“Remember the command that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you after he said, ‘The LORD your God will give you rest by giving you this land.”
Joshua 1:13 (NIV)
As the Israelites prepare to cross the Jordan and enter into the promised land, Joshua repeats the command of Moses to the tribe of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, recorded in Deuteronomy 3.
As we prepare to turn our minds to our Lord’s great invitation to give us rest as we come to Him and take His yoke upon us, I want us to realize that rest and possession of the land go hand in hand in the Scriptures, and the Jewish people listening to Jesus would have understood His invitation as an invitation to obey Him and receive from him the possession of their land.
I think sometimes that we think of spiritual rest as no work, and yet what this text teaches is that spiritual rest comes from possessing the land God gives you, and possession of the land takes work – does it not – and yet both rest and possession are a gift from God.
Our verse teaches that rest is a gift from God, just as surely as our land is a gift from God.
If rest does not mean no work, then what does rest mean?
Well it means that God Himself gives you the ability to live a fruitful life in the place He has given you. That you will bear fruit in your family, in your workplace and in your school
and neighbourhood.
and neighbourhood.
Now I realize than many of the spiritual songs we sing and teachers we listen to have taught us for years that the Israelites crossing the Jordan into promised land where they found rest, finds its parallel in a New Testament context, when a Christian dies and enters heaven, and so there is a question in our minds as to the validity of teaching that the parallel to the Israelites possessing their land is us living fruitful lives in the places where God has placed us.
So I point out Hebrews 3 and 4 to you, and ask you to read them and realize that there is a place of Sabbath rest for Christians and it is a place we enter through faith.
That for me to experience rest in Christ enables me to truly possess my role in my family as a Christian husband and father, or put the other way to truly possess my role in my family requires me to find my spiritual rest in Christ.
As I read this I think some will consider it to be double talk. And yet I know that those of us who have entered into this spiritual rest are the only ones who are truly possessing their land. They stand out among us, the ones who exude godliness, the ones who are the spouses and parents God wants them to be, the ones who live their Christian lives in victory and peace despite their circumstances.
We sometimes talk about playing the hand life dealt us- when we really should be saying live the life God has placed us in to its fullest. This is a particular challenge for those who have lost a loved one, or who have suffered from illness or financial harm, or even family breakdown, and yet when we surrender our situation to Christ, commit our way unto Him and seek His grace to possess this life to its fullest, only then will we experience rest, and only then we will truly possess.
May we be those who have entered into our spiritual rest in Christ, who truly possess this life God has given us!
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