A Worthy Life and Sleep
The multitude of blessings from God’s grace does give us cause to stop our striving after the worthless things of this world. We must strive after the treasure that is Christ. We must have the Psalmist passion in Ps 42 “As a deer longs for the flowing stream so my soul longs for you, O God.” I believe our need is to be in the Word of God so that we can know God more fully. That striving leads to a life that is worthy. Paul’s own striving was to “know God and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil 3:10) and though he hadn’t attained, he kept reaching for more. In the text Andy used, Paul prays for the Ephesians believers to grow in knowing God. Ephesians 1:16-17 (ESV)16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Paul will pray the same for the Colossian church as well. At least the first step is always to know Christ, behold his glory and see Him as the treasure that He is to us especially as we seek to grasp the fulness of His grace so freely bestowed in the Gospel.
As for sleep, Psalms 127:2 does tell us that “He gives his beloved sleep”. C.J. Mahaney says it takes humility to recognize our limitations and need to receive sleep as a gift from the Lord. Impatience and anger can be exagerated by the lack of sleep. More work in less time can be done by those who are well rested. But with all these benefits we must not give into laziness. It is to the sluggard, scripture says, too much sleep will lead to poverty (Proverbs 6:4-10).
I was blessed by Andy’s message and the question and answer time. I pray we all know and enjoy the many blessings that are ours in the Gospel especially the treasure who is Jesus Christ the Beloved.
As for sleep, Psalms 127:2 does tell us that “He gives his beloved sleep”. C.J. Mahaney says it takes humility to recognize our limitations and need to receive sleep as a gift from the Lord. Impatience and anger can be exagerated by the lack of sleep. More work in less time can be done by those who are well rested. But with all these benefits we must not give into laziness. It is to the sluggard, scripture says, too much sleep will lead to poverty (Proverbs 6:4-10).
I was blessed by Andy’s message and the question and answer time. I pray we all know and enjoy the many blessings that are ours in the Gospel especially the treasure who is Jesus Christ the Beloved.
posted by Mike Rattin | 9:46 PM
4 Comments:
great points mike, i believe today,though, we are consumed with sleep and leisure. if you compare our schedules and activity with those great saints of the past, we pale in comparison. if we were to keep a schedule like they had, we would be considered workaholics and sent to therapy!! thoughts?
Yea, it is amazing to read about the lifestyles of people like Luther and Calvin and John Wesley. They put us to shame with their work ethic. Do you think that we are to life like they did? They had all sorts of physical problems because of how hard they worked.
I believe we should be more like they were, as our medical treatment is much better today then it was then, and we also tend to trend towards the lazy side. I would not advocate this if it were to the detriment of the family, although there is a place for children to understand that their sacrifice of Dad is to the glory of God and for the advancement of His kingdom as well!
I agree. If we are to err, lets err working hard for Christ. Paul certainly pushed himself to the very edge of what he could do physically; going through many "sleepless nights", in hunger and thirst, "...often without food, in cold and exposure."(2 Cor 11:27-28) He said that, "For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power..." (Col 1:28). In both examples, he said he does these for the sake of the church. We are far to soft and loving of our comforts. We are unloving in our churches when we are unwilling to suffer and daily give up our lives for our brothers like Paul did. Imagine our our churches were filled with people who loved each other like Paul!
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