To prepare your heart to receive this message, please take a moment and listen to this song by Donald Lawrence – Hebrews 4:9 “A Rest” (Vintage Detroit Mix)

I have so much to say to you, but I have no idea where to start. Therefore, I’ll start with the message the Holy Spirit has been asking me to share. There is a rest for the people of God. Our Heavenly Father wants to give us a gift.

REST.

Will you receive His rest? Will you believe for His rest?

It’s difficult for me to write about this because I have a hard time resting myself. I have a hard time receiving the rest of God. In fact, I’m being tested in this very area right now. There have been plenty of times where I could not rest in my mind, soul or body. Can I tell you what the Lord told me?

REST.

I must share this prophetically. Rest is coming! Get ready to get your joy back! Get ready to get your peace back! God is about to do a new thing and He wants you to receive His rest.

What are you doing with what God promised you? Are you sitting there trying to micromanage the promises of God? Why aren’t you standing on His Word??? If this isn’t for somebody its for me. Sometimes the encourager needs to be encouraged! In His Word, God said “for I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT) God is still saying this today! We must trust Him, then receive this Word and His rest.

I’m in a season of transition. This season has caused me to be concerned about many things. I am sure you can relate. We worry and we work. Worry and work…then do it some more. Until finally God says…Are you done? I told you to rest.

 

 

Don’t get it twisted. Some of the things we worry about are valid concerns. Like.. God if I take this leap of faith will I be able to pay my rent? Or God if I tithe will I still be able to pay off some of this debt?

Enough with the hypotheticals let me give you some questions I recently had to ask God…Why do these people treat me so badly at work? What is on the other side of all of this pain? Why did you send me here without provision? But guess what? I’ve chosen to surrender to God’s Will and rest. As a matter of fact, there is rest in surrender!

Can I be completely honest? This transition season has had me burnout. I am just starting to recover. I was so tired and weary that I wanted to stop writing my blog and close down my ministry. I was just so tired, and I wanted to stop. I wanted to stop living for God and live for myself. I wanted to be a “regular” Christian (whatever that means). I simply wanted to just mind my business. But then God told me to rest. I needed rest because I was weary in the fight of Faith and began to get disillusioned by the battle. Then God told me a simple, four letter word…REST.

As I began to rest, I then realized that I’ve been warring against my enemies and even my own flesh for the Glory of God. I’ve been going through so that I can testify. I have so much more I want to tell you but now is not the time. I will just say that sometimes God won’t immediately change your situation because He is trying to change you.

Once you’ve prayed, worshiped and followed specific instruction as led by the Holy Spirit, it’s time to rest. Let God fight your battles. God wants to bless you, but He might not enter the battle if you don’t invite Him. He probably won’t fight for you if you won’t stop trying to figure it all out on your own.  Will you enter into His rest today? I know you may be thinking…Tiffany, all that rest stuff sounds good but I’m going through.

I understand because I’ve been going through in my own life. That’s why I am glad that we serve a high priest who is weeping with us! God is real and He is weeping with us! No matter what you’re going through God is right there with you. He doesn’t rejoice in our suffering. He is right there with us. “Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” Hebrews 4: 14-16 (MSG) No matter what you see, will you rest? Will you accept God’s gift of rest today?

Additional Resources: After God told me to rest several times (I can be hard headed every now and again)…He told me to purchase and read this book Running On Empty: Overcoming Burnout, Exhaustion, & Weariness by Heather Lindsey.

Also, always spend time connecting with God in His Word. The Bible is so full of soul food. Get you some!!!

The Story/The Lesson:  The scripture below and song above inspired this blog. You have to read the entire chapter of Hebrews 4 as it is jammed packed with the point of my post. We must have faith to receive Gods promises and enter into His rest. We must also remember that God weeps with us when we are suffering. We serve a God who understands our troubles and helps us through them with His overwhelming love.

The Word: Hebrews 4: 1-16 (MSG)

When the Promises Are Mixed with Faith

For as long, then, as that promise of resting in him pulls us on to God’s goal for us, we need to be careful that we’re not disqualified. We received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn’t do them a bit of good because they didn’t receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we’ll experience that state of resting. But not if we don’t have faith. Remember that God said, Exasperated, I vowed, “They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.”

God made that vow, even though he’d finished his part before the foundation of the world. Somewhere it’s written, “God rested the seventh day, having completed his work,” but in this other text he says, “They’ll never be able to sit down and rest.” So this promise has not yet been fulfilled. Those earlier ones never did get to the place of rest because they were disobedient. God keeps renewing the promise and setting the date as today, just as he did in David’s psalm, centuries later than the original invitation:

Today, please listen, don’t turn a deaf ear . . .And so this is still a live promise. It wasn’t canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn’t keep renewing the appointment for “today.” The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.

God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.

The High Priest Who Cried Out in Pain

Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

 

© 2019 The Love JC Ministry, all rights reserved.