Blessed Lord God! I bow before Thee in lowly worship. I adore Thee as
God the Creator, and God the Sanctifier. Thou hast revealed Thyself as
God Almighty and God Most Holy. I beseech Thee, teach me to know and to
trust Thee as such.
I humbly ask Thee for grace to learn and hold fast the deep spiritual
truths Thou hast revealed in making holy the Sabbath day. Thy purpose in
man's creation is to show forth Thy Holiness, and make him partaker of
it. Oh, teach me to believe in Thee as God my Creator and Sanctifier, to
believe with my whole heart that the same Almighty power which gave the
sixth-day blessing of creation, secures to us the seventh-day blessing
of sanctification. Thy will is our sanctification.
And teach me, Lord, to understand better how this blessing comes. It is
where Thou enterest to rest, to refresh and reveal Thyself, that Thou
makest holy. O my God! may my heart be Thy resting-place. I would, in
the stillness and confidence of a restful faith, rest in Thee, believing
that Thou doest all in me. Let such fellowship with Thee, and Thy love,
and Thy will be to me the secret of a life of holiness. I ask it in the
name of our Lord Jesus, in whom Thou hast sanctified us. Amen.
1. God the Creator is God the Sanctifier. The Omnipotence that did
the first work does the second too. I can trust God Almighty to
make me holy. God is holy: if God is everything to me, His presence
will be my holiness.
2. Rest is ceasing from work, not to work no more, but to begin a
new work. God rests and begins at once to make holy that in which
He rests. He created by the word of His power; He rests in His
love. Creation was the building of the temple; sanctification is
the entering in and taking possession. Oh, that wonderful entering
into human nature!
3. God rests only in what is restful, wholly at His disposal. It is
in the restfulness of faith that we must look to God the
Sanctifier; He will come in and keep His holy Sabbath in the
restful soul. We rest in God's rest; God rests in our rest.
4. The God that rests in man whom He made, and in resting sanctifies,
and in sanctifying blesses: this is our God; praise and worship
Him. _And trust Him to do His work._
5. Rest! what a simple word. The Rest of God! what an inconceivable
fulness of Life and Love in that word. Let us meditate on it and
worship before Him, until it overshadow us and we enter into
it--the Rest of God. _Rest_ belongeth unto God: He alone can give
it, by making us share His own.
Fourth Day.