What do you do during the “in-between”? When all you have is a promise? We remember on Good Friday, and celebrate on Resurrection Sunday. But what do we do on the Saturday in-between? What do you do while you are waiting for the promise to be fulfilled, when everything in the natural seems to say “it’s over.”? Here’s a thought: ENTER GOD’s REST.

At the end of Luke chapter 23, after Jesus was crucified and buried, we read about the women who had followed Jesus and seen Him crucified and then buried. Then we read this about them:  Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath…”

Jesus was dead. They themselves could do nothing to change anything. They didn’t get frantic and try to dig up the grave. They RESTED in faith. True rest is when you are fully persuaded that God is working while you are trusting Him, even when all you can see in the natural is a grave.

I am fully convinced that Jesus fulfilled all the law regarding the Old Testament sabbath and sabbath keeping.  The details of the OT sabbath laws (just like all the others) were impossible for anyone to keep fully. The OT sabbath was “a shadow of the good things to come,” but the reality / fulfilment / substance is Christ Himself. ” (Col 2:16-17). Through faith in Christ, we find true rest in Him.

Our sabbath as new testament believers is not one day in seven, but everyday in Jesus.

Sabbath rest is the Hebrew word sabat, which means “to rest or stop or cease from work.” We can only be saved by His work, not ours. By grace through faith, not by our works. I believe that it is good to have a rhythm of rest for your body and soul – even one in seven – but please don’t mistake this for having any value for finding true rest, which is only through faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:9-11).

While everything seemed over, The women rested on the next day, waiting for the promise of the resurrection to be fulfilled.

If your life season right now seems to be in the dark between death/burial and resurrection, I want to encourage you today to enter the rest of Jesus, because His promises are sure, and signed off guaranteed by His resurrection from the dead. Here’s a 2 minute video message with my thoughts on this…

MORE REST: For more of my thoughts on “entering God’s rest, see here.