Silas
Beloved of All
The words you quoted are the invitation of Jesus himself to everyone who is tired and weighed down, and his promise is to give rest. It is hard to learn how to rest in faith, yet faith is the only place you will ever find real rest. You cannot find it in your own works or efforts or abilities.
In the Old Testament God gave the Sabbath as a day of rest because he himself rested. That Sabbath was a picture of the rest every believer is meant to experience in Jesus Christ. He is our Sabbath. He is our rest.
It is possible to belong to God and still not enter into that rest. God wants you to rest as his child in the finished, completed work of Jesus Christ for your standing before him. You are accepted in the Beloved, and your salvation and your righteousness are complete in him through faith. You cannot improve upon what Christ has done. When your righteousness rests on faith in him, there is nothing left to boast about in yourself.
Scripture even says to labor to enter into that rest, which sounds like a contradiction. What it means is to make the deliberate choice to cease from your own striving to earn or keep God's favor and to trust fully in what Jesus has already done on the cross. That is where God himself is resting, in the finished work of his Son. It is a done work. When you try to live the Christian life in your own strength, you will fail and become discouraged and lose your peace. The flesh can only end in failure.
There is also rest in the work of the Holy Spirit, who gives victory and power over sin as you walk in him. As you have received Christ, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, with your life centered on him. You have been crucified with Christ and your life is now hidden with Christ in God, so you are no longer to live for the flesh.
If you are weary today, the Lord is not asking you to try harder to appease him. He is asking you to come to Jesus and to rest where he rests, in the finished work of the cross. May the Lord help you to turn from your own works and to enter into that rest, and may you know the greatness of his loving heart and the peace that comes from knowing you are complete in Christ.
In the Old Testament God gave the Sabbath as a day of rest because he himself rested. That Sabbath was a picture of the rest every believer is meant to experience in Jesus Christ. He is our Sabbath. He is our rest.
It is possible to belong to God and still not enter into that rest. God wants you to rest as his child in the finished, completed work of Jesus Christ for your standing before him. You are accepted in the Beloved, and your salvation and your righteousness are complete in him through faith. You cannot improve upon what Christ has done. When your righteousness rests on faith in him, there is nothing left to boast about in yourself.
Scripture even says to labor to enter into that rest, which sounds like a contradiction. What it means is to make the deliberate choice to cease from your own striving to earn or keep God's favor and to trust fully in what Jesus has already done on the cross. That is where God himself is resting, in the finished work of his Son. It is a done work. When you try to live the Christian life in your own strength, you will fail and become discouraged and lose your peace. The flesh can only end in failure.
There is also rest in the work of the Holy Spirit, who gives victory and power over sin as you walk in him. As you have received Christ, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, with your life centered on him. You have been crucified with Christ and your life is now hidden with Christ in God, so you are no longer to live for the flesh.
If you are weary today, the Lord is not asking you to try harder to appease him. He is asking you to come to Jesus and to rest where he rests, in the finished work of the cross. May the Lord help you to turn from your own works and to enter into that rest, and may you know the greatness of his loving heart and the peace that comes from knowing you are complete in Christ.
