COMING UNTO CHRIST…

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t’s understandable that mainstream Christianity religious doctrines can’t satisfy one’s inward hunger for God or make one move closer to God. Christians are supposed to be growing spiritually each day; however, most are struggling only to maintain the little moral life they achieved when they first joined the organizational church so that they won’t “miss the rapture”. However, it’s time for us to enter a new chapter in our walk with God; we aren’t called to narrowly escape hell, but to put every enemy including sin and death under our feet (1Cor 15:26, 50-56). Now The Lord is calling us to rise up above the religious realm unto highest level of light in Christ…

COME UNTO ME, all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you REST (Mat11:28).

The evangelical Christians only use the above verse to recruit people into their religious organization; however, the expression “COME UNTO ME” is an eternal command and just like every other scripture, “COMING UNTO JESUS” has an inner and outer meaning. For instance, we can interpret it to mean Jesus calling sinners unto repentance, but that’s just a basic interpretation, the term “come unto me” has a much deeper meaning. Jesus Christ dwells in the highest spiritual degree of holiness, sinlessness, power, glory and immortality in God (1Tim 6:15-16) and that’s the exact SPIRITUAL LEVEL where He is, and calling those who have true faith in Him to come up spiritually and sit with him at the right hand of God (Heb12:2). To sit at God’s right hand doesn’t mean that God is sitting on a physical throne in the astral world and Christ is sitting beside Him. The Greek word that translates “right hand” is “Doxa” meaning, glory, magnificence, equal honor, praise, respect etc. The expression “Jesus Christ is sitting at the right hand of God” simply means that Christ has attained glory or equal honor with God. The Lord promised that the over-comers will also sit with him on his throne, even as he also overcame and sat with the Father on His throne (Rev 3:21). Many believers will enter “heavens” but not all of us will reach the spiritual height where Jesus Christ reigns (Mat 20:20-23). “Coming unto Christ” is more than repeating the so called “sinner’s prayer”, going to meet Christ is a constant inner (spiritual) migration towards holiness in God. We are to purify ourselves from sin each day to perfect holiness out of reverence for God (2Cor.7:1-2). In “Mathew 23” we learned from the parable of the ten virgins that when the virgins took their lamps (which represents the word of God (Prov 6:23)) they did not stand still in one spot waiting for the bridegroom to come and receive them as most of us are waiting for “the rapture”, the scripture says that they both went forth to meet the bridegroom. Meeting the bridegroom spiritually means conformity to the image of Christ, and the movement of the ten virgins represents inward journey to sinless perfection and immortality in God.

OUR TRUE REST IN CHRIST JESUS

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he “Rest” Jesus promised to give those who come unto him is beyond having physical protection or rest of mind, it isn’t receiving material blessings such as having good jobs, a happy marriage, children, houses, cars and so forth. Jesus was a Jew, and he spoke Hebrew. The Hebrew word that is translated “rest” is the word “Sabbath” which is derived from the verb shavat, the Modern Hebrew word for Sabbath is shevita, which means “to cease from work" or “a labor strike”. Just as the water baptism in Christianity symbolizes the outward demonstration of the inward purification, under the Old Testament, Sabbath was given to the Jews as a sign of the spiritual rest that God has reserved for everyone of us in Christ Jesus (Ex 31:12-13). Paul the apostle said,

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” (Col 2:16-17)

When something is said to be a sign or shadow, it means that the reality exists somewhere. The physical rituals that the Jews observe as the Sabbath is nothing but an outward demonstration of a future spiritual rest that God has ordained for all saints in Christ. As long as we agree that the Old Testament foreshadows the New Testament, the New Testament Sabbath is spiritual and has nothing to do with a physical day, it is neither Saturday nor Sunday, but a life in the spirit or a state of being (Sabbath is a Spiritual State of Permanent Perfection and Immortality in God). We must recognize that our day of rest is yet to come…

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 (Hebrew 4:9-11).

Without obtaining permanent perfection and immortalization of our earthly body, our rest is not completed. We (the church) must continue to grow in the spirit until our mortal body has been clothed with immortality, when the perishable puts on the imperishable, then shall we cease from all of our labor and remain forever in the sabbatical realm with the Lamb of God. (I Cor, 15:50-56, II Cor, 5:1-8) As long as we remain in our earthly tabernacle (our perishable body), no one can boast of having complete rest. Our daily life in the mortal flesh is a warfare which will continue until we crucify our outward man and Christ is resurrected fully in us (I Cor, 15:31, II Cor, 10:10-14). I believe that no one among us can testify that his own warfare is over. It is childish to regard a physical day as Sabbath; a spiritual man should understand that there was no commandment of Sabbath in the Garden of Eden until man fell into sin. The reason was that Adam and Eve were partially partaking in the sabbatical realm, there was neither sin nor death in them. Sin and death came into the world as a result of their disobedience (Rom 5:21). It would be foolish of us (the new testament believers) to join the Jews in keeping the symbolic Sabbath, for the Jews will come into full realization one day and acknowledge that Sabbath was given to them as a symbol of life to come through Jesus Christ (Ex 31:16 Col 2:16-17). Can any Jew or Christian say that he has experienced complete rest from labor, sin, war, terror and death? The physical Sabbath can only help to relax the mortal body while the battle continues within. Only the Sabbath in Christ Jesus can offer us true rest whereby our spirit soul and body will be purified and remain permanently in the state of sinlessness, joy, peace and everlasting life. As long as we need to make daily confessions of sin and work at living a holy life, we have not fully come into our rest. We should keep growing while cleansing ourselves daily from sin until we experience sinlessness in our mortal body and cross over to join the mystical Sabbath church.