Living in God’s Rest
Matthew 11:29 TPT
Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me.
Naturally, we associate rest with sleep. When we are so tied, we think of sleeping and resting. After that, we are refreshed and energized to move out again. We feel good and happy. This is not God kind of rest I am trying to insinuate at this point. So what is the the God kind of rest or the rest we have in Christ? We need to understand that God ‘s rest is deep and profound. It supersedes the rest derived when we are physically tied or sleepy or worn out from each day’s labor; when we have worked so hard.
Christ’s rest is not a rest from work, but in work, not the rest of activity, but of the harmonious working of all the faculties and affections, of will, heart, imagination, conscience- because each has found in God the ideal sphere of its satisfaction and development. It is seizing to “try to be” and simply trusting in His person to work in and through you to live the Christian life. It is a rest that calms your fears and gives you a sense of stability to face the future with confidence, regardless of what is happening around you.
Some folks came to Jesus once and asked Him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God” (John 6:28). That’s the wrong question. There’s no amount of works you can do to save yourself or live the life of Christ, which is why Jesus said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29), “for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Heb 4:10). It’s not what we can do; it’s what Christ has done.
So if you are the one that is easily overwhelmed like I am. My personality “needs” everything just-so, but God is teaching me that my life is not my own and to rest and trust in the fact that God is Lord of my time, my energies, my dreams, and my griefs. Sometimes I just STOP and sit down in the middle of my living room and recount to God His word and my woes. I preach to my soul God’s truths from His unchanging word
CONFESSION
I have my rest in Christ
My struggle is over as I yield myself to God.
I place my trust in Christ finished work alone
Amen!
