Rest

He who keeps you will not slumber. – Psalm 121:3

How much time in your life have you spent trying to fall asleep or attempting to get someone else to go to sleep… think babies and toddlers? God could have created humans in any fashion, but He chose to make you need rest. He chose to make your physical body require complete shutdown, vulnerability, every 24 hours to be healthy and well. Maybe He built a dramatic and beautiful picture of your need for Himself into your very nature to keep the point ever before your eyes, especially as they close.

One of the most concrete things you can do to acknowledge God’s holiness and sufficiency in your life is to observe a sabbath rest. When you pause your projects and close your computer instead of laboring on in exhaustion, you are drawing a picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justified the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness apart from works” (Romans 4:5).

Faith for the follower of Christ is not anchored in working and self-righteous striving. It is in trusting that, when you close your eyes to this world for the final time, He has provided all you need to awaken by His side in the next.

Pray for the gospel of Christ to spread in the hearts of Americans today. Ask specifically for people in authority, making decisions for the country, to be refreshed by seeking God, finding rest in His Son, leaning into the One who never sleeps.

Today’s Verse: Psalm 121:3

He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: Hebrews 4:9-13

So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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