6. WHEN HEAVEN TOUCHES EARTH

THE HEALING POWER OF SABBATH REST

​Over the last few weeks, we have looked at various aspects of Sabbath rest: the importance of taking time to stop and recalibrate; possible ingredients for a Sabbath break; its relationship to our trust in God’s provision, and Sabbath rest as a lifestyle. Today we conclude this series by looking at Sabbath rest as a gateway…

‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’
[Mark 6:31]

Taking Sabbath rest has many benefits: the opportunity to de-stress, be refreshed, build relationships, and spend time in nature, to name just a few. But it must be primarily about the presence of God to be true Sabbath. If it isn’t filled with the Lord’s Presence, it may be leisure, but it isn’t Sabbath. It may be therapeutic and re-creative, but if it hasn’t got a Heavenly dimension, it isn’t Sabbath.
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Sabbath is the time when Heaven touches earth. When we take true Sabbath rest, we step out of time for a while, and touch eternity. Sabbath is a gateway place.

​When Jacob dreamed of the ladder with the angels ascending and descending on it, his declaration afterwards was:

‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.
How awesome is this place!
This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of Heaven.’
[Genesis 28: 16]

It wasn’t a building he was talking about, it was a grassy hillside. Some of our Christian forefathers used to talk about ‘thin’ places, where Heaven seemed very close. These were often in natural borderlands: on the coast, or on mountain tops. It seems to me that Sabbath rest is one of those ‘places’, a borderland between time and eternity, a gateway to the Heavenly realms. In the deliberate setting aside of these moments, hours or days, as we turn the gaze of our hearts towards our Redeemer, we sanctify the time, put ourselves ‘in the way of God’, and invite His realm into ours.

And Sabbath is the time for miracles. We read that many of Jesus’ miracles of healing and deliverance were done on the Sabbath—which the religious folk around Him didn’t like because it upset all their ideas of appropriate behaviour! For them the Sabbath was a time for rules and proscriptions, for hedging people in, for paying dutiful respect to a far-off God. They failed to see that actually God was in their midst, and the Sabbath, in His eyes, was an opportunity for His realm to invade theirs, an opportunity for the powers of darkness to be driven back, an opportunity for people to be set free.
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As we develop a Sabbath lifestyle (see last post), let’s expect it to be a time when we profoundly experience the presence of God, a time when we see Heaven touch earth. In the Lord's presence, needs are met, prayers are answered, bodies are healed and souls are restored. Let's come to Him with expectant hearts, receiving from Him all the blessings He has for us; and giving to Him our praise and adoration.
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And let’s become people through whom the power of Sabbath rest flows, people who bring Sabbath rest in all its wonder, into a very needy world.

THIS WEEK'S GRACE RHYTHM

Take time to review this past series. Get quiet before the Lord, and ask Him how He wants you to respond...

NEXT WEEK:
NEW BLOG SERIES, 'CELEBRATE THE PRESENT'
Today is worth celebrating...

ALIVE AND GRATEFUL!

STARTING
​MONDAY 1ST JULY
ON THE
​HOMEPAGE

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[Photo credits: Sage Friedman (girl on seat); Jonny Gios (gateway); Alora Griffiths (girl in field);
Etienne Girardet (story display) @ Unsplash, with thanks]