Daily Devotional For Friday, November 24, 2023
Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I pray yours was awesome and thankful. We had a great time being with Audrey’s family in the Charlotte area. We drove up, was with family and drove back all in one day. We enjoyed it but we are exhausted. We are getting ready to enter into the busiest next four weeks of our lives. We decorate our houses Innside and out, spend money buying and then wrapping them into gifts we put under a tree. We cook and bake.
Jesus Christ offers us rest during these days. Jesus said this in Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest” (GNT). I love that and need that because that is just the opposite of what most people think of God. Most people view Jesus Christ as One who gives us more rules to follow, more regulations to obey and more rituals to perform. That is a lie. Jesus Christ came to give us a relationship to Him in our lives today and for all eternity.
Most people are already exhausted and now they are going to exert what little energy they have left to celebrate the Christmas holidays. The reason we run out of fuel, energy and get fatigue and stressed from these holidays is because we are trying to do it all in our own strength. God never intended for us to live life this way. There is a Persian proverb that says this: “A bow continually bent will eventually snap.”
We snap in our patience or lack of patience with others. Our health snaps. We snap emotionally and we snap physically. We feel we are too tired to even have a daily devotional time with God. We see it as another time on our daily “To Do List” rather than spending time with our heavenly Father who wants to replenish our batteries.
God says In Jeremiah 31:25, “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint” (NIV). We certainly need this promise from God in our lives over the next month. If you feeling frustrated, stressed, down, weary, exhausted, worried, fatigued and anxious — call out to God. In the Ten Commandments, we are commanded to take a Sabbath Day’s rest!
Why? For rest — a Sabbath Day’s rest is not given to us by God so we can catch up and finish things we re behind completely. Nor is it for trying to get ahead. It is solely for rest. When we get our salvation through Jesus Christ’s grace, we also find and receive rest from the debilitating aspects of work — especially the the feeling that we have to work for our salvation and rest from establishing our own worth through our own efforts to obtain and sustain our salvation.
We can use a Sabbath Day to get rest though fishing, golfing, reading a book, prayer, journaling, solitude, listening to music, and meditation. The Bible says this in Hebrews 4:9-11, “So there is a special rest[f] still waiting for the people of God. 10For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. 11So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall” (NLT). This Christmas season, Jesus Christ offers you rest. Take it.
Gd knew how we would resist to do this. Of all of the Ten Commandments, this commandment is the longest. Look at it in Exodus 20:8-11, “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9You have six days each week for your ordinary work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. 11For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy” (NLT).
It is also important that you get adequate sleep. A third of US adults report that they usually get less than the recommended amount of sleep. Not getting enough sleep is linked with many chronic diseases and conditions—such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and depression—that threaten one’s health.
Verse To Meditate On: Isaiah 40:29, “He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I need to learn to trust You with rest and not trying to burn the candles at both ends. Doing that does not make me as bright as I think I am. I can’t honor You and be holy if I do not keep holy what You call holy. Jesus, convict me to get adequate sleep and to take a Sabbath to rest. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
Love you, Pastor Kelly