them so that you may live securely in the land. “ ‘The land will give its fruit and you may eat until you are satisfied, and you may live securely in the land. If you say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not sow and gather our produce?’ I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield the produce for three years, and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce—old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, you may eat old produce. The land must not be sold without reclaim because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me.

The Big reset every 50 years. Or at least once in your lifetime you will have the chance to start over. With land and freedom. Give some examples.

This is to remind and protect the citizens of Israel from slavery and homelessness. To promote equal value in between the people because is not about how much you own but that we all depend on God our Redeemer and Creator.

Can you imagine being free from the worry of not having a place to go.

Or the freedom to know that no present struggles are forever, that the time of freedom gets closer each day that passes.

Jesus came to cancel your debt with God and his creation.

In Him we can experience the Rest of God not only today but for the rest of our lives because we are not slaves to sin anymore plus we have a eternal Home waiting for us.

Matthew 11:28–30 NET

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.”