The spiritual significance of entering into God’s rest and being acquainted with its fruit is a satisfaction we should seek. We want this rest in our life, circumstances, and context.

I define my context simply as the time, ethnicity, and location the Lord has placed me in. By knowing the proper place of my context, I am able to better focus on the realitiy of God and entering into his rest. His rest is peace. His rest is flourishing.

Serving from my context in God’s rest and by believing in the sabbath and grace that God has ordained, allows a type of life that is truly a living gift. In this rest, God allows me to participate in and partner with Him in His creation. This reality transforms service to being contained in my context to extending beyond my current timespan. Entering into His rest becomes eternal as it is attached to the one who is eternal.

Ceasing and resting are the terms I’ve grown to use on how I explain being led by the spirit, the power of God, and experiencing the fruit of the Spirit. It is a delight state of mind. It is Eden.

Eden Transcends time and space

Being in the root, i.e. the Tree of life, enables our contextual service to extend beyond ourselves and have lasting impacts. Impacts that can be seen in other places and times. For example, the work God did through Martin Luther 500 years ago was in his context, yet this work extends beyond those temporal perceived barriers impacting many and even societies today. And a more scriptural example:

– 10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, 11 seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look. – 1 Peter 1:10-12

Speaking of Martin Luther, reminds me of the story of Mikael the Deacon:

Martin Luther spoke with and wrote about Michael the Deacon. Michael was from Ethiopia who visited Luther 17 years after Luther posted the 95 theses. Though Ethiopia had Christianity for over 1,000 years before that meeting. It is still very poignant information for western societies who unknowingly minimize Christianity’s survival in the African and Eastern contexts.

My thoughts so far… Hopefully you enjoy.

• spiritual
• sabbath
• shabbot
• no
• cease