“And God said to him, ‘I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.’” – Genesis 35:11

At Bethel God affirmed to Jacob the covenant He’d made with His grandfather Abraham. The first and third parts of God’s promise to Jacob are simple, clear, and play out over the rest of the Old Testament – God established a new ethnic nation (the Hebrew people) by descent from Jacob, formed them into a political nation (Israel), and ultimately raised up kings descended from Jacob.

However, God also expanded and clarified His promise – “a company of nations shall come from you”. This is a most interesting promise, because the Old Testament doesn’t describe multiple nations forming from the descendants of Jacob. Indeed, the testimony of Scripture is of the ethnic unity of His descendants. This part of the promise points us straight to the ongoing work of Jesus Christ who is descended from Jacob.

Through faith in Jesus Christ, God creates a new people from among all nations and ethnicities that is united in Christ. The work of the church is to live out the second part of the promise in Genesis, going and sharing the gospel with people from all nations and people groups, making disciples, baptizing them into the family God promised Jacob, and teaching them to obey all Christ commanded.

The church IS the company of nations from Jacob! We live in the glory of the fulfillment of God’s promise to Jacob. We also know that in heaven we will see and join the company of nations, the great assembly of all peoples, tribes, and languages worshiping together and praising God!

“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.” – Matthew 12:36

Followers of Jesus, this includes you! Yes, we know that at the end of the process we’ll be publicly declared “Not Guilty” by our advocate and judge Jesus. Yes, we know we’ll spend a glorious eternity in the presence of God. But we mustn’t thoughtlessly skip over this time of accountability. We will all give public account for everything ugly, unfortunate, and ungodly we’ve exclaimed in traffic, muttered under our breath, or idly thrown out in the office, the locker room, or the school hallway.

The grace we receive through faith in Christ will certainly save us. However, as we give account of our sins and shortcomings as well as our good deeds done in the name of Christ, our heavenly rewards will be determined by all we’ve done. For all who are in Christ, our joy will be full and complete, have no fear of that. Nonetheless there are rewards and responsibilities we may well miss out on in heaven because of our careless and venomous tongues.

If you’re a follower of Christ, then you need to sound like a follower of Christ and speak words worthy of Christ all the time. On good days and bad days, when you’re rested and when you’re exhausted, when things are going well and when disaster strikes. Is this difficult in an age where sarcasm and vitriol are the currency of our culture? Absolutely! Is ungodly speech a difficult habit to break? Absolutely! But you can do it, day by day, through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit as we walk in prayer, worship, and the Word. It’s worth it!

“I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.” – Matthew 12:6

The religious leaders of the day genuinely struggled to understand and appreciate Jesus. On the one hand they knew that obviously something very unusual and special was happening. On the other hand…He was so very different from what they expected. He turned many of their traditions, habits, and rules upside down. He revealed flaws in their priorities and ways of thinking. Their priority was on doing things they way they always had, on the rules and policies of the religious institutions of the day, on good and predictable religious practice. Jesus said that their priority should have been on the Son of God in their midst, the Kingdom of God He inaugurated, the care for people created in God’s image, and the message of God’s redemption for all the nations, all in perfect alignment with Scripture. Ultimately they hated and crucified Him for it.

Unfortunately, if we aren’t careful, we too can lose sight of the One greater than the temple! As followers of Jesus it can be easier and more appealing to stick with the places, routines, rituals, and ministries we know and the priorities we choose than to truly follow Jesus wherever He might lead. Jesus would often lead us out of the church building and into places full of people who don’t know Him. He would turn our priorities, traditions, habits, standards, and rules upside down, all in perfect alignment with Scripture. And it’s quite easy and natural for us to resist this leading because it’s terribly uncomfortable, uncertain, and unpredictable. Yet Christ is in it.

We must always remember that the institutions, processes, buildings, schedules, traditions, and styles of our churches are far less important than Jesus Christ. We must be about Jesus and the business of Jesus before we are about the church and the business of the church because something greater is here!

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” – Matthew 11:29

Are you weary deep in your soul? Has the daily grind of life or the wild sprint through the holidays left you gasping for breath or looking for meaning and purpose in your life? Would you like to find true, deep, genuine, and lasting rest for your soul? There’s only one way – to yoke yourself to Jesus.

This sounds crazy – after all, the image Jesus presents is of a farm animal connected to another to do work side-by-side. How can work bring rest? It turns out that’s how we actually find rest in this crazy, frenetic world in which we live! But not just any work…

Our souls don’t find rest by doing nothing, that just leaves them feeling more weary and insignificant. They don’t find rest by throwing ourselves into whatever our current enthusiasm is, that just leaves them more exhausted eventually. We find rest when we truly commit to serving with Jesus, to walk alongside Him that we find rest. Our souls find rest because when we labor with Jesus: serving in the ministry of His Kingdom, investing in the spiritual disciplines like prayer and Bible study, worshiping Him, sharing Him with others, then He carries the load.

Yes, we’re called to work with Jesus. We’re called to be in ministry and on mission. We’re called to serve in the local church. We’re invited and called to do the most important work in the world – the work of seeking and saving the lost, of making disciples, of introducing the faith and teaching believers to yoke themselves to Jesus as well. But when we do these things, Jesus does the hard work and His Spirit gives our weary souls rest.

We find rest as we live and work within the will and pleasure of God. We find rest as we fan the Holy Spirit into flame in our lives and walk in the Spirit each day. We find rest as we discover work that has real and eternal meaning, purpose, and value. The question we must now ask is are we serious about wanting to experience true rest???

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.”
– Psalm 9:1

One of the best ways to start your day and orient it upward toward God rather than downward into the stresses, anxieties, and frustrations of the world is to do what David says here. Make time each morning to give thanks and remember God’s work.

Give thanks, real thanks, to God for all He’s done in your life. You can give thanks for the creation and order of the universe. You can give thanks for your salvation and relationship with Jesus Christ. You can give thanks for family, friends, employment, home, freedom, literacy, or health – anything and everything that blesses you, because God is the source of all good things. You can give thanks for God’s faithful presence and sustaining strength when you literally have nothing else to be thankful for. Give thanks. With your whole heart.

Then remind yourself of some of God’s great and miraculous works. These could be the times He’s intervened to change your life suddenly and miraculously. Or these could be the great stories of the Bible when God has acted in history: Creation, the Exodus, King David, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the birth and growth of the church in Acts, and so much more. There are so many wonderful stories to bring to mind and in the process be encouraged by God’s faithfulness and absolute power over this world.

This doesn’t have to take more than a few minutes (though the longer the better). You can do this in your favorite prayer chair at home or even do it while stuck in traffic on the way to work. But make this a habit and align your day to the heart and activity of God.