REST

I can rest in the fact that the gospel is right from the beginning! Yes, that’s right, it is in Genesis 1 and 2. I had never seen this before. God’s wonderful plan has always been there! On the 7th day God rested from all His labors. His labors were done in the first 6 days and they were all good, very good, perfect! Right there we see that only God is good and He is very good – HE IS PERFECT!

Only God can do good and create that which is good and perfect
After God created, He ended His work; it was finished. ON the cross he ended His work, He stated: IT IS FINISHED! Once for all it was done!
The number 7 is a number of completion, a number of perfection. The perfect Lamb of God, God’s Son completed His work on earth through His sacrifice on the cross. His work was complete and it was perfect. There is no other way. Jesus only is THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE!
God was now at rest because He accepted the sacrifice of His only Son , Jesus Christ as our punishment for sin.

Oh how marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall ever ! Is my Savior’s love for me!

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I labored and tried my best to do good to earn God’s favor, but it didn’t and never will work for anyone. WE can NEVER do good. God labored for 6 days. The number 6 symbolizes man and human weakness,man’s rebellion against God; I tried to please God and make my own way to Him, until one day I realized that all my righteousness is as filthy rags.

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away

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I needed to get to day 7, the day of rest. I needed to enter into God’s rest and cease from all my labors. As a little girl, my friend and I would “weigh ourselves on God’s scale” to see if we were good enough to get to heaven. Like so many, I thought if I was good enough I could make it to heaven. But that doesn’t work. I and everyone will always fall short. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
I needed to come to grips with resting entirely on the fact that Jesus Christ did it all. He finished the work and there is nothing we can do. (Heb. 4:10 – He that entered into His rest hath ceased from his own works as God did from His)

It is humbling to accept that God came, in the person of Jesus, to live the way that we were created to live, but would never live, to die the death that each one of us deserves to die, and to rise out of the tomb, defeating sin and death because there was simply no other way. We had no power whatsoever to help ourselves out of our desperate state. -P.Tripp

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God blessed and sanctified the 7th day and when I realized that I could rest entirely upon the work of Jesus Christ, He saved me and began a work of sanctification in my life. Praise God!
Please won’t you enter into His rest? It’s a never ending rest. As I walk with Him and have times of falling away, I can get up 7 times and come back and rest. (Proverbs 24:16 For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again…)

Let Him give you rest. That rest is needed in so many ways. His rest is the peace of God which passes all understanding.

Rest in the fact of the finished work of Christ. He will save you by his grace when you believe. You can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God! His work is finished and none of us can boast about anything good we can do to earn His favor. (Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.)

Rest in the fact that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

I’ve anchored my soul in the “Haven of Rest,”
I’ll sail the wide seas no more;
The tempest may sweep over wild, stormy, deep,
In Jesus I’m safe evermore.
-Henry L. Gilmour, pub.1890