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Agapetos
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Post Number: 867
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:01 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I thought I'd share some notes I've jotted down in the last week or so...

June 9, 2007

Recently I got a tune and a chorus for the old hymn by Charles Wesley, "Lord I Believe a Rest Remains" and it's begun a deep rocking of my "Sabbath-rest" life.

quote:

Lord, I believe a rest remains
For all Your people won
A rest where pure enjoyment reigns
And You are loved alone

A rest where all my soul's desire
Is fixed on things above (is fixed on You above!)
Where fear, and sin, and grief expire
Cast out by perfect love

Oh! I need Your rest
Jesus, You are my rest
Because of Your blood
I'm in the Sabbath of Your love


Oh, that I now the rest might know
Believe, and enter in
Now, Savior, now the the power bestow
And let me cease from sin

Remove this hardness from my heart
This unbelief remove
To me the rest of faith impart
The Sabbath of Your love


In a nutshell, I've begun to discover that the Sabbath-rest is also for my sins.

This may be obvious to some, but as a Former Adventist, when speaking of or thinking of the Sabbath-rest I've focused on being freed from my good works, from my striving, and from the Law. But isn't the Sabbath-rest also from my bad works? Yes! In fact, that's the original call of Matthew 11:28-30, and also of Hebrews 4!

Now His rest promises rest for me from my sins! My struggles! My woes! My addictions! There is Sabbath-rest in Him! Rest from all these things! Thank You God! The sun has set on my sins and the eternal Sabbath has begun. He has begun (and finished!) a work of perfection in me -- a perfection in love, in Eden -- different from the work of "perfection" in the fallen world. And He is faithful to complete it. It's begun & finished in Him. My rest is here from sin!
Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:07 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

June 10, 2007

The Sabbath-rest is also from our sins! It's rest from sinning. In this garden (in Christ) we can rest as in sinless Eden, without worrying about transgression, without confusion, without constantly needing to look to Law---which couldn't keep us safe or on the path or in Eden. The Sabbath-rest is from everything that is not Christ.
Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:20 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

June 2007

The Sabbath-rest in Christ is the reality! The seventh day is a limited shadow.

Often I've started at "the Sabbath day" and defined the Sabbath-rest (the Light) by the shadow of the old day. But now I must start with Your reality, Your love, Your rest in Jesus, and that is the foundation and starting point of what Sabbath means!

Your power! Your keeping me safe! Your wrapping me in Your love! Your loving me through all of this! You keeping me secure in Your arms, folding me close to Your breast! This is all "SABBATH-REST!" Your Sabbath love! Thank You!

Some have only found Sabbath-rest from theological works, or from SDA striving. But Sabbath-rest is also from our sins! Some are still looking to the Law as a guide for rest/security from sinning. But Sabbath-rest (the Spirit) keeps us.

And I see at some point I must give up this name, "Sabbath", because it goes only so far and conjurs up the old meaning. I must say "Your rest", rest in Jesus.
Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:21 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

June 10, 2007

You said in me I'm in Your Sabbath-rest.

I am in Your holy Sabbath.

I am in Your rest.

(Oh! My flesh & doubt resists believing it... can it be true? Yes, because of <em>You!</em>)

I read briefly (skimmed) what Wesley wrote and it was then You suggested it, You spoke it in my heart: I'm in Your rest. Thank You, Jesus.

Shalom, Peace!

(This is the "Peace to you" in Paul's letters! Amen! Sabbath-rest! Jesus!)
Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:21 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

June 13, 2007

In Eden.

Oh God... it hits me. I am walking in Eden.

I AM WALKING IN EDEN.

I am in Eden! (Col.1, Rom.8)

God, I've written the fact of this many times. I've known it, but now it truly starts to hit me. Thank You.

Now I begin to wake up. I am in Eden. Living here. I've never known it before. Get up. Walk around. Look around. Show me what life is like here, Lord.

I'm in You, Lord. You're in me. Eden's in me. I walk around in You.

Help me realize. Help me understand. I'm here in the Sabbath of Your love! Eden's Sabbath rest.

This rest... in You, as You (Christ) were in Father. You were in His love! That's Sabbath! And You lived, breathed, moved, spoke and walked in Him.

So here, too, I walk. In Your love, Father. Take me along.
Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:24 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

These two pictures also came along during this time:

http://art-for-jesus.blogspot.com/2007/06/resting-in-eden.html

http://art-for-jesus.blogspot.com/2007/06/its-finished.html
Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:29 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The hymn Charles Wesley wrote which was used as the trigger for this time of deepening resting was actually much larger -- I guess all of the verses aren't available online yet. However about nine or ten can be found in his book, "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection". The other night God used a brief skimming of that to let me know I was definitely in His rest.

quote:

'Lord, I believe a rest remains
To all Thy people known;
A rest where pure enjoyment reigns,
And Thou art loved alone.

A rest where all our soul's desire
Is fixed on things above;
Where doubt, and pain, and fear expire,
Cast out by perfect love.

From every evil motion freed
(The Son hath made us free),
On all the powers of hell we tread,
In glorious liberty.

Safe in the way of life, above
Death, earth, and hell we rise;
We find, when perfected in love,
Our long-sought paradise.

O that I now the rest might know,
Believe, and enter in!
Now, Saviour, now the power bestow,
And let me cease from sin!

Remove this hardness from my heart,
This unbelief remove;
To me the rest of faith impart,
The Sabbath of Thy love.

Come, O my Saviour, come away!
Into my soul descend;
No longer from Thy creature stay,
My Author and my End.

The bliss Thou hast for me prepared
No longer be delayed;
Come, my exceeding great Reward,
For whom I first was made.

Come, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
And seal me Thine abode!
Let all I am in Thee be lost;
Let all be lost in God.'


Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:37 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I was also blessed when I ran across this excerpt from a book by Andrew Murray:


quote:

From Holy in Christ, by Andrew Murray.

The presence of God revealing itself, entering in, and taking possession, is what constitutes true Holiness. As we go down the ages, studying the progressive unfolding of what Holiness is, this truth will continually meet us. In God's indwelling in heaven, in His temple on earth, in His beloved Son, in the person of the believer through the Holy Spirit, we shall everywhere find that Holiness is not something that man is or does, but that it always comes where God comes. In the deepest meaning of the words: where God enters to rest, there He sanctifies. And when we come to study the New Testament revelation of the way in which we are to be holy, we shall find in this one of our earliest and deepest lessons. It is as we enter into the rest of God that we become partakers of His Holiness. "We which have believed do enter into that rest." It is as the soul ceases from its own efforts, and rests in Him who has finished all for us and will finish all in us, as the soul yields itself in the quiet confidence of true faith to rest in God, that it will know what true Holiness is. When the soul enters into the Sabbath stillness of perfect trust, God comes to keep His Sabbath holy; and the soul where He rests, He sancitifies...

Blessed Lord God! I bow before Thee in lowly worship. I adore Thee as God the Creator, and God the Sanctifier. Thou has revealed Thyself as God Almighty and God Most Holy. I beseech Thee, teach me to know and to trust Thee as such. I humbly ask Thee for grace to learn and hold fast the deep spiritual truths Thou hast revealed in making holy the Sabbath day. Thy purpose in man's creation is to show forth Thy Holiness, and make him partaker of it. Oh, teach me to believe in Thee as God my Creator and Sanctifier, to believe with my whole heart that th esame Almighty power which gave the sixth-day blessing of creation, secures to us the seventh-day blessing of sanctification. Thy will is our sanctification.

And teach me, Lord, to understand better how this blessing comes. It is where Thou enterest to rest and refresh and reveal Thyself that Thou makest holy. O my God! may my heart be Thy resting-place. I would in the stillness and confidence of a restful faith, rest in Thee, believing that Thou doest all in me. Let such fellowship with Thee, and Thy love, and Thy will be to me the secret of a life of holiness. I ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus, in whom Thou has sanctified us. Amen."


Agapetos
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 8:45 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

June 13, 2007

For a brief, frightening moment the way I was thinking of the effects of Your rest sounded the same as that magic desire-to-do-right that I'd always hoped to attain in Adventism.

So I asked, What's the difference? And my spirit (and/or Yours) replied, My rest springs from knowing He finished it all on the Cross.

And I just cried. Even now my heart is moved and I have tears in my eyes. Your sacrifice of Yourself, Your finishing of it all for me --my sins & everything necessary to make it to heaven, right with You-- You've done it all for me. I'm free! I'm so free!
Colleentinker
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Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 1:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Ramone, thank you so much for sharing with us this deepening "knowledge" of Sabbath rest you have experienced.

You are so right; Sabbath rest is complete—it's not just from our "salvation works", it's also from our sin and struggle just to live.

I remember when I went back into the classroom to teach 9th grade English in 1999. I was so overwhelmed with grading papers for over 120 students as well as FAF study, etc., that I thought I might completely "lose it". I distinctly remember thinking that Sabbath rest had to "work" in the places where my life was most out-of-control or it wasn't actually "real". So I asked God to give me Sabbath rest in the middle of all that franticness, to help me accomplish what I needed to do, and to help me let go of what was unnecessary.

God answered my prayer. During those five years of teaching, God kept me from being frantic. He helped me do what I needed to do, and He kept my heart peaceful. I remember asking Him to help me teach what needed to be taught and to help the kids learn what they needed to learn, because there was more content than time.

I still can't explain what He did, but He answered those prayers.

Ramone, your new experience with Sabbath rest is exactly what God intended for us. Jesus is so much greater than all our responsibilities and efforts. He is completely faithful—and He is giving you His rest! The Sabbath can never equal Him. This reality you're experiencing is so much greater than the Sabbath could ever be.

Colleen

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