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From Running To Rest
10 Comments | Posted by Lionel Woods in Genesis, Hebrews, Law, Matthew, Mercy, Obedience, Salvation
Today’s reading gives us some disturbing details into the life of Jacob and his 12 sons (the deception, killing, Reuben sleeping with his brother’s mother) and then we see three deaths. Yet in spite of that I name this “From Running to Rest”! Why?
Well, Jacob finally finds rest. He can no longer run, his deception, lies, and trickery have finally come to an end, he has been afflicted by YAWEH and now is the time of reconciliation, he must face his past. What a picture of God’s grace. We see Jacob meeting up with Esau and there is reconciliation, we see him meeting up with Isaac and there is reconciliation and now we see Jacob back in the land of his fathers, the place God has told him to go. We even see a picture of intercession as Jacob buries the false gods of his loved ones and builds an alter to the Most High. Jacob has finally found rest for his feet, his household and his soul!
In our New Testament reading we see another rest. Jesus says “come to me… and I will give you rest”. What is odd about Jesus’ statement is the paradoxical nature of it. You see He says “take my yoke… for it is easy and light”. Now if you know what a yoke is, niether a picture of rest oreasy and light will ever cross your mind. Seeing a mule or an ox yoked up has never produced a picture of rest in my mind. Not to mention when we think of rest we usually don’t think of being “controlled” we think of freedom. A yoke is for the sole purpose of directing and controlling and subduing for the benefit of the person who has control of the yoke.
However, Jesus says putting on His yoke yields the fruit of rest! Often times we hear “I will come to God when I am ready” (usually that means the commands of Jesus are taxing, hard or laboring) people think they have rest or freedom, yet they have bondage and are constantly running from person to person, thing to thing, drug to drug only to never find “rest”.
Jesus is our rest. In Christ we are even told “we rest from all of our works” (Hebrews 4:10), outside of Christ there is no rest and no freedom once we take on His yoke only then can we rest and we can be assured that wherever He takes us will be for our own good.
But there is one more rest I want to remind us who know Christ about. That is the rest from legalism. Many of us today are busy, we are running, we are working hard to please God, yet we never feel at peace, we never feel secure and we never feel rested. It is always improve, try harder, dig deeper, obey more, and then and only then will God be satisfied, yet we ache with condemnation, a sense of failure, an unworthiness. However, Jesus gives us a different picture. When we come to Christ and yield to Him it produces the fruit of rest (rest embodies, peace, serenity, joy, comfort). We can rest from our effort and trust that God’s wrath has been satisfied and that He loves us because of His Son. To be even more frank apart from resting in Christ, we can’t satisfy the Father, Jesus tells us “unless you become like one of these little ones, you can not enter the Kingdom of God”. So today if you are in Christ find rest in His work, if you are outside of Christ find rest in Christ. Don’t be crippled like Jacob for trying to run. He walked with a sign of God’s sovereignty until he was buried with his fathers, let experience be the wisdom of fools.
10 Comments for From Running To Rest
Hutch | January 14, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Hutch | January 14, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Make that Great post, I’m not sure what a Greta post is!
Javetta | January 14, 2010 at 3:36 pm
When I was at the height of my struggle with legalism, I could not figure out why I had no peace in my relationship with God. I was “working” and not seeing any results. Even though I had been working hard, I still knew I had not done enough to be considered “righteous.” I knew I had to work harder at developing a consistent prayer life, stop thinking negative thoughts about others, and do more good for the less fortunate (just to name a few). I knew what the scriptures said about my imputed righteousness, yet I did not see myself as righteous.
Then one day I read this phrase, “Your righteousness has nothing to do with you and everything to do with Christ. To forge your own righteousness is to erase Christ from the scene at Calvary and make His entire life a lie.” That plainly put, a light came on and I finally understood.
Hutch | January 15, 2010 at 8:03 am
Don’t be crippled like Jacob for trying to run….maybe it is important for us to be crippled by God…I feel like over the past 3-5 years that I have been wrestling with God and that He has pinned me down and crippled me…now I know experiencially what I used to know only doctrinally that in my weakness, God’s strength is perfected in me, that in my utter dependacy on Christ, He uses me to reach and minister to those who are not impressed by my “strength”-my trying to manipulate and control the situation(s).
Author comment by Lionel Woods | January 15, 2010 at 8:14 am
Hutch,
Man you could be so right brother.
chas pike | January 15, 2010 at 2:13 pm
there is something buried here (no pun intended) which i think bears further examination; the slaughter of the shechemites. in gen 34, a marriage is arranged between hamar and dinah. jacob will only allow shechem to marry his daughter if all of the men in their tribe agree to circumcision. they agree, and while they are recovering from the ritual, the sons of jacob come into town, slaughter all of the men and take the women and children as plunder. what??
here we have the first gentiles brought into the covenant, and they are betrayed and slaughtered. this is the family who was created to be a light to the world and bring all closer to God, and the first outsiders brought into the gig are stomped out like cock roaches.
i would like you to hold this story and this thought in mind, and then examine the gospel of john, chapter 4. here Jesus makes his trek from jerusalem to galilee via samaria. i know that in matthew when Jesus sends out the disciples he tells them to avoid samaria, but in john he goes there and something wonderful happens. now in john, among other things, Jesus is fulfilling the vision of amos 9:11 and is restoring david’s fallen tent. later in the chapter he changes the lives of a family from herod’s household, and herod is an edomite. but i get ahead of myself.
samaria. Jesus goes to the well, the traditional place for the children of abraham to call out their wives. a kind of holy cruising grounds. and here Jesus calls out his bride. samaria was a part of israel, but was looked down upon by the israelites because when they were marched off into captivity by the assyrians, the assyrians miscegenated the samaritans blood line, mixing it with gentile blood. the israelites saw them as degenerate bastards unfit to associate with, and no longer part of the tribe of israel. Jesus heads into this place where no rabbi would go, and calls out his bride. here at the well, by the former city of shechem, this flock of dispossessed are the first to recognize and accept Jesus as the messiah. here at the site where the first gentiles were brought into the covenant with jacob, and then murdered, Jesus calls out his bride, and the first to recognize him and worship him for who he really is, is the samaritans. the shechemites. does this mean anything? i dont know, but aint it interesting?
today’s reading from matthew is interesting, too. a rabbi’s system of teaching, which involved 24/7 supervision of his disciples as they learned from their master the ways of the prophets and the law, is called a yoke. so, yes we can use the image of the yoke that binds animals together to work as a team for this chapter, but dont we also have to visit this other interpretation as well?
i have some stuff to say about the idols taken from laban’s house, if any of you want to hear it…
thanks for the food.
Steve Scott | January 15, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Here’s something I never noticed before. The name “Israel” was used in Gen 34:7 before Jacob was renamed Israel by God in Gen 35:10. Any ideas as to why? Alan?
chas pike | January 15, 2010 at 4:08 pm
i believe this is means house of israel rather than nation. the name israel was established for the first time in gen 32:28.
Steve Scott | January 15, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Oh, yeah. I forgot what I read in the previous day’s reading. Nevermind.
chas pike | January 16, 2010 at 1:19 pm
tough to forge a discussion in christina circles when it pertains to the bible. i thought i should throw one more thing in here, just because there is so much going on, and so much unexamined. of course one could examine even the smallest parsha and still be pulling things out. i wont do a full introduction to the significance of the idols that were removed from laban’s house, although there is a great discussion in there. instead i want to just offer up an interesting reference for your consideration gen 31: 53, the words of laban: “..may the God of abraham, the God of nahor, the God of their father judge between us”. doesnt this imply a relationship between God and abraham’s father, terah? and, a relationship that extends back into time. they are descended from noah, who is still alive when abram is a child.
Greta post Lionel…like Charles always says “thanks for the food”.
It still cracks me up when I read how Jacob situated his family by putting the wife he really wanted and his favorite son at the rear farthest away from potential danger!
I also love how God put a great terror among the Canaanites so that they did not pursue and destroy Jacob and his family.
In the passage from MATT’s gospel, I also love how Jesus’ response to the incarcerated Baptizers doubt and inquiry is for them to tell John that they have seen Jesus do the things the Messiah would do when He came Isaiah 29:18-19-19 and Isaiah 35:1-10, it is interesting that Jesus offers no other explanation to John who no doubt was puzzled that he did not see the earthly political kingdom coming about that many of the Jews were looking for…and many Christian erroneously still seek to advance today.