Sabbath Keeping
Part V - Fleshly Legalism Brings Death, The Spirit Brings Life
by Sandy Mauck
Everything that Yahoshua would try to teach, the Pharisees wanted to take into the realm of the flesh. They were supposed to be spiritual but they were really flesh.
Our precious Lord taught us over and over to stop looking at the fleshly aspects of things; instead, look at the spiritual. The spiritual man is that which is important. He called them on it concerning everything they said to him. Over and over He purposely healed on the sabbath so they could see that their hearts were flesh and not spirit.
When the man at the pool of Bethesda was healed, He told him to pick up his bed. This of course freaked the Pharisees out as they were making their sabbath keeping rounds. When they got after the guy, he told it like it was. (In my words) The guy that healed me told me to do it - why should I NOT do what He says!
That is the message. We can tithe and do all the stuff according to the law but God is a heart changer. When people want to bring you under legalism, one legalistic thing becomes another, and so on. Why? Because it is a trap. Religion is a trap. Many of us grew up in very religious churches and they had all their traditions that they did. Did it bring forth life? No, of course not, it brought death.
It was in the heart of our God to send His Son to show the world the heart of the matter. If you look back to the reasoning of the beginning of the sabbath, it wasn't so much for the rest of the Hebrews but that those people would NOT put others under slavery as they had been. He knew them. He knew they were hard hearted even before they manifested it in the wilderness.
And we are all the same. Not one of us is pure in ourselves. We are all flesh. Our only righteousness is in our Savior who paid the price for our sins. Don't tempt God with legalism - HE HATES IT!
Does He want us to rest physically? Of course, but He wants us to be led by His Holy Spirit in all things. The Holy Spirit might tell you to rest for a week or a month or a year! But the bottom line is that HE IS OUR REST. An all encompassing precious concept of the Spirit of the Living God! He paid for it. We can now rest in that!