Rest!

Rest! There’s a peace in resting and there’s perfect peace in resting in Christ.

The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years, instead of entering into that promised rest.

Why?…

‘They could not enter in because of unbelief.’

They didn’t enter in because they saw the giants of the land and doubted. They looked at the giants and thought that ‘THEY’ couldn’t overcome them, forgetting that THEY didn’t need to, they just needed to trust God to.

How often are we like these Israelites friends?

We despair of ever overcoming the giants of those faults and sinful inclinations within us, we despair of ever growing in grace, we despair of ever bearing any fruit, forgetting that WE don’t have to fight the sin within, it’s not OUR job, we’re to trust God to fight through us and help us win those battles.

We forget that growing in grace isn’t about striving to be better, it’s about leaning and trusting God to do the work in us and for us.

Growing in grace is growing in dependence on God.

We don’t bear the Fruit of the Spirit independently, we bear it as we draw nourishment from the Living Vine.

It’s NOT the Fruit of Works, it’s the Fruit of the Spirit!

Giants are fought and conquered by faith, by trusting and resting in Christ alone.

‘Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.’

There a final resting to be found in Heaven for each of God’s children but there’s also a rest to be found here below, it’s found in Christ and friends we don’t want to fall short of obtaining this rest in Christ.

Are you resting in Christ today Friend or are you resting in your own works?

Are you STRIVING to produce those various aspects of the Fruit of the Spirit in your life, are you fighting the giants of sin in your OWN strength? Are you TRYING to grow in grace?

Ah Friends, there’s no rest to be found there, you can’t enter into His rest through your own efforts.

‘Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

NEVER!

‘There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God’

So who are those of God’s people that have entered into this rest? The answer follows…

‘For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his OWN works, as God did from his.’

It’s the one who has ceased from his own works.

It’s those who have stopped trying to produce that Fruit in their own strength but instead are drawing all their nourishmentt from the Living Vine.

It’s those that draw all their strength and wisdom from Christ alone.

Are you looking and longing for this rest in Christ Friends?

Then…

‘Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.’

This is the only labouring we’re do to, a labouring to enter into rest, into that resting in Christ alone.

It’s a labouring in prayer for faith, it’s a striving to rest in Christ, to submit everything to Him, to trust our all to Him. It’s leaning hard on our Saviour, It’s abiding experientially,

It’s “no more ME just all Christ IN me.”

It’s that constant drawing from the Living Vine through God’s word.

‘For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart..

IT’S REST.

‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I WILL give you rest.’

Stop labouring to fight that sin within friends and instead CLING to Jesus, REST in Christ, trusty in Him to produce that fruit through His Spirit in your life.

‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find REST unto your souls.’

Don’t fight the giants in your own strength child of God, instead learn from Christ, trust Christ who is in you, to fight them through you and for you,..’and ye SHALL find rest unto your souls.’

Self wants to strive, to do it all in her own strength but living faith trusts God to do it for and in her.

If God just spoke and there was day and night and land and birds and seas and fish, why would we ever think we could do a better job of overcoming the sinful tendencies within us than God can? Yet so often we live as though we do!

We need to rest friends!

Total dependence brings rest.

‘What shall we DO, that we might work the works of God?

‘Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.’

Believe and rest Friend.

Rest in Christ is the work that we’re to do and then trust God to produce the Fruit.

Heb 3:19, Heb 4:1, Gal 3:2,3, Heb 4:9,10,11,12, Matt 11:28,29, John 6:28,29.