Do you need a vacation from your vacation?  Maybe you need to spend some time Rethinking Rest.  Join us on our journey to see what God has to say about rest.  You might be surprised by some of the ways He can refresh you.

September 3

Busy Unto Death

Far too many of us live at a frantic pace: rushing from one place to another with barely room to breathe. “I’m busy” has become the common answer to the question, “How are you doing?”  

“The Chinese join two characters to form a single pictograph for busyness: heart and killing…Busyness kills the heart.” 

All around us, people are busy to the point of burnout. The frantic pace of our lives exacts a high price in the form of anxiety, frustration, anger, bitterness, and more. In his book The Rest of God, Mark Buchanan notes that one of the hallmarks of busyness is that you “stop caring about the things you love.” It robs us of our joy as we slave away under the burden of the urgent. 

If that describes you, you’re not alone.  So what’s the answer?   Let’s take a look at what God’s word has to say about the importance of rest.

 

September 10

Wasting Time with God

In the book of Exodus, the people are commanded to rest on the seventh day because it is “a sabbath to the Lord your God.” Now, stop and think about that for just a moment. God doesn’t need rest. 

God doesn’t need the Sabbath…but He does enjoy it.

Why?

 

September 17

The Rest You Need

As we continue Rethinking Rest, let’s explore one more reason why the Sabbath is so important: it is a place where God desires to give us the rest and the healing that we so desperately need. It enables us to slow down, take stock of all He has provided, and bring any needs before Him. When we tend to work constantly, we cultivate the idea that what we have is the result of our efforts rather than as gifts from God.

 

September 24

Training Day for the Kingdom

Our series ends this week, reminding us of one more thing that the Sabbath does: it trains us for the coming Kingdom.  It is a way of orienting our time and our days toward The Day when God will come again and make “all things new.” It is a reminder that the rest and restoration that we experience on that day is but a glimpse of what God will ultimately do. 

When He inaugurated His public ministry, Jesus said that He came to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” He quoted from Isaiah, one of the countless prophetic passages that speak of an ULTIMATE Sabbath rest, where God will come and restore all that sin has broken. So how was Jesus to do this?