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Sabbath is “holy rest.” This happens in both community and when you are alone.  How can you build in Sabbath to your life?  Here are three ways:

Daily

• Find a comfortable spot; be still, read the Bible, and pray
• Journal about who God is, what God is doing, and how you feel
• Walk a little slower and ponder God while you do
• Notice the creation around you and think about the Creator
• Reflect on your day and praise God for the gospel

Weekly

• Go to church to gather with the saints to sing, pray, and hear the preached word
• Attend community group regularly
• Take devoted time to process the sermon apart from community group
• Take a lengthy quiet walk

Monthly

• Get away for half or full day of prayer and solitude
• Read Psalm 104 and be amazed at our gracious God
• Fast from all media (internet, FB, texting, TV, etc) for a half of full day

Ready to start your day off the right way?  Take a brief moment and think through each of these items:

1. Salvation draws near. This morning I am one day closer to seeing the Lord face-to-face, and closer to the day when all that is wrong and broken and rebellious will be made right and submissive. (“For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed”—Rom. 13:11).

2. God gives me new mercy. Every day I need God’s mercy, and when I awoke today there was a fresh supply of such necessary grace awaiting me. (“[God's] mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning”—Lam. 3:22-23).

3. God gives us all kindness. God has already shown and modeled kindness this morning to his people and to his enemies by causing the sun to rise and shine. (“For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good”—Matt. 5:45).

4. My to-do list has only two things on it. My to-do list can feel overwhelming, but Jesus was able to summarize all 613 stipulations of the Sinai Covenant unto the size of a Post-It Note: “Love God with all that you are; love your neighbor as yourself.” Love fulfills the law (Rom. 13:8, 10; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8). As Augustine put it, “Love, and do what you will.”

5. Anxiety is meant to be cast not carried. Any anxiety I feel about today is useless (to me) and offensive (to God). God knows that I awake with anxieties, needs, and burdens. But instead of being anxious God wants me to tell him what I need (Phil. 4:6). Because God cares for me he wants me to cast all those anxieties—those burdens—on him (1 Pet. 5:7; Ps. 55:22). God is happy to “supply every need [I have] according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19; Matt. 6:33). Anxiety, at the end of the day, is a pointless waste of time that costs me a lot and gains me nothing (Matt. 6:27).

6. Rejoicing in weakness. If I feel too weak today, that’s a very good place to be. That way the joy of the Lord can be my strength (Neh. 8:10). That way I can “serve by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 4:11). “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16). God’s grace is sufficient for me, since his power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong ” (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

HT: Justin Taylor

As John Calvin said, the default mode of our heart is religion – that is, we want to base our standing before God and others based upon what we do or don’t do.  However, this quickly leads to pride, when we do things we are supposed to, or despair, when we fail.  That’s not the polar extremes God would have us live between. He wants us to operate from the gospel, which breeds humilty, because there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, and confidence, because Christ has done everything to save us.

How do we do that?  Two ways:

(1) Understand what you have been saved from – sin.

• Pay attention to your thoughts
• Look at your bank account
• Pay attention to what you desire
• Do a topical Bible study on “Sin”

(2) Understand what you have been saved to – God.

• Do a topical Bible study on “God’s holiness”
• Examine the authority of Jesus, specifically as we have seen in Mark 1-2
• Gaze at the natural beauty of the world and reflect on God’s infinite beauty
• Memorize and meditate on Psalm 102:25-27; Exodus 34:6-7; Romans 11:33-36

In Mark 2:21-22 Jesus uses two parables…what do they mean?

The first parable.  No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment.  Why?  The new, stronger patch shrinks when it is washed and tears away from the old.  Thus both are ruined!

The second parable.  No one puts new wine into old wineskins.  Why?  Because when the new wine ferments, it expands, the old brittle skins burst.  Thus both are ruined!

The point:   The way of life introduced by Jesus involves a radical break with the common religious practices of the day; he has not come to just patch things up; his teachings cannot be contained within an old system, within the Mosaic law.

You see, the Pharisees wanted to hold onto the old way of doing things.  They wanted to hold onto the Jewish regulations and traditions; they wanted to hold onto the religious system prescribed by Moses.

But Jesus cannot simply be added on to the religion of the day; business as usual, plus a little Jesus will not work.  He is all together different!  He can’t be an add-on.

In the words of the song, “Hallelujah, All I Have is Christ!  Hallelujah, Jesus is My Life!”

In Mark 2:1-12, we find the crowd who just uses Jesus as a form of entertainment.  Not once in the book of Mark do we see anyone from the crowd responding to Jesus’ message of “Repent and Believe!”  Jesus tells us in the latter half of chapter 2, that he did not come to be a mere patch or to be poured into the old way of doing things. He is everything or nothing.  You can’t just add him on because that ruins everything.  How do you treat Jesus?  Here is a penetrating question:

“If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever say, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Jesus were not there?” (God is the Gospel, 15).

In other words, do you just use Jesus to get something else?

“When we do not take our problem seriously, we do not seek the solution God offers with the measure of sincerity and intensity that our true condition requires. If we don’t understand how seriously ill we are, we don’t pursue the remedy with the required diligence. If we are slightly ill, we take an aspirin. If we are dying, we passionately pursue a cure. The cure is not forced on us; it is offered to us.” (William Wilberforce, Real Christianity)

God’s word exposes our greatest need – forgiveness of sin.  God’s Son, Jesus, offers our only solution and ultimate hope.

This past Sunday we dove into Mark 2:13-22.  One of the questions asked was, “Are you responding to Jesus’ call to ‘Follow me’ like Levi or the Pharisees?”  Levi responds in accordance with the gospel – salvation by God’s grace. The Pharisees respond in accordance with religion – ‘salvation’ by moral effort.  Here are some diagnostic questions to help you examine how you might be responding:

• Are you trying to prove your goodness to yourself and those around you by following a set of rules?
• Are you more aware of what Christ did for you at the Cross than what you have or haven’t done for him?
• Are your weaknesses a point of discouragement or a place where you find God’s strength?
• Are you quicker to notice anther’s spiritual growth or faults?
• Can you laugh at yourself?  When you do something stupid, can you laugh or do you get uptight and defensive because it’s critical for you to be able to see yourself as a good person?

May we marvel in the fact that God saves us by His grace alone!

The Christian life is one steeped in grace.

By grace we are saved (justified).

By grace we are increasingly conformed to the image of Jesus (sanctified).

By grace we meet Jesus face to face (glorified).

Justification is by grace. Sanctification is by grace. Glorification is by grace. It’s all about grace.

But how aware are you of God’s grace in your life? Here are are some questions to help give you a growing awareness of grace:

• Are you more aware of what Christ did for you at the Cross than what you have or haven’t done for him?
• Are your weaknesses a point of discouragement or a place where you find God’s strength?
• Can you laugh at yourself?
• Are you quicker to notice anther’s spiritual growth or faults?

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So when he heard Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”  (John 11:5-6)

At first glance, you may have missed it.

Lazarus is deathly ill.  And what does Jesus do?  He stays two days longer where he was – he does not immediately drop everything and run to Lazarus’ side.  But wait, Jesus loved Lazarus?  Yep, that’s why he did not rush to his side.  Huh?

The text tells us Jesus loved Lazarus, “so” he stayed two days longer.  It is precisely because Jesus loves Lazarus that he delays allowing him to die.

“Jesus receives a desperate plea for help and demonstrates his love – by delay.”

Next time you feel like God is delaying, not listening to your pleas for help know that it is because of his good and perfect love.

“God isn’t a bigger, better version of me.  “It is not that we exist and God has always existed,” write Wayne Grudem, “is is also that God necessarily exists in an infinitely better, stronger, more excellent way.  The difference between God’s being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle, more than the difference between the ocean and a raindrop, more than the difference between the arctic ice cap and a snowflake, more than the difference between the universe and the room we are sitting in: God’s being is qualitatively different.

The qualitative difference of God, his ‘otherness’ revealed in his divine attributes, is summed up in the word holy…I used to think of God’s holiness only in terms of moral purity.  But holiness primarily speaks of God being separate from his creation in his perfection and power.”

from Josh Harris’ Dug Down Deep, 42-43.