One of the big topics in my life is rest. Not fall asleep kind of rest, but the one where you relax in Him. Yesterday began to remove my peace, my sense of well being. A manufacturer had done me wrong. They have a rule and they broke it. Their answer was “maybe the next time”. Meanwhile the pain went from being done wrong to being angry and needing to go for multiple walks.

I want to share something I wrote in February of 2008 about the beginnings of my truly catching more and more about the rest of God. Hebrews 3:19

Learning about rest
Right now I have a huge fire going and it is starting to warm up. So, I am sitting in front of it with a computer in hand and a cup of YOGI tea. (Hey, hey, Booboo…) Ok, so it probably means Yogi Berra…It says on the label to “experience the warmth and love of your soul.” That is a mouthful.

So, as I mentioned earlier, my meditations led me here.
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

I felt the Lord saying…

Learn the discipline of rest

One of the most important subjects in the Bible is the subject of rest.

It is found in every book of the bible. God takes rest very seriously. He commanded the Jews to rest every 7th day, every 7th year and every 49th year to take a year off. The year of Jubilee. God took this so seriously that when the children of ignored those 7th year celebrations, for 490 years, he required that they go into captivity for 70 years in Babylon.

OK What’s the big deal about this?

When Jesus was baptized, in water and the Spirit, he was tempted of the devil, overcame him with the Word and then came back into Nazareth preaching what? The year of Jubilee (Luke 4) He stood up and said that the Jubilee, the Sabbath was a person and I have arrived. (I have said this for years, that Jesus is the Sabbath and when we see ourselves crucified and risen in Him, we are in the Sabbath.)

We must learn the discipline of living from a place of rest. Sounds like a paradox? Christianity is not striving to become more like Christ, rather it is in resting in him and beholding him that we are transformed. That sound both wonderful and familiar but most Christians rarely seem to make it past the idea to enjoy the reality.

Let me take a few lines to break this down to where we are and outline how this can become our normal.

We have to learn to stop trying to produce in our experience what Jesus accomplished on the Cross. In John 19:30 Jesus cried out “It is finished”. At that moment everything “pertaining to life and Godliness was bought and paid for. As believers we have been taught that Jesus paid for our salvation and have understood that to be our ticket to heaven but in reality Jesus gave up everything that he had in his relationship with God that he might have it back in your experience.

We are constantly asking God to do what he has already done instead of resting by faith in the provision that he has already made available.

There’s a great test to see if you are at rest. Are you enjoying your Christian walk?

That folks was a big question for me and the beginning of my pursuit to get things back.

Is it a joy? The word says that Jesus faced the cross for the joy that was set before him.

Is 28:11-13 For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, 12 To whom He said, “This is the rest with which You may cause the weary to rest,” And, “This is the refreshing”; Yet they would not hear. 13 But the word of the LORD was to them, ” Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little,” Or as another translation says, because they would not embrace this rest…

So then, the word of the LORD to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there­ so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured.

Holy Spirit has been sent to lead you into a place of rest and wonder from which to walk with Jesus. There is such a joy available to the believer that it will offend the religious.

Think about that!

Clearly when I wrote that I knew more about rest than I felt yesterday!

Seriously though, where does your walk lead you? Do you find yourself agitated, disturbed, fearful? All those things are not helpful to enjoying the company of the Lord. I get it. I just want to find a cottage with a fireplace and trails. But sometimes that is not possible in the natural, so where do I go? To the “Rest of God” in the here and now. As a spiritual dad said to me when I was going through a difficult time. STOP TRYING AND START BEING! I felt like he had slapped me but something clicked. The tumblers of the locks of my heart and my mind clicked into place.

Consider Is 28:11-13. Make that your meditation to overcome the fears, the urgency, the draws of temptation.

Psalm 116:7 has this to say…
Return to your resting place, my soul, for the LORD treated you generously.