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IN TOUCH WITH GOD    by Edward Heppenstall

 
Christian Obedience JULY 23

GOD'S REST FOR THE WORLD'S UNREST

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Heb. 4:1.

You and I are more than beasts that perish. We are the redeemed sons and daughters of God. There is something in us and about us that can only be satisfied with God.

Often the work of the week lays burdens upon us and brings anxiety and care. Each Sabbath we come to cast our load of care on Him. Our hearts are touched with His love. We find rest unto our souls. His peace and presence are given to us. We come to church with no haunting fear that we must effect our salvation, that we must contrive some plan for our release from sin and failure. In Christ our salvation and redemption are complete.

We hear of unfinished symphonies, but there is nothing unfinished in the symphony of Christ's righteousness that He offers to us. When Christ cried out on Calvary, "It is finished," He entered into that Sabbath rest of a completed redemption. The price of sin was paid. A perfect righteousness was offered to us in Christ. Not one thing more needed to he done. Then He rested in the tomb throughout the holy hours of the Sabbath. Was there any more beautiful rest than that? Christ met all the requirements for our salvation.

The Sabbath has always been a sign of God's completed work: of a completed work when He made the earth, of a completed redemption when He died for us. In the earth made new "it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord" (Isa. 66:23). When the earth is recreated and restored to its original perfection, the Sabbath will still be the sign of God's finished work.

It is urgent that we enter into God's rest here and now. His gift to us is a perfect righteousness in His Son, to which nothing needs to be added. In Him we have complete forgiveness and acceptance. We lack nothing. "With all this in mind, what are we to say? If God is on our side, who is against us? He did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all; and with this gift how can he fail to lavish upon us all he has to give?" (Rom. 8:31, 32, N.E.B.).

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