The way to find rest

Posted on January 18, 2013 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28, NASB)

Come

The command to come implies movement, you cannot stay where you are. If you are in need of rest you must move, you cannot stay still. It will not get better without action on your part. But that action needs to move you in closer proximity to Jesus.

To me

To Jesus and to Jesus alone. Jesus is the only place to find lasting rest.

All

No-one is excluded from this promise. Anyone can come.

Who are weary and heavy-laden

Who is not weary and heavy laden? Many of us work hard at maintaining the illusion that we have it all together, but let’s be honest. We don’t have it all together.

Too much of life is outside our control. We may influence, but we cannot control what goes on around us. We get tired from the burdens that we find ourselves carrying.

And I will give you rest.

We can find rest by coming to Jesus with our burdens. The last lines of the hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” provide some insight as to what we can expect from Jesus:

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

No qualifications

Notice that the the only qualification that is required to obtain rest from Jesus is to come. All we have to do is show up and the rest ours. Why then do we seem to always come to Jesus as a last resort after trying all the other stuff we “know” that we should do?

Just come!

About Mark McIntyre

A follower of Jesus Christ who shares observations about how Scripture should impact the church and the world. Mark is the original author and editor of Attempts at Honesty.

So far and no farther

It is as if God is saying to Babylon, “I will let you go so far and no farther.” Isaiah tells Babylon that they may think that they have the power to do whatever they please, but they do not.

On Bullies and Turning the Other Cheek

Whether it is by personality or by training, or some combination of both, I like to have rules to assist in making decisions. But one thing we learn from the gospels is that Jesus often didn’t play by the conventional rules and sometimes it is difficult to discern if a rule is from God (and inviolable) or from man (and can be ignored).

What if we lived out what we say we believe?

A woman beginning her ninth decade laughs when she is told that she will bear a son. Her husband is ten years her senior which adds to the seeming impossibility. In response to her laughter, God asks Abraham a question, “is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14)

That same question remains for us.

Worshipping a God without limits

While we can often only see the limits, we are called to see beyond them. Why? Because we worship and serve a limitless God.

Training for the battle

Gibbon writes that the only difference between the field of training and the field of battle was the effusion of blood on the latter. The church could learn from the Romans.