Tag Archives: rest

March 5, 2022 · 3:11 pm

It’s all about the “Shadow”

I have spoke on this before, it bears repeating in away that we don’t forget.

God is so crafty in his word. God’s usage of ‘shadows’ or ‘symbolism’ or ‘Types’ or ‘allegory’, is so strung out thru out the old testament, which now that we think about this, should point to us that something different was coming that was different and better for God’s creation. God uses his narrative of history and mankind to bring out a story within a story. He is really a good writer, to do this. We are to read the scriptures as a narrative, but also a ‘shadow narrative’ underneath that tells another story of what God is really telling.

One such example that I will show you is a wow moment, but it itself can multiply with the continuance of the same theme to other areas in the bible. Leviticus, is a book in the old testament that is considered to be one of those books that when you read it, it will make you yawn or just skip over it because it is a description or a building plan for a temple which you are not really interesting in.

But it is actually key to know the ‘rest’ of the scriptures, in will allow you to ‘see’ things that you probably never seen before. One such thing is the story of the building of the temple and the detailed clothing of the High Priest. Studying the clothes on the high priest for the Temple in the old testament can then be translated as a shadow of things of the new covenant. The studying of various other things pertaining to the temple and of the high priest, is a basis for the new and Holy people of the New covenant that God is re-birthing his people.

The things that are on the clothes on the high priest are highly symbolic of the people of Israel. It was a representative of who they were and what they meant to God. God was using this storyline of a earthy temple and the intricacies of what the actual ‘temple’ was. Let’s look at what the earthly temple was to get things going. As like the story of Moses going up to the mountain top to be with God. It was the ‘going up’ to God on top of the mountain that was the picture that He was the God of Creation. It was the communion with God, that was key to this ‘Temple’. It was then that the ‘Temple’ was described in Leviticus in a human way, and a human hand. Although it was a sacred ‘Space’, it was only because it was filled with God, and not man.

It was this aspect of the Holiness that was missing from man that God had reformation for him to make the Holiness in everything of the ‘Temple’ and it’s communion. Mankind was filled with blemish, Man was made of clay,Man was of flesh, Man was without communion.

God had to complete Man, make him Holy, it would be the culmination of God’s Eternal Purpose for making Creation. Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of all mankind. God’s design was for mankind to be holy as He, He was wanting that communion with his creation and all its Glory.

This is the story of God and his creation.

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April 24, 2020 · 9:58 am

Where do we go from here?

Is this a wake up call for us? Should we change? If this effects everyone in the world, should I change? Alot of new and different questions to think about in our life.

The biggest thing that I see and perceive with society, and even christians is that we all have problems with the idea of rest. We don’t know what to do with ourselves when we don’t have work, or we don’t have a schedule of things to do in our normal life. There is no indication that we cannot just rest just for the sake of rest.

Using this as a marker, we need to see why the need exists, why we feel the need to do. It has been ingrained in us for centuries, thru many reasons, sometimes being no fault of ours. There is this need to just be busy, to work, to play, to go and not to be still.

Rest is talked about in the scriptures multiple times, in fact it is mentioned almost 300 times in the NASB. The bulk of the time the ‘rest’ is mentioned in the old testament, which should tell us that emphasize was there with the Israelites from early on in their journey with God. But why? Why would or should we be concerned with the notion of ‘rest’.

Let me digress here for a moment, I have always had a few questions about groups of people or individual’s that didn’t look back at their heritage or their history to see if their were problems that they had created or were not going along with what God had deigned them to do, and why they didn’t see this. This is one of those moments, and questions I have for the Israelite’s.

If God had designed a world for us and the only thing that we were to do, was to rest with God, why would we do anything else?

God’s design for us, or for a better word to use is our ‘vocation’ in this world was to be an ‘image’ of God , which leads us to vision us as image in the God’s world. Ironically, this is exactly the picture we see later with God’s, chosen people, the Jewish people, the Israelite’s in their Temple model, that God set up for them to be ‘near’ him. Just one dot, in the whole world, as opposed to being with his people in all of the world.

And we still can’t see this in our world today!

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September 6, 2018 · 10:01 am

Just thinking

This is just some out-loud thinking on my part. Some of this is either just a statement, or could be a Question.

Is there a difference in ‘Rest’ and ‘Sabbath’, if there is what is it?

God Rested.

Sabbath is Holy.(7th day,Symbolic of Holiness)

Exodus 23.11 Every 7th year of your field was to be laid baron.(rest)

Original rest-Garden of Eden! Everything mentioned in the bible has to use this as foundation of the meaning of REST!

God rested, man had nothing to rest from, yet!

Understanding what this picture of God resting from His Work, which was by the way, creating US, His Kingdom, and Himself as the King of this said Kingdom.

If we use this picture of this ‘Eden’, God, us, his creation in communion with His world, living in God’s Kingdom with God.

We then Know what true Rest is.

So we should know that after this picture, it changed.

but this is the model of “REST”.

So if God being God that He is, wants to get this picture back.

How does He go about doing this?

Think about it.

He starts by just having  a specific place, in a specific building, with a specific people.

This specific place is the Holy of Holies, only one person, can be with God,in this spot, a HIGH Priest.

sounds kinda very minimalist to me, but whatever. God knows what he is doing.

Now this one spot, is in this one building, in this one town. Now the world wasn’t that big yet, but man I have to travel all across region to come be with my God? on one certain day!

and oh yeah, and I have to be apart of the selected ‘people’ that God designated that had this God!

Wow, this is really specific,God.

Why are you going to the whole world as your domain to just one little spot, one little building, and just one people?

Think about it.

Now the issue is not that the ‘people’,place,and building didn’t work out, it was that they failed in ‘seeing’ what God was trying to go back to His first Rest Picture. in a way that started slow but spread to the whole people!

Their failure is their ‘worshiping’ other gods, none of whom were the one that created and designed their ‘rest’!

Now our official terminology of the word Sabbath is a day of religious observance and abstinence from work, kept by Jews from Friday evening to Saturday evening, and by most Christians on Sunday. 

Now it seems maybe,just maybe we are short changing ourselves as believers, and God that we do not observe ‘Rest’ as ALL the time!

The relishing and living in God’s presence in the world,as our King, and His Kingdom would be the ‘same’ picture that we started with.

The Garden of Eden.

Think about it.

 

 

 

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May 10, 2012 · 11:38 am

Un-Natural

I wonder if we realize how we view things from God in the bible. I would almost guarantee that we come from a natural view of man when we read the bible.

I believe that we have come to the wrong conclusion when we read it, We are reading it as if we are in the natural realm. When we read,listen to God’s word’s(God’s words are His character,we need to realize this)He speaks to us in a different way,God’s way.

We are reading or listening to God in our “natural” way, God ‘s  way is not our way, our way is fallible. God’s design of His people was and is to be indwelt in Him. This means we are apart of Him. He is after all the creator,designer and architect of His Kingdom . He’s in Charge of everything! He is.

Now let me show you an example on how we misread texts in the bible. This comes from the Living Stream Ministries of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee on LSM.org. This excerpt comes from an article of ” The Divine Revelation”.

This example of only seeing things in the natural way is still hampering the believers of the world. Let me share the article now.

 

The fourth commandment requires man to take only God and all that God has accomplished for man as man’s satisfaction and rest (Exo. 20:8-11). This commandment concerns the keeping of the Sabbath. I read the Bible for several decades, but I did not quite understand why in His Ten Commandments God made such a commandment to set up a day and require man to keep it as the Sabbath. What is the meaning of this? Furthermore, when the Lord Jesus came, He did not want man to keep the Sabbath. Before the Lord Jesus came, God wanted man to keep the Sabbath. Then when the Lord Jesus came, although man still desired to keep the Sabbath, the Lord did not want man to keep it any longer. What does this mean?

It was not until these last six years that I began to understand what it means to keep the Sabbath. The keeping of the Sabbath means that you can take only God and all that He has done for you as your satisfaction, enjoyment, and rest. Keeping the Sabbath indicates that you have nothing on earth other than God; you take only God Himself and all that He has accomplished for you as your enjoyment, satisfaction, and rest. Your God is your everything, and He has accomplished everything for you. All you need to do is enjoy Him and take Him as your satisfaction and rest. Let me give you an illustration. I remember my old mother, who was a Christian. She loved her children very much and often cooked good food for us during holidays or on the Lord’s Days. She had a peculiarity that while she loved to cook good meals for us, she had to do it all by herself and did not want us to do anything. If we would sit there and watch her doing everything and then praise her for doing such an excellent job, she would be very happy. If we would say, “Mother, you have been too busy; let me help you,” she would be unhappy. She did not want us to help because she considered that an insult to her. Hence, we children knew that we just needed to wait for our mother to prepare the food for us and that we did not have to do anything. When the dumplings were done, we just praised her that her dumplings were really delicious; then she was very satisfied. While all of us were eating, she did not eat but just watched us and waited on us that we might have the enjoyment. When I was young, I could not understand her, but now that I look back, I realize that this is the way God deals with us. He is doing things for us, but if we try to help Him, the more we help, the more work He has to do. He does not want our help. Rather, He wants to do everything for us. Today everything is ready, and all we need to do is to come to the feast and enjoy Him. What does it mean to keep the Sabbath? To keep the Sabbath is to take God and everything that He has done for us as our satisfaction, enjoyment, and rest. Otherwise, we violate the Sabbath. When the Lord Jesus came, the Sabbath was simply the Lord, for the Lord is the real Sabbath. Therefore, there is no longer the need for us to keep the Sabbath as a ritual.

Until we come from an Un-Natural state of seeing Christ we will not see or hear  God’s real Message!

God- “I only want you to rest in me”

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