No Time to Rest

We have all been there at one point in our lives. Whether we were Christians at the time, or not, we have all been worn down by life to where we wondered what is the point of it all. For many of us it is at these times that we have sought the comfort that comes from the pages of scripture. I don’t know if there is a statistic that measures it, but I wonder how many people have made it through those tough times by reading the words of Jesus?

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11: 28-30

Hearing Jesus, who is God in the flesh, invite anybody and everybody to seek rest through salvation in Him is hard to pass up. In many ways passages like this, from the Gospel of Matthew, serve as a foundational scripture that brings the lost to faith in Christ and, at the same time, helps a believer stay focused on Who is the author and finisher of their faith. I think we can forget that it is Jesus that put the Christ in Christian. There are plenty of distractions from the world and within Christianity that get our focus off of the Lord. The world offers everything under the sun from the pursuit of health and happiness to fame and fortune, which works to distract us from the rest offered in Christ. But, unfortunately, portions of Christianity offer up their own sort of distractions like the following:

1) It makes the Christian life a "mental" phenomena, isolated from the "real" experiences of Christians who struggle.

2) It makes "salvation" nothing more than "feeling management" through cognitive recognition of "beliefs".

3) It is part and parcel of the schizo theology of Latin Christendom that continues to divorce the head (i.e. the mind) from the heart (i.e. man's conscience and spiritual center). Is it any wonder that "mental illness" has become such a phenomena in the West/westernized countries?

4) As a consequence, man/woman obtains new beliefs that have little power to help change his or her actual life. What's worse, these "beliefs" make it so it's not even necessary to change your life at all (i.e. repent)!!

5) Ultimately, this theological system makes it impossible to make any sense of the Bible because it assumes a single interpretation of the Gospel: the legal/juridical model.

6) There are many models of understanding God's relationship to man, other than the legal/juridical model: like the Therapeutic model (i.e. God as Great Physician, humanity as sick/suffering patients and the Church as the Hospital). This was the view of much of the early, Post-Apostolic writings of the Church Fathers. But it's also the view of scripture.

7) Because of the legal/juridical model, Latin Christians drive themselves nuts just trying to figure out if they really are "Christian" or not. That's based upon the observations made in my first 5 points, just listed above.

These "Seven Commandments" were offered up by a believer who disagrees with the finished work of Christ on the cross. In other words, they are saying that the rest Christ offers the entire world is really no rest at all. In fact, this individual says the finished work leads to such things as mental illness, of all things. So, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ was not to take away our sins so He could offer us His life as a free gift. This person is saying that all Christ accomplished for us is that we have to spend the rest of our lives figuring out all the vague and open-ended ideas they put forth. Each one of these seven points made could be an endless discussion as to what they mean and how one fulfills them. Feelings management, Latin Christendom, no repentance, impossible to make sense of the Bible, legal/juridical model, therapeutic model and post-apostolic writings? You tell me what will lead to mental illness, resting in Christ or trying to figure out this litany of confusing topics? After reading all this I am left wondering about this persons salvation. Granted, only God knows the heart, but what gospel did this person accept that encourages them to proclaim all this error?

"As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm."1 Timothy 1: 3-7

When we fail to understand the finished work of Christ and the rest He offers all who put faith in Him, we are left to fill in the blanks with our own wisdom. The result is false doctrines and controversies which pull us away from His rest. What we are doing is creating a heavy burden for ourselves, not the one offered by Christ. His burden is light because He is the one carrying it. Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. God is not the author of confusion or the father of lies. Therefore, when we disobey Him, by not resting, we are forcing ourselves to establish our own righteousness in the energy of our own flesh. All we end up with is endless lists, opinions and a myriad of unanswered questions. We never grow, never understand anything and definitely never rest, because there is always one more thing to do or question to answer. When the work of Jesus was finished He sat down at the right hand of God the Father indicating His work was done. Since we are in Him, our work is done as well. The Christian life is about learning to trust God, in Christ, by resting. It is not about working to establish our own righteousness through the proclamation of the foolish wisdom of the world.