Keeping the Sabbath as an Eternal Covenant: Enjoy God First to Be One with Him in His Work

Keeping the Sabbath is an eternal covenant between us and God, assuring God that we will be one with Him by first enjoying Him and being filled with Him and then working for Him in oneness with Him; we should not do anything for the Lord without first enjoying Him, for everything related to God’s dwelling place should lead us to resting and being refreshed with the Lord!

Oh Lord Jesus, thank You for the covenant You made with us to make sure we first rest with You and enjoy ou and then we work with You, for You, and one with You! Amen, Lord, we come to You to enjoy You today. We take You as our life and as our everything. We stop our being. We stop our doing. We just open to You. We open our vessel to be filled with You. Fill us, dear Lord Jesus! Fill us to the extent that we overflow with You and work in oneness with You! Amen!

This week we have been enjoying a particular aspect of the all-inclusive Christ as seen in the Gospel of Matthew; He is the Christ who gives us rest.

He calls us to come to Him; all who toil and are burdened are called by the Lord to come to Him and receive rest.

He wants to give us rest and even be our rest. He was not disturbed or bothered when others rejected Him and did not receive His ministry; He was in rest and at peace with the Father, who allotted Him that portion.

The Lord Jesus cared for nothing but the will of the Father, and He fully submitted Himself to the Father’s will. He took the will of the Father as His yoke and remained in the will of the Father.

He is meek and lowly in heart, and we can come to Him and learn from Him. This One, this submissive One, has given us His life of submission.

We learn from the Lord according to His example, not by our natural life but by Him as our life in resurrection.

May we come to Him and take His yoke upon us; may we take the will of the Father and seek His will so that His will be done in our life.

This is a daily coming to the Lord to enjoy Him as our rest and receive rest from Him.

The other aspect of rest is the cyclical rest, the rest that we need at regular intervals, as we serve the Lord.

In serving the Lord, in doing the work of building up of the church, we need to come to the Lord regularly to take Him as our rest.

We need to enjoy the Lord, be filled with Him, and serve out of Him, even one with Him! We need to keep the principle of the Sabbath, seeking to be filled with Christ so that we may flow Him out as our work.

Keeping the Sabbath is an Eternal Covenant that Assures God we will be One with Him by First Enjoying Him and being Filled with Him and then by Working with Him, in Oneness with Him!

In our daily living, as we feel we are toiling and heavily burdened, we need to come to the Lord, and He will give us rest.

He gives us rest for our souls; we just need to come to Him and learn from Him (Matt. 11:28-30).

In our service to the Lord, we need to keep the principle of the Sabbath, for keeping the Sabbath is an eternal covenant assuring God that we are one with Him first by enjoying Him and then by working with Him, in oneness with Him! Amen!

As seen in Exodus 31:16, we need to keep the Sabbath, even to observe God’s Sabbaths throughout our generations as a perpetual covenant.

This, of course, does not refer to us resting on Saturday, that is, literally keeping the day of Saturday as the day of Sabbath.

This refers to keeping the Sabbath as an eternal agreement, an eternal covenant, that assures God that we will be one with Him in our work for Him!

How can we be one with God? It is by first enjoying Him and being filled with Him and then by working for Him, with Him, and in oneness with Him! Amen!

In working for God, in doing the work of building up the church as the dwelling place of God, we need to be one with God.

It is actually Christ who builds His church (Matt. 16:18), and unless we are one with Christ and even become the same as Christ in life, nature, expression, and function, we cannot build up the church!

It is a serious matter for us to work for the Lord by ourselves without taking Him in and enjoying Him by drinking and eating Him (see 1 Cor. 12:13; John 6:57)! Oh Lord Jesus!

It is something serious in working for God for us to work apart from God, without God, even not having God as our source, our life, and our strength. If we use our own wisdom, our smartness, and our zeal and ability, this is not acceptable to God.

We need to come to Him, enjoy Him, and be one with Him; we need to let Him work, let Him initiate, and we simply are one with Him!

As Peter was speaking on the day of Pentecost, he was inwardly partaking of Jesus, drinking and eating Him. Amen!

As we work for the Lord and one with the Lord, we need to inwardly partake of Jesus, enjoy Jesus, and be nourished with His riches, and then He will be expressed through us. Amen!

God doesn’t need us to “help Him in His work”; He doesn’t need our input in our natural man, nor does He need our ability, our skill, or our zeal.

He only wants us to open to Him, enjoy Him, and be filled with Him, and then He and us will be one to the extent that He does the work and we join Him in His work!

As we work for the Lord and one with the Lord, we are inwardly partaking of Him!

We simply testify to others of what we have been enjoying of Christ! May we be those keeping the Sabbath in our work for the Lord.

The Sabbath is also a matter of our sanctification (Exo. 31:13). When we enjoy the Lord and then work with Him, for Him, and by being one with Him, spontaneously we are sanctified, separated unto God! Amen!

As we enjoy the Lord and are filled with Him, we are spontaneously separated unto God from anything that is common, and we are also saturated with God to replace anything that is fleshly and natural!

This is how we are being sanctified. It is not merely by reading the Bible and going to Christian meetings, even though this helps very much.

It is by coming to the Lord and enjoying Him. When we enjoy the Lord, we are sanctified; our enjoyment of Christ separates us from anything unto the Lord and saturates us with what Christ is for our service toward God.

Lord Jesus, we want to be those keeping the Sabbath in our service to the Lord in the church life. Amen, Lord, may we keep this eternal covenant by first enjoying God and then working with God and for God one with God! We give ourselves to You, Lord, to first be one with You! We want to be one with You by enjoying You and by being filled with You, and then we can work for You, with You, and in oneness with You! Oh Lord Jesus, may we do nothing apart from You. May we not initiate any work or do anything in ourselves or by ourselves for God. Save us from working for the Lord by ourselves without taking the Lord in and enjoying Him by drinking and eating Him! Amen, Lord, keep us enjoying You. May we inwardly partake of the riches of Christ as we minister to others and serve in the church. Fill us, Lord! Keep us eating You and drinking You. Sanctify us. Separate us from anything unto You and saturate us with Yourself! Amen, Lord, we love You!

Begin by Enjoying God, Work for God, and Continue to Enjoy God Regularly at Intervals to be Filled with God and be One with God as we Serve God

We saints in the church life have been shown mercy by the Lord to see something of God’s economy, and we have been captivated by the Lord’s beauty and by His shining through the ministry of the age.

What a privilege to be here in the church life in the Lord’s recovery, eating Christ, drinking Christ, and breathing in Christ together with all the saints!

When it comes to serving the Lord, we encourage one another to be involved in the service of the church, in serving the saints, and in visiting the new ones for the gospel and for shepherding.

It is good to serve the Lord, and when our service comes out of enjoying Christ, it is something that is pleasing to God!

However, in the church life we may do many things without first enjoying the Lord and without serving the Lord by being one with the Lord. Oh Lord!

Many times we just join in a service or just go and visit someone, but we do not first enjoy the Lord nor do we seek to be filled with the Lord!

Such service, the service not coming from our enjoyment of Christ, results in spiritual death and in the loss of the fellowship of the Body (Exo. 31:14-15).

Whoever does not keep the Sabbath, the eternal covenant of God with His people, will be cut off from among the people of God.

We can testify that we have tasted such death even in our serving the Lord.

We may have served, we may have been involved in this and that activity, but because we did not enjoy the Lord and were not filled with His riches, we experienced spiritual death.

We were cut off from God’s people; this means we were cut off from the fellowship of the Body.

When we serve in a natural way, when we serve without being filled with the Spirit, we are actually spiritually dead – we’re spiritually deadened.

We know it, and we feel we are cut from the fellowship in the Body. May the Lord spare us from such a situation.

May everything related to God’s dwelling place lead us to one matter – to the Sabbath with its rest and refreshment of the Lord.

May we come back to the Lord again and again to enjoy Him. We should begin by enjoying God, then work for God, and then continue to enjoy God regularly at intervals so that we may be filled with God and be one with God as we serve God!

In all that we do and speak, we need to be one with the Lord. If we don’t speak in oneness with the Lord, we will suffer spiritual death in our speaking, and we will be cut off from God’s people. Oh Lord! This means that we are cut off from the fellowship.

May the Lord save us from doing many things in our service to the Lord yet without being one with the Lord and without enjoying the Lord.

God doesn’t pay more attention to our work than to our life, our living contact with Him. He wants us to contact Him, enjoy Him, and be filled with Him.

The building work of the tabernacle in the Old Testament with all its furniture began with enjoying God and continued in intervals with more enjoyment of God by keeping the Sabbath (John 15:4–5; Eph. 5:18–20; Acts 6:3-4; Mark 6:30-31; Acts 13:52).

Similarly today, as we serve teh Lord, as we serve in the church life, we need to begin by enjoying God and being filled with God.

Then, we need to continue in intervals with the refreshment by enjoying God! Especially when we feel we are dry and down, when we feel that we are not in our spirit, may we turn to the Lord!

May we not work for God by our own strength but by the enjoyment of Christ and by being one with Him.

The Lord Jesus did this in His life and service on earth; He did not just work for God tirelessly and continually without contacting God but rather, He regularly contacted God (Matt. 14:23; Luke 5:16; 6:12, 46; Mark 1:35).

Especially as He was about to choose the disciples or do some work for God, He spent much time in prayer secretly before the Father, even retreating in deserted places to be alone with the Father.

We need to regularly have time with the Lord, and we need to have a coming back to the enjoyment of Christ at intervals to “charge our batteries” by being filled in spirit.

On the one hand, in Matthew 11 we see the regular, daily, constant rest, which we receive from the Lord as we come to Him so that we may bear the burden and toil for the Lord in His economy.

As we bear the burdens, as we are working, we come to the Lord inwardly and we receive rest, even have rest in our souls. On the other hand, in our service to the Lord, we need to have the periodic rest, the cyclical rest, the rest in seasons.

We first enjoy the Lord, then we work one with the Lord, and as we work, we inwardly open. At intervals, as we serve the Lord one with Him, we come back to the enjoyment of Christ, even to be filled with Him!

Lord Jesus, save us from doing things for You without first enjoying You! Oh Lord, we love You and we come to You! We come to You day by day, even moment by moment, to enjoy You and partake of You in spirit. We come to have rest in You and with You. We want to do nothing apart from You. Oh Lord, may we not do anything without first enjoying God and being one with God! May we first enjoy Christ and be filled with Christ! Amen, may we come back to the enjoyment of Christ so that we may keep the Sabbath. May everything related to God’s dwelling place lead us to the Sabbath with its rest and refreshment of the Lord! Amen, Lord, thank You for bringing us here, in the church life, the reality of the tabernacle; we want to rest here with You! Lead us to rest, to the enjoyment of God’s purpose and of what He has done! Hallelujah! Oh Lord, make us those who work for God not by our own strength but by the enjoyment of Christ and by being one with Christ! Amen!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chan on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 172, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-inclusive Christ as Revealed in Matthew (2025 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 5, Christ as the One Who Gives Us Rest – day 6.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – To the work! to the work! we are servants of God, / Let us follow the path that our Master has trod; / With the might of His power our strength to renew, / Let us do by His grace what He calls us to do. / Work for Him by His grace; / Work thru Him for His praise; / Work with Him all the days; / And work in Him in many ways. (Hymns #895 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – Our plans, our aims, our energy / We must abandon wholly, / That He may work His plan thru us, / His aim and object solely. / Ourselves, with all we are and have, / To death we must surrender, / That Christ may live Himself thru us / With riches and with splendor. (Hymns #910 stanza 4)
  – “Be all at rest!” for rest alone becometh / The soul that casts on Him its every care; / “Be all at rest!” so shall thy life proclaim Him / A God who worketh and who heareth prayer. / “Be all at rest!” so shalt thou be an answer / To those who question, “Who is God, and where?” / For God is rest, and where He dwells is stillness, / And they who dwell in Him that rest shall share. (Hymns #654 stanzas 3-4)