TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 27TH FEBRUARY 2024)
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it, you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Exodus 20:8-10 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 58TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Yesterday, God spoke to us about entering into the rest that Christ purchased for us with his blood. If you ask me, I will say that word is one of the best truths that a child of God can ever know.
Sadly, so many people in Church today, including preachers, do not know it. Yes, many do not know that the rest Christ purchased for us on the cross, is rest from serving sin, Satan, self, and the evil and corrupt system of this world.
The question that should be in the heart of every one of us who call upon the name of the LORD is this, “have I entered into my rest?” The Bible says, there remain therefore, a rest for the people of God. Have we entered into that rest?
No one who dies will truly rest in peace if they did not enter into the rest before they die.
The first time I heard the message of rest was in 1996. The preacher spoke about rest from financial hardship and satanic attacks. I took that to be what God’s word meant by rest, until the Spirit of the LORD began to teach me the things I shared yesterday.
My experience taught me that, there are so many believers who believe things that their pastors have taught them; things that are not consistent with truth, and will keep taking them to be right, until the Spirit of the LORD meets them in deep personal Bible study sessions, to show them otherwise.
Today, you find very few believers who search the scriptures themselves, to find out if what they have been taught by us preachers, is right. Sadly, many of us in ministry, play the deity card by telling those who sit under us not to check what we teach with the word, the Bible.
WE TRY TO SHUT DOWN THOSE WHO SEE A BETTER LIGHT THAN WHAT WE ARE MAKING THE PEOPLE KNOW.
This is where I consider my spiritual father the best.
He is of the evangelistic move, not the apostolic. Whenever I sit down with him like father and son sit and talk to him about some thing I see him do which are not Biblical, he will quickly listen and drop them. Then he will begin to bless me!
That is how it ought to be. He is the best spiritual father a spiritual son can ask for. He gave me the confidence to walk with God and put me on my toes to learn more truths and keep sharing with Him.
Friend, except you are a thousand miles ahead in Bible knowledge, there are things you will never know, until those who sit under you, who see them in a better scriptural light, share them with you.
This morning we will continue with our discourse on rest. Our devotional text today has a lot for us to chew from. It spoke about the Sabbath of rest Israel was instructed to keep.
From the text, we can see that another word for rest, is buried in the Hebrew word for seven, called sabbath. Let me at this point share some truths I have shared before on this platform.
Based on health, economic, historic, and prophetic reasons, God gave Israel specific instructions of what to do and what not to do on the seventh day of their week, and called it the Sabbath.
The health and economic reason were for them to boost productivity by having a 24 hour off day once a week. The historic reason is connected to the health and economic reasons.
The Jews were slaves in Egypt, who worked 24 hours a day, and seven days a week, without rest. They carried on like that for hundreds of years, resulting in a no-rest life style. I mean generations were born, not knowing rest. They died not knowing rest, until the sabbath was instituted.
A restless life style was not good for their health, hence when He delivered them from slavery, God instructed that they do nothing, but rest on the seventh day of every week. Those who obeyed aligned with the rest God entered into on His own seventh day, and enjoyed the blessings of obedience.
Sadly, because majority of them were a stubborn, many could not catch the revelation behind the instruction, hence did not obey, leading to God making a law with strict punishment attached.
Besides, God was carving a path for the execution of His redemption plan for mankind.
SO, PEOPLE WERE SEVERELY PUNISHED FOR NOT RESTING ON THE SEVENTH DAY IN ORDER NOT TO DISTORT OR DEFEAT THE PLAN.
The nation finally grew to recognize the seventh day as a day of resting and reflecting on God’s goodness. That was how it became a day of worship for them. Don’t forget, the Bible calls them, the Church in the wilderness.
But the prophetic reason for the practice was different from the historic reason. God created the earth for six days, and rested on the seventh day, making seven a number of completion, maturity, or divine rest.
Actually, the full prophetic message contained in the seventh day, can only be written in a book not a devotional like this. God’s will for Israel was not for them to practice a law. It was for them to live out, or illuminate a prophetic message for our age and time.
If you look at it in the eyes of redemption, Christ was actually the reason for the law. Don’t forget, the Bible says “the law was a tutor to bring Israel to Christ,” but they reduced it to an empty religious act.
So when Christ, the LORD of the Sabbath finally came calling, they rejected His call and defeated the redemptive and prophetic purpose of the Sabbath (a generational law) given to them ( by the hand of Moses).
Jesus had presented the redemptive purpose for the generational law when He said to them;
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV.
Sadly, they never came when our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ called, hence defeating the fulfillment of the practice in their lives.
Don’t forget, the law was given to be fulfilled in Christ, not to be a religious ritual of all ages. If we do not come into the revelation of the fulfilment of any aspect of the law in Christ Jesus, we will be practicing it as a ritual and short changing our eternal destinies.
THAT IS THE LOT OF THOSE WHO STILL PRACTICE THE SABBATH AS A DAY!
When men like Paul were born into the kingdom, God took them behind the scenes of all He told Israel to do. Today, we know that Christ was the reason for the Sabbath.
When the early church got that revelation, they made the first day of the week (the day of Christ’s resurrection), the day of worship for the New Testament Church.
So, when we assemble on the first day of the week to worship, we have really assembled to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
That is why, there ought to be true Church experience; manifestations of God’s transforming power, amazing signs, wonders and miracles, each time we gather.
The seventh day of the week is no longer the day of worship, but the first day of the week. However, when it comes to worship, it is not about the day but the heart. The heart must be right, even if our worship is on any day of the week.
Though some of our friends, like the Seventh Day Adventist, still hold on to the Jewish law as earlier stated, the body of Christ in general grew to accept Sunday, the first day of the week – the day of Christ’s resurrection – as the day of corporate worship.
The early church showed us that we are to appear before God corporately, to worship in songs of praise and thanksgiving, with an offering in our hands.
We are to do that on the first day of the week, while reflecting on God’s faithfulness and goodness.
During the period, the word is to be taught to us and our faith built up for another week.
But there are deeper dimensions of these truths in the Bible.
In the outer court, the Sabbath was a Day called the Day of the LORD.
In the holy place, the Sabbath became a rest we enter into through Christ. That rest is called the rest of the LORD. But in the Most holy place, the Sabbath is a person. That person is Jesus Christ; the LORD Himself!
When you accept Him into your life, you have fulfilled the redemptive purpose of the law of the Sabbath, and have kept the Sabbath.
In other words, all those who have not accepted Him as LORD and Savior, are yet to keep their Sabbath, and stand the risk of not having eternal rest when they die.
It is no longer a punishment for not keeping a law, but an eternal consequence of not accepting God’s redemption plan for your lives.
WHAT LESSON CAN WE DRAW FROM ALL THESE? FOLLOWING GOD SHEEPISHLY IS THE BEST THING THAT CAN EVER HAPPEN TO US.
If Israel had followed, it would have been wonderful when Christ came in the flesh. There would have been no destruction of Jerusalem 40 years after His death, and many other blessings would not have been missed.
If they had known what the Sabbath meant and embraced it with all their hearts, they would have stepped into a major aspect of the law fulfilled in Christ, and the grace Jesus came with, would have benefited them greatly.
When you step into any aspect of the law that has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus, you benefit greatly from grace. But when you just practice it, you sabotage your eternal destiny.
Your redemption will come when you follow God sheepishly.
Entering your sabbath will require that you follow God’s Holy Spirit, sheepishly. Accepting your Sabbath, Jesus Christ, will require that you lay down your sinful life, and pick up His holy life.
It will require that you stop serving sin, Satan, self, and the evil and corrupt system of this world.
Time to accept your Sabbath!
Time to stop serving sin, self, Satan or the evil and corrupt system of this world! Time to come into your rest!
Any Church you attend that is not helping you to come into this kind of rest (the rest of the Sabbath), is preparing you to be roasted in hell. Let he that has an ear, hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY..
“Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries.
“The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever.
He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.” Psalms 81:13-16 NKJV