The Power of Rest

Most of us have had the experience of coming back from a relaxing vacation feeling refreshed, energized, and having fresh perspective.  I experienced this after coming back from North Padre Island in Texas, where the beaches seem to go forever and the ocean water was warm and inviting.  Taking time for physical rest, relaxing, and reflecting on life is so revitalizing yet what is true in the natural is true in the spiritual.  Learning how to live from a place of rest with God dwelling in us is so important for our well-being.

In Genesis God creates the heavens, the earth, the animals, the plants, and all that is within it.  After God creates on the seventh day He rests, He sanctifies and blesses that day (Sabbath).  God will always bless our rest because we are entering into the place He is, since after Jesus completed His work on the cross and ascended to the right hand of God He sat down.  Ephesians 2:6 tells us that we are "and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus".  This is a passage that mirrors Genesis 2, we are to begin our new life "in Christ" from a place of being seated where we don't work for salvation.  God works and then He rests.  We are to rest and then work from a place of rest.

Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still and know that I am God."  Resting is all about being aware of God, connect to His Presence, and receiving from Him.  I have found when I am working for what Father has already purchased for me "in Christ" then I am focused on myself, resent God at times, and have a hard time hearing Him.  As we learn to cultivate the "secret place" of rest and peace with Father, then we can live from this place of dwelling "in Christ".  So many times people are wrestling to get something from God, when resting and trusting by faith actually draws what they are looking for.  You came into the Kingdom of God by grace, do we really grow in the Kingdom by anxiously working, striving, or earning.

I believe there are treasures that God has for us as we position our hearts in a place of rest to receive from Him.  He has everything good-peace, joy, love, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control to mention a few.  Even physical rest is one of the ways that we promote healing, health, and overall well-being.  Yet we are so often deceived to believe that our performance, striving, earning, pushing, self-effort is going to bring us the treasures of the Kingdom.

Be at Peace,
Bret