The Sword of the LORD

"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God."   (Hebrews 4:9)   It is very rewarding, after spending hours mowing and trimming the grass, edging around the walkways, and mulching the flower beds, to sit down with a cold drink in hand and rest from one's labors.   It is good also, after feeling the stress and activity of one's job all year long, to just get away on vacation and relax for a time.   Such times of rest are all the sweeter to us because we feel that we have earned them by our labors.   God has a different rest that He has promised to His people, though. In the Old Testament (under the old covenant), God commanded the Israelites to cease from all their work and rest every seventh day of the week.   "But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for i

In his let the Ephesians, the apostle Paul expresses an important principle about acceptance. He tells us, " He [God] hath made us accepted in the Beloved [Jesus] ." (Ephesians 1:6) We all crave acceptance in our lives. We want to be accepted by our parents, our boss, our co-workers, our friends, our classmates, our fellow church members, our spouses, or the world in general.   The approval that we seek, however, is all based on our own efforts and accomplishments; and the measure that we use is someone else's expectation of us, and not God's.   This can be a very deceptive trap to some.   Instead of allowing ourselves to be transformed into the image of our Lord and Savior, we become conformed to what someone else thinks we should be; and then there are those who we just can't please no matter how hard we try.   Later on in his letter, Paul makes a distinction between being men-pleasers and doing the will of God from the heart.   (6:6)   He