Genesis 2:1-3 – Enjoy and maintain a good Sabbath Rest

God completed His creation in six days. Genesis states categorically that He created the heavens and the earth. Things did not just evolve as the theory of evolution would have us to believe. The formless and chaotic mass on earth was transformed. Step by step God made the earth habitable and then filled it with the life forms. Plants, sea creatures, birds of the air and land animals were brought forth to add colour and spice to life. They were commissioned to multiply and fill the earth.

Man is God’s highest creation. He is the crown of all that God had made. Made in the image and likeness of God, man is His representative and left on earth to steward it. To function effectively, God gave man unusual ability and resource. So man could subdue and dominate the earth effectively. God knows that for man to always be at his peak, he not only needs to expend his energy, but he must also rest. So God set the pace by providing and instructing that a day be set apart for rest. It is true that no one can go on and on without rest. Studies had proven that people breakdown mentally and physically when they are made to work without a rest day in a week.      

Rest is critical to effectiveness for both spiritual and physical well-being. So God Himself set the pace and rested from His work on the seventh day. This rest day is known as the Sabbath. It is a day that finds its beginning in God and He hallowed it. He did it here as an example for us, to let us know that He Himself would enforce it.  Sabbath rest is needful for us. We must cease from all our work one day in a week to re-calibrate life and recreate our mind. It’s a day we set apart to honor God. A part of the day is best spent with God and the larger family of His people as we worship Him corporately. The remainder of that day should be responsibly spent so that we can find mental and physical equilibrium. Let’s be sure to keep the rest day and honor God as we honor our body and give it the much needed rest. God does not begrudge us. In fact He wants us to rest. And rest we must if we are to maintain life’s effective rhythm.

Here’s what Eugene Peterson, an author and pastor said concerning it. “Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us; it is about God, and how God forms us. It is not, in the first place, about what we do or don’t do; it is about God – completing and resting and blessing and sanctifying. These are all things that we don’t know much about……But it does mean stopping and being quiet long enough to see – open-mouthed – with wonder – resurrection wonder…..we cultivate the “fear of the Lord”. Our souls are formed by what we cannot work up or take charge of. We respond and enter into what the resurrection of Jesus continues to do.” Let’s obey and take the rest!