Book Review:
THE REST OF GOD: Restoring Your Soul By Restoring Sabbath - book by Marck Buchanan
- by Grace Wiebe, Summer, 2007
The
Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul Be Restoring Sabbath -
For more info: http://markbuchanan.net/books/
(Editor's Note)…Many (or perhaps most?) of us continue to experience God's on-going transformation of our thinking and paradigms as we increasingly journey with Him into the new things He is leading us into as His Church. It seems He is having us re-evaluate everything according to Scripture and not tradition. Some of the commands which were intended by the Lord to be life-giving, have often become lifeless religious rituals, such as how many have come to look at and respond to 'the Sabbath day'.
I believe that one of the major things the Holy Spirit is calling us into in this season is into a much deeper place of REST in Him - on all levels, the rest it is clear that we are called to enter into in order to truly be able to see Him fulfill His purposes in and through us as He brings us into greater maturity as we are increasingly filled to the measure of the fullness of God. (Eph. 3, 4).
So much of Scripture is about us learning to rest/trust in Him rather than depending on ourselves or on other things.
Heb 4:2 (NIV) "…but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.3Now we who have believed enter that rest…9There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience…"
Mark's book encouraged me to look at the Sabbath in a new
way and has inspired me to look forward to the Sabbath with anticipation and
eagerness, since I understand God's life-giving intentions for it better,
rather than it being another one of the long list of do's and don'ts I was
raised with (which God seems to keep stripping away as He continues to uproot
religiousity from my heart), as many of you also likely experienced in how
you felt about the sabbath. I believe your hearts will be encouraged, as well.
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From the book cover: "Most of us feel utterly ransacked: we're waylaid by endless demands and stifling routines. Even our vacations have a panicky, task-like edge to them. "If I only had more time," is the mantra of our age.
But is this the real problem?
Widely acclaimed author Mark Buchanan states that what
we've really lost is "the rest of God-the rest God bestows and, with
it, that part of himself we can know only through stillness." Stillness
as a virtue is a foreign concept in our society, but there is wisdom in God's
own rhythm of work and rest. Sabbath is elixir and antidote. It is a gift
for our sanity and wholeness-to prolong our lives, to enrich our relationships,
to increase our fruitfulness, to make our joy complete. Jesus practiced Sabbath
among those who had turned it into a dismal thing, a day for murmuring and
finger-wagging, and he reminded them of the day's true purpose: liberation-to
heal, to feed, to rescue, to celebrate, to lavish and relish life abundant."
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Canadian House Church Resource Network