Enforcement

Easter weekend and the news is full of warnings about not going out and staying away from holiday homes and beaches and parks.  The Police are out and about stopping drivers and asking where they are going.  They are handing out fines and enforcing the new regulations.  They can do that.  They wear the right uniforms

Several years ago ( decades in fact) I was working in a full time job, renovating a house and was fully involved in church in every spare minute of my week.    I woke up one morning and God was so heavily present it was as though He was sitting on my chest.  I am NOT a morning person.  It usually takes me a good hour and two cups of coffee in the morning before I am compos mentis.  That morning the second I opened my eyes I was wide awake and God was waving His finger in my face and saying ' Caz, if you don't stop right now, I will make you stop'.    It was a scary and most serious warning about having a day of rest.  Without Him having to spell it out I knew in my spirit that if I didn't do what He told me then I would find myself ill or incapacitated and made to rest.   I instantly decided I'd start to observe a sabbath.  And I did.

If God has spoken to me in the past about taking Him seriously on the ' day of rest' thing, Im betting He has said it to lots of us one way or another.  And maybe many of us have heard the word and tried to put a sabbath in place.  But it's hard isnt it?  Sundays can be the least restful of days if you are at church all morning then coming home to prepare a sunday lunch and then sorting out school stuff for the morning or doing chores or jobs that are more easily done on a weekend .  Or maybe we are tempted to go and work in the garden on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Or nip to the shops.  Whatever it is, Sundays can be a busy day.  And that's OK.  I dont think our Sabbath necessarily needs to be a Sunday.  But whatever day it is, it should be a day of no work.  It should be a day for sleep, family, peace, reading, music, nature, but not chores, shopping or anything stressful.   We find it hard.  Well, I do anyway.   Yesterday I felt God remind me of that conversation He and I had all those years ago.  And He smiled and said something along the lines of   ' see, I told you I would make you stop'   The 'you'  wasn't a personal one,  it was a corporate one.   As though He has got so fed up of speaking to millions of Christians all over the world and telling them to rest that in the end He just decided to make us rest.    He can do that.  He wears the right uniform.



If someone walks up to you in the street and tells you you cant park your car in a certain place you are going to question on whose authority they are acting.  But if that same person is wearing a coat that says Traffic Warden across the back, or if they are driving a white and yellow car with a siren on it you will instantly recognise that they have authority to enforce the rules.   God has the authority to shut down the world economy if He wants to.  He is dressed in robes of righteousness and all power and authority in heaven and on earth belong to Him.   Amazingly, He says that He has given that authority to us too.  So, today you can get up and get dressed in your jeans and approach your day as Jo Bloggs.  Or, you can get up and put on the garments of praise, the armour of God, humility and righteousness and the mantel of authority and approach your day as a son of God.  You have been tasked with enforcing the spiritual laws which Jesus's death and resurrection established 2000 years ago.  i.e. that Satan is a thief and a liar and he is defeated, that forgiveness is freely available to all who call on the name of Jesus and that truth sets people free.