Fasting from Ourselves - Sabbath Rest

Are you tired of being tired? Maybe you have a lot of stress in your life, bills, unfinished home repairs, children who need help or attention. The daily pressures of life can press upon us, the desire to serve the Lord and be active and faithful at church can squeeze us. The weight of the world to improve our abilities, get fit, eat better food, exercise daily, spend quality time with our families, honor fashion trends, and then share our lives on social media can crush the life out of us.

As a leader in the American prayer movement I understand why some people run and hide when people like me, people whom they feel are going to burden them with one more Christian requirement, come around. The truth is that I do want people to pray and to pray more. I also want them to understand how life, spiritual life, is a balance. The simple truth of the math is we can’t do everything. OK that may not be true. Life eternal will give us more time, more strength, more skill, so maybe we can do everything, but not with the life and time we have on earth. Those who want to “do it all” might need to follow Jesus to make that happen.

 

The balance comes, not by trying to balance all the things we want to do and the things God wants us to do. The balance comes by doing all that God wants us to do and learning the joyful skill of denying ourselves and following Him (Luke 9:23). Balance is the ability to walk upright, to not stumble and fall, and to navigate life without tripping over all the temptations and trials that we traverse. “Balance” is the ability to stay upright and straight. “Balanced” has to do with proportions, taking everything into account and elements of quantity. I know I am twisting the ordinary meaning of the words, but that’s the point. We have had Satan and the world twist us. We don’t need a little of everything, we do not need proper proportions in order to find fullness of joy and life in Christ Jesus. We are members of a family and of a Kingdom and as members, we all have part.

Every Christian should have the word “part” or “parts” highlighted, underlined and circles in their Bibles. It is one of the world that is small in size and enormous in concept, like the word “but.” But I want to stay focused on “part” right now. “Part” is the word that allows us to walk the life of faith, to follow Jesus, to enjoy life and to delight ourselves in the Lord. Happiness, excitement, wonder and awe are a part of what we get when we live life, “in part.” The opposite of the “life in part” is a life of trying to do everything, seeking to keep people happy, laboring to meet endless needs, managing yourself for production and trying to use the “love of God” as a self-identifier.

Ok, so enough of trying to get you interested in what I want to say. The marketing is over and it’s time for the pitch. Isaiah 58 is a chapter in the Bible that deals with fasting and the kind of fast that God is looking for. If you can pull off this fast, God has given some specific promises; at least He gave those promises to the people of Israel in Isaiah’s time. We need to ask, seek and knock ourselves to see who God is for us and what He will do in our time and with our lives. But the nature of God is sure and I am confident that if we practice what Jesus and God preached, we will walk a wonderful life of balance. That balance and wisdom is found in the passage below. As you read look for “seeking your own pleasures and speaking your own word.” Ask yourself if the kind of Sabbath the Christian is to practice is ….

•      Loving God who loves me
•      Honoring God by having a day of tribute and focus on Him
•      Having a weekly special event where God is Lord and I celebrate that with a meal (communion) and singing (worship and praise) and testimonies of what He has done and donations into His fund
•      A day when I recognize that I am sick of myself (my best is still broken and my righteousness still selfish) and I want to give up what I am in hopes of being something I am not yet.
•      A day of pure delights.

Isa 58:13-14 NASB

 13   "If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word,

 14   Then you will take delight in the LORD, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

I’m becoming a big fan of “fasting myself.” This morning I sat on my porch swing to spend some time in prayer and I found myself mainly worried about money, future events, struggling relationships, car repairs, and my needs for significance. Then in a moment of grace and revelation I did what I want you to do, at least once a week, fast yourself.

I turned away from all the things “I need” and my inability to change my world, and I rested in the presence of God who loves me and cares for me. My asking went from needing to trusting, my fears started to be bombarded by faith, my need for planning and management was replaced with a heart to listen and obey. Life went from overwhelming to good in a moment. Nothing has changed and yet everything had changed. Rod was decreased, God increased. My life was removed from the center of my life and Jesus was ushered into the center. Everything was reduced to little parts, I was encouraged to do mine and the King eternal was going to do His. It was a great fast!

So I want to use my experience, repeated experience, and Scripture to see if this may be a way you too can come into balance. In the New Testament book of Hebrews the author is writing to Christians. The old traditions of Israel have been fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and new traditions are being installed by the Holy Spirit. The author is talking about a “promise of entering into God’s rest.” Gentiles who were not practicing a Sabbath were reading a revelation about how to avoid hard heartedness and wrath.  Nations new to the faith were being schooled on faith, so that the good news of God and His rest might become a part of their walk.

Heb 4:1-11 NASB

 1   Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.

 2   For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.

 3   For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, "AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST," although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.

 4   For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: "AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS";

 5   and again in this passage, "THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST."

 6   Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,

 7   He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS."

 8   For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.

 9   So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

 10   For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

 11   Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.

There is a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Maybe “works” means all our works, all our efforts, striving, planning, and conniving. OK, so you may not connive, but do your worry, fret, have anxiety, stress, fear, and depression. Maybe we don’t know it but could it be that our grumbling, complaining, quarrels, feelings of being rejected, abandoned and dishonored are the result of “no rest?”  Worn out and fatigued by life we need rest.

Have you ever read Psalms 23? God “makes us” lie down, crouch, fall down onto green pastures. Most of us are not thinking of ourselves when we are truly resting. A restful vacation is usually one of beholding beauty, nature, and others. A restful night’s sleep is one of thoughts, but not thinking about yourself. I think the Sabbath rest is a great day, of day of fasting me from me and enjoying God. The more I learn to delight myself in God the less I feel the need to delight myself in me. Help me Father in heaven to see my fears and turn in faith to you. Guide me so that I live a life of balance and not a life of endless striving. The next time you are struggling with negative thoughts try a little fasting of the self to heal the soul.

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