A fresh look at the “Sabbath Rest:” Reimagining Christianity

When I read the words of the Kybalion—“we are all held firmly in the Infinite Mind of the All, and there is naught to hurt us or for us to fear”—I hear an ancient whisper that echoes across every true sacred text. It is the same voice that calls in Psalm 91, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It is the same voice that the writer of Hebrews urges us to heed, inviting us into the Sabbath rest of God, a rest not bound to a day of the week, but to the eternal state of being rooted in the One.

This rest is not inactivity. It is not sloth or escape. It is the cessation of striving in the egoic sense. It is the realization that the very ground of our being is upheld by a Love so vast, so infinite, that there is no need to clutch or grasp. It is, as the Hermetic teaching says, to know that in the All we “live and move and have our being.” And once we awaken to this, we begin to see that we were never separate, never abandoned, never in true danger. The storms of life remain, but the heart is no longer tossed like a ship in rough seas. Instead, we become the calm at the center of the storm, the still point in the turning world.

For much of my life, I was taught that Sabbath was a day to keep rules—a ritual obligation of rest, almost a burden that could ironically become its own form of work. Evangelical orthodoxy often reduces the Sabbath to a moralistic checkbox, another duty added to the pile. But Hebrews 4 shatters that shallow understanding. It speaks of an ultimate rest, a rest that God Himself entered into, and one that remains open to us here and now. “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from His.” This is not about a 24-hour reprieve from labor but about ceasing the inner compulsion to prove ourselves, justify ourselves, or save ourselves.

This Sabbath rest is grace embodied. It is the lived experience of knowing we are already enough because the Infinite—the All, the Divine Logos, the Beloved—has already enveloped us. When I enter this rest, I find myself beyond the reach of fear. I remember that the ego is a transient illusion, and the soul, even in its individuality, is still an emanation of the One Consciousness. The Kybalion says, “There is no power outside of the All to affect us.” And this is the same truth that Jesus spoke when he said, “My sheep hear my voice, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.”

So what does it feel like to truly live in Sabbath rest? It feels like exhaling after holding your breath for years. It feels like laying down the heavy armor of control, of needing to manage every outcome, and trusting that the same Infinite Mind that holds galaxies in their orbit also holds you. It feels like waking from the dream of separation and remembering that you were always embraced. It is not a feeling reserved for monks or mystics; it is the birthright of every soul who dares to stop striving and simply be.

I see this theme everywhere when I look past the surface of the world’s sacred texts. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, “Surrender all duties to Me alone and do not fear, for I shall liberate you from all bondage.” That is Sabbath rest. In the Tao Te Ching, Laozi writes that those who are in harmony with the Tao are not harmed by tigers or soldiers because they are aligned with the Source. That too is Sabbath rest. And in the Gospel of Truth, attributed to the Valentinian tradition, the Savior is described not as one who imposes guilt but as the one who awakens us from forgetfulness. Forgetfulness of what? That we are already in the embrace of the Father, already home in the All.

The tragedy is that much of religion has reversed the order. It teaches us to work for acceptance, to strive for transformation through sheer reformation of the self, forgetting that true transformation is not achieved but received. This is why Hebrews warns, “Make every effort to enter that rest.” It sounds paradoxical—make effort to cease effort—but it is the most vital effort of all. It is the effort to let go, to unlearn the deeply ingrained habits of fear and striving.

In my own journey, I have seen how the demon of religion, as I sometimes call it, keeps people spinning in cycles of guilt, fear, and performance. It whispers, “You are not enough. You must do more, be more, give more, believe more.” But the voice of the Infinite is different. It whispers, “Be still and know that I am God.” It says, “My grace is sufficient for you.” It says, “Enter My rest.”

And this rest is not passive. It becomes the womb of new creation. When we stop thrashing in the waters of anxiety, we float. And when we float, we discover the Ocean itself is alive and carrying us. From this place of rest, true action arises—action not rooted in fear or ambition, but in love. The Kybalion describes it beautifully: calm and peaceful do we sleep, rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.

This is why the Sabbath rest is not just about pausing one day in seven; it is about living from a state of inner Sabbath all the time. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath and declared himself “Lord of the Sabbath,” he was pointing to this deeper reality. The Sabbath is not a restriction; it is liberation. It is the freedom of knowing that the weight of the world is not on your shoulders.

So, in this rest, I find a quiet rebellion against the machinery of fear that drives the world. I find that the need to prove myself dissolves. I can love without condition because I am no longer running on empty. I can forgive because I am no longer defending an ego that feels threatened. I can sit in silence and know that silence is enough.

And I realize this: Sabbath rest is the beginning of enlightenment. It is the threshold between the fragmented self and the wholeness of the Divine. It is where the finite dissolves into the Infinite, not by losing identity in a nihilistic void, but by remembering its truest identity as a spark of the All.

The Psalmist says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” The Kybalion says, “We live and move and have our being in the All.” Jesus says, “Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Different words, same truth.

This is the Sabbath rest I now live toward—not a mere ritual but a reality. It is the stillness of the soul awakening to what has always been true: we are safe. We are held. We are one with the Source, and nothing outside of that Source has any ultimate power.

So I breathe deeply and let go. I cease from my works, not because the world doesn’t need them, but because they are no longer done from compulsion. They flow from love. And that is the true rest. That is the Sabbath that never ends.