I am thankful because...
I can rest in my Daddy's arms!
“Rest” Defined:
- To cease from action
The
word rest means to cease from labor or exertion. Applying that to God’s rest, it means no more
self-effort – no more trying to please God by your fleshly works. Rest involves ceasing from legalistic
activity/religious behavior; we rest in free grace.
- To be free from worry
Some
people are never at peace because they’re always bothered about something. To rest means to be free from whatever
disturbs you, or causes you to worry. It
means in this sense to be quiet, still, peaceful, and free from guilt. To enter God’s rest means to be a peace with
God – to possess the perfect peace that God gives. It means to be free from guilt, because our
sin is forgiven.
- To be settled
God’s
rest is the kind of rest where a man is established in Christ, and does not run
from religion to religion or philosophy to philosophy or theology to theology,
etc. This is a man that is NOT blown
about by every wind of doctrine, but is rooted and grounded in the truth of
Jesus Christ!
- To be secure
To
enter God’s rest is to be secure, having absolute trust and confidence in God’s
care for you.
- To have something to lean on
To
enter God’s rest means that you can lean on Him. You can rely on God for support, that you can
trust Him to supply ALL your
needs.
The Bible speaks of rest
in the millennial kingdom and rest for eternity in heaven. That’s what God is promising and that’s what
He calls rest.
God’s promise of rest
still stands “today” – Hebrews 4:1
We can paraphrase it this
way: God makes it possible for us to enter His rest, so we need to make sure
that we accept His offer. If we do not
keep our faith in Him, we will fail to enter.
Let’s look at examples
throughout the Bible of Rest:
- Genesis 2:2 – Creation
God
is still at rest and He wants us to join Him!
- Children of Israel
Do
not be like our ancestors and try the patience of the Lord. Fear unbelief and press into Jesus, there is
more for us and He wants us to believe in His promises!
- Judges - Othniel
Are
you called to be the next deliverer?
How do we enter into God’s
Rest?
1.
Come
Matthew
11:28
The
invitation is “COME TO ME”, and that means a choice is made to leave sin, walk
away from our past mistakes and come to Jesus.
You cannot read about Jesus with an honest heart without being motivated
to come to Him. Now you may read about
Him merely out of some academic interests, or intellectual curiosity. The knowledge you gain from that kind of
study may never result in any conversion or salvation. But when you open your mind – when your heart
is sincere – when you know you need something better in life, and read about
Christ – you are motivated to change your direction, give up the sin in your
life and Come to Him!
“Come
unto met” literally means Jesus has His hand out waiting for us to press into
Him, so we can follow His commands. He
wants us to relinquish control, so we may enter God’s rest. (Ex. – Storm &
Disciples)
Mark
4:35-41 “Principle of Resting &
Caring”
a.
We care – He
rests. (God will allow us to mess up our
situation.)
b.
He cares – We
rest. (When we give up control over the situation and give it to God, we will
find peace.)
2.
Faith
Faith
is the Doorway into God’s Rest.
Hebrews
4:3 tells us the destiny of those who exercise faith and those who don’t. The part says, “those who believe enter into
rest”. It doesn’t say we are on the way
to rest; it states we are in it. Every
Christian is in God’s Rest! This is another way of saying we are saved and
fully believe it in our hearts!
Now
those who fail to exercise faith, God says, “In my anger I took an oath: They
will never enter my place of rest.” This is God’s attitude towards those who do
not exercise faith. To fail to believe
the truth is to forfeit God’s rest for all eternity.
For
example, Adam and Eve while in the Garden of Eden were in God’s Rest. When they believed the lies of Satan they
forfeited their time in God’s Rest because they did not trust in Him. Now, throughout the entire Bible God has left
the doorway open for us to enter through.
Romans ( ) says, there is a remnant He has chosen. There is a remnant of people that will find
this doorway and come into God’s Rest, where He desires for us to be.
Since
Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, God wants to see us restored to His Rest. (Add info on brazen alter stuff…)
You
cannot enter rest without coming to meet Jesus and openly accepting Him,
believing that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light. This also means we cannot be double-minded, meaning
we are riding the fence. We have one
foot one side and one foot on the other.
This is called riding the fence and you will get splinters in your
tooshie! Not just that, James 1:6-8 states we will not receive from God! You
will not enter His Rest if you waver back and forth, you have to press fully
into Him, trusting completely that all things work out for your good and His
Glory!
3.
Death
Romans
7:14-25
Within
ourselves we have a battle between the spirit man and the flesh man. Picture it like a devil on your shoulder
representing the flesh and an angel on the other representing the spirit
man. They are always in conflict of each
other. But we were born a sinner, we
don’t sin because we want to, but because it is our “nature”, our
heredity.
4.
Take
Matthew
11:29
We
cannot have the promised rest Jesus wants us to have if we do not do what He
wants us to do! Those under the load of sin need to come to Christ, take His
yoke, learn of Him and find rest.
In
the book of Acts you can read beginning in Chapter 2 about people who did
this. Beginning on the Day of Pentecost
we read this: The apostles received the Holy Spirit and began in speaking in
tongues. Those around thought they were
drunk. Peter stood up and said “we are
not drunk, for it is only the third hour” then prophesied to the people and
they asked “what do we do now?” Peter told them “Repent and Get Baptized”. The people DID just that. And after baptism it says they continued
steadfastly in the ways of Christ. What
were they doing? They were coming to Jesus, taking His yoke, learning of Him
and finding rest for their souls. Every
other case of conversion in the book of Acts is the same!
Consider
“taking the yoke”. This is not about
getting rid of one load in exchange for another load; that is not the idea! The
yoke is SUBMISSION AND
GUIDANCE. As we submit to Jesus, we are
guided in exactly the path and the work that right before God! You’ve got to
get in the “hear” and “now” – meaning when Jesus tells you to do something you
respond with an action, not a question and not doubting. When Jesus was on the earth, He did ONLY what
the Father commanded Him. As Christians,
we are Christ-like, we must follow the same thing, heeding only what Jesus
commands us to do, for we are the vessel that needs to be open for Him to pour
into, so He ministry can work through you! This is His yoke – His ministry
working through you!
5.
Learn
James
1:3-4; Matthew 7:24-27
Tests
and trials arise in our lives for a reason.
A test is something we may not always pass, but develops our character
and allows us to learn from mistakes. A
trial is something we will pass, for the tests have prepared us for the
trial. God does not give unto us more
than we can handle, He knows when we are ready for the trial – because He’s
already tested us!
Tests
are nothing more than being refined in the fire. When God tests us, He is basically saying
“will you seek Me out for the answer or will you not?” So many of us run to wrong places. We are constantly turning to everyone else, but
never turn to God. Here’s something to
learn, “He is God, I am not”. Say that
out loud, “He is God and I am not”. The
one thing many of us struggle with is when God tests us, many of us want to run
to everyone around, whether it’s the person that does our nails, the cashier in
a checkout line, our hairstylist, or whoever that just might of asked “how are
you?” and we dump on them hoping for an answer.
I personally believe we break God’s heart when we do this. God puts a test on your life for YOU, not
anyone else, they are personal. He wants
you to RUN to HIM with your tears,
with your thoughts, with your anger, with your problems, etc. He’s your Daddy in Heaven that can help you
through ANYTHING and yet we still run to everyone else for advice. We have to LEARN from HIM! That is what
allows us to enter into God’s rest. It’s
not going to be from someone else. Every
answer is in God’s Word and if you would just pick it up and READ it, you’d
find that everything you need in life is in this Book. Go to Him in prayer.
Here’s
an example: Growing up in my home I had a dad who didn’t receive Jesus as his
Savior until I believe I was 4 or 5 years old.
My mother is a Christian. When I
saw hard times in my house, there is one thing I learned from my mother, turn
to a prayer closet! Every time there was a decision to be made, I saw my mother
get her on knees. Every time we were to
make a move, I saw my mother get on her knees.
Every time finances started to come to a halt, I saw my mother get on
her knees. Every time the sickness
entered the home, I saw my mother get on her knees. Every time my mom would worry, I saw my
mother get on her knees. I never saw my
mom run around to everyone else looking for an answer, she went straight to God
who has ALL answers, and every
time she did, God brought peace into the home and blessed our family. As I saw that growing up, I’ve been able to
use that in my own life. When I
miscarried in January, that was a trial in my life. I can’t tell you how many days/nights I cried
on the floor in the room of our townhouse that was going to be our
nursery. I closed the doors to people
around me, not because I wanted to seem rude, but because I wanted to cry out
God. And when I cried out to God, that’s
when God started pouring into me and I started learning of Him. He allowed me to lean on Him for strength and
He sent His Spirit to comfort me. No one
knows better than God Himself about what I am going through. Why? Because Jesus suffered too! Not just
that the Spirit lives within me, it is A PART of me, it shares in everything I
feel, think, and act. He understands
better than anyone. And when I did that,
God did something amazing for me… He gave me a vision and I saw my baby in His
loving arms, a beautiful baby boy. That
put my soul at rest and allowed me to refocus and move forward, and God started
teaching me new things about pregnancy.
We
have to turn to HIM, He wants to be the source for your answers! If I would
have turned to everyone else around me, I would have missed out on what God had
for me. He wants to comfort you. He wants to teach you. Let HIM!
I ended up buying a Precious Moments figurine of a girl on the telephone
crying and it says “Tell it to Jesus”.
That is my reminder when I feel the urge to pick up the phone and dump
on someone, I need to go to my prayer closet and get on my knees and telephone
God and dump on Him. He has everything I
need to comfort me and teach me where to go, what to do, or to handle the
situation.
So
here’s my next thing for you to do, turn to your neighbor and say “He is God
and you are not!” We need to learn from our Heavenly Father, the more we do, we
can enter God’s Rest freely.
6.
Find
Matthew
7:7-8
It says “Seek and You will find”. We will find God’s Rest, IF we take all the
steps that lead into God’s Rest. I
picture it like this, the doorway of Faith is partially open and there in the
doorway is Jesus, like He’s peeking around the corner just to glimpse of your
face (Song of Solomon…). He wants you to
see Him, so He reaches out His hand and says “Come to Me”. It takes faith to grab hold of His hand and
let Him alter everything of your nature and who you are to be what He has
called you to be.
