Have you had a busy day? Have you had a lot of busy days recently? Are you longing for rest? Take a moment and quiet yourself. God instructs us to come to Him to find rest. Only God can give us true rest, rest on the outside and true rest in our inner being. Matthew 11:28 says “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (NIV) Take a moment and quiet yourself in the Lord and humble yourself before Him. Give all your burdens to God and let go of everything but Him. Be still in God and find true rest.
Psalm 46:10 tells us that “He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (NIV) Maybe your day seems as though it has been quite hectic with lots to do and little time to do it in. Maybe you are stressed about everything that needs to be done and maybe you feel as though you aren’t meeting the tasks adequately. Maybe you feel as though you are burning the candle at both ends and something has to give. My dear friend, this should not be! If these are feelings you are experiencing then you are not focused on the truth and you are not resting in the Lord, but rather, you are focused on yourself and the ways of the world. We are all human and not one of us is perfect. We are not in control of things. God is in control of all things! And praise God for this! Romans 8:28 says that “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV) God is always working everything out for the good of His children! As children of God, who believe in Jesus, we can rest assured knowing that we are guaranteed a blessed future in our Savior, Jesus, who lives in us! God always knows exactly what each one of us needs in each and every moment of our lives, even though we do not, and God will always bless us with exactly what we need in each moment of our lives according to His perfect will! God’s will is always done and God has plans to prosper us and bless us perfectly in Him! (Jeremiah 29:11)
Philippians 2:13 says “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (NIV) We do not have to fret about the tasks we face and completing them adequately, God will complete these tasks through us, in a manner that glorifies Him, and God is the one who has blessed us with each one of these tasks to complete. We must not focus on ourselves but rather we must focus ourselves on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith who loves us and gave Himself for us! We are imperfect and we do sin, let us be honest about that with ourselves and others, but let us not fixate on our sinful nature but rather let us meditate on God and His grace! In our Savior, Jesus, we are no longer slaves to sin, (Romans 6:14) for we have died to sin in Jesus who eternally conquered sin and death for us! Jesus paid the full price for us and our sin! Jesus set us free from sin and death for all of eternity and He reconciled us to God by the shedding of His blood on the cross for us! All of our past, present and future sins have been eternally forgiven in Jesus! Jesus set us free to be free! (Galatians 5:1) We are no longer slaves to sin so we must not spend anymore time thinking and acting as though we still are! We have been blessed with God’s grace even though we do not deserve it! God called us to Himself and He opened our hearts, our minds and our eyes to see our sinful nature and our need for our Savior, Jesus. God taught us about His truth and He taught us about Jesus who died for us to redeem us. Then God blessed us with faith in Jesus, our Savior, and in Him we received eternal salvation for our souls! The very God who we sin against has saved us and blessed us with eternal life in His Son, Jesus, who gave Himself for us! We are perfectly and eternally blessed! God blessed us with His perfect grace even though we are sinful, and it is God alone who we sin against! God blessed us with His free gift of salvation in Jesus and God blessed us with the faith that we need in Jesus to receive God’s free gift of salvation for our souls! Now that we have been blessed with God’s free gift of salvation in Jesus, we can and should rest in God’s grace! We are weak in our sinful nature but our God is strong and no one can succeed against Him! It is no longer us who lives but it is Jesus who lives in us and He is our life! (Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:4) Jesus lives in our inner being, as our personal Lord and Savior, and we have everything that we need in Him! (Ephesians 1:3)
We must not think and act like those who are slaves to sin. We live to glorify God and God alone! We do not live to glorify ourselves or our sinful nature. We must not listen to what the world says we should do but rather we must always meditate on God and His truth! Stop trying to set your own goals and meet your own standards! You are not here to please yourself! Thinking and acting as though we are here to set our own goals and meet our own standards is a mindset that comes from our sinful nature. We live to glorify God and God has a perfect plan for our lives! We must walk humbly with the Lord our God who has called us to eternal life in His Son, Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all sin and death! By the grace of God we are who we are! (1 Corinthians 15:10) And who are we? We are precious, dearly loved children of the one and only living God of all creation who has blessed us with eternal forgiveness and eternal life in His one only Son, Jesus, who died for us! By God’s grace we are who we are and now we get to enjoy the eternal life to which God has called us in our Savior, Jesus! We are deserving of death, because of our sin, but God has blessed us with His perfect grace in His Son, Jesus, who died on the cross to save us from our sins and then He rose to life again, eternally conquering sin and death for us! We are perfectly blessed with everything we do not deserve so let us walk humbly with our God, the God who has eternally redeemed us!
We must humbly commit ourselves to God and we must remember that it is not us who lives, it is Jesus who lives in us! We have died to sin and now we are alive to God in Jesus! (Romans 6:11) Jesus lives in our inner being and He is our life! (Colossians 3:4) Go humbly before God and quiet yourself in Him. Be still in the Lord your God. Let go of everything but Jesus who will never let go of you! Few things are needed, indeed only one, (Luke 10:42) and the one thing we need is Jesus! Praise God that we have our Savior, Jesus, living in us and praise God that, in Jesus, we get to freely go before the Lord our God eternally forgiven for each and every one of our past, present and future sins! We have been reconciled to God by the blood of His one and only Son who loves us and gave Himself for us! Be still in God and rest in Him! If you feel as though you are burning the candle at both ends and something has to give, it is because you are not focused on God and His grace, you are focused on everything else and your focus on those other things is what has to give! Let go of everything and give it to God! Rest in Jesus and enjoy the blessed eternal life to which you have been called in Him! In Your Savior, Jesus, you have everything that you need in Him and you are guaranteed a perfectly blessed future in Him and an eternal future in Heaven with Him because He loves you and He gave Himself for you! You have not a thing to fear! You are and will always be perfectly blessed in Jesus! Stop fretting and worrying as if you have anything to fret or worry about because in Jesus you do not!
Even in times of life that seem difficult, we can and must always rest assured knowing that even struggles in our lives are blessings in our lives! God blesses us with struggles in our lives to shape us even further into the children of God that He has created us to be and God blesses us with struggles in our lives to better prepare us for the blessed eternal life to which we have been called in our Savior, Jesus! Struggles may seem difficult while we are experiencing them but we also come through those struggles better prepared for the blessed eternal life to which we have been called in Jesus! God also blesses us with struggles in our lives to teach us to rely not on ourselves but on God alone! (2 Corinthians 1:9) So walk humbly with God, quiet yourself in Him and be still in the Lord your God relying completely on Him and Him alone in each and every moment of your life! Remember, Exodus 14:14 says “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (NIV) So be still in the Lord and know that no one can succeed against your God who has saved you by His grace in your Savior, Jesus, who loves you and gave Himself for you! Let go of all things and hold onto Jesus who lives in you as your personal Lord and Savior! Jesus is your rest and He is your peace!
Maybe you have never known true rest because you have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. God has brought you here to share His truth and His love with you and God is working in your heart and in your life in this very moment! God wants you to come to Him just as you are and He has brought you here just as you are right now! God loves every bit of you perfectly, just as you are, with an everlasting love! God pursues our hearts, just as we are, to bless us with His perfect grace even though it is God alone who we sin against! If God is in pursuit of your heart He will not fail! No one is perfect and we all sin. (Romans 3:23) Our sin separates us from God and our sin leads to death. (Isaiah 59:2, Romans 6:23) Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins and then He rose to life again eternally conquering sin and death and when we believe in Jesus and invite Him into our hearts as our personal Lord and Savior, then we receive eternal forgiveness for our sins and eternal life in Him! (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, John 3:16) Salvation for our souls is only found in Jesus! (Acts 4:12) We cannot earn salvation and it is impossible for us to save ourselves. (Ephesians 2:8-9) Romans 10:9 says that “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (NIV) If you have come to understand and admit that you are a sinner and if you believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins and that He rose to life again, then you can invite Jesus into your heart and your life as your personal Lord and Savior. You can pray a prayer like this:
Dear Heavenly Father,
I know that I am a sinner and that I need Jesus to save me. I believe that Jesus died on the cross to save me from my sins and that He rose to life again. God I am sorry for my sin. I invite Jesus into my heart and my life as my personal Lord and Savior. I commit my life to you.
In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
If you have prayed a prayer like this, then praise God for you have been eternally forgiven for all of your past, present and future sins in Jesus and you have received eternal life in Him! If you have not yet invited Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior then do not delay! Only in Jesus can we have eternal life and find true rest for our souls!
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