| "We will go into His tabernacles: we will worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, into thy rest..." PSALM 132:7-8 "When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none." MATTHEW 12:43 "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19 This is the day that the Lord has made, we WILL rejoice and be glad in it! I hope you know that God loves you and has awesome plans for you! He wants nothing more than your good and your well-being! He wants to wipe away every tear and heal your broken heart. Shattered dreams, broken promises, let downs of every sort--God wants to give you a new beginning, a new hope, a new dream! Let Him breathe that into you today! The Bible says that if we will draw near to God, He will draw near to us (JAMES 4:  ! Draw near to Him today! Pray and seek His face! Turn off the T.V., unplug the phone, do whatever it is you have to do to MAKE time to spend with Him today! Open the Bible and give God the opportunity to speak into your life today, knowing that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God! Let Him speak into your life today--words that heal you, words that set you free, words that will relieve you of the burdens of your soul, for Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest, even rest unto your souls"! Thank God that we have someone to run to in Christ Jesus! He's the only one that can satisfy the hungry soul! Quit looking to your husband, quit relying on your wife, quit wearing out your parents! They can only do so much and what they are able to do you are quickly depleting! Look to God! He will never leave you nor forsake you! The others did because you wore them out! They are only human! You need to be able to run to someone who's big enough to handle your biggest problems and strong enough to deal with your strongest devils! You can't tire God out with your incessant need and you can't weary Him with your continual coming! Haven't you heard that He who keeps Israel (you) shall neither slumber nor sleep (PSALMS 121:4)? He wants to be your keeper! He wants to be your protector! He wants to be the shade upon your right hand, which is to say, the one who refreshes your soul just as shade from a tree refreshes us on a hot day! Won't you let Him? Won't you let Him be that to you? When will you tire of impostors? When will you tire of posers? When will you weary of trying to make people and things and activities God that cannot be God nor ever will be? "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest...ye shall find rest unto your souls" (MATTHEW 11:28-29)! Who calls your house a home? This is the last little bit of what God has put in my heart to give to whomsoever would read these words. May they bless your soul and lead you into a closer walk with Jesus Christ who is our peace and our life! I want us to focus again on the idea of rest. Particularly, God resting in us. In previous postings, we talked about God's desire to rest in us as well as the evil spirits desire to rest in us. Whether one or the other finds their rest in us is determined by OUR choice. Who do you choose? Whom have you chosen? When a person makes the decision to ask Jesus Christ to be their Savior and Lord and they come to the point where they believe in their heart that Jesus is the Son of God and that He rose from the dead and they confess that with their mouth, God then comes to rest in them. Your body then becomes the resting place of God Himself! Your body becomes His temple, His tabernacle, His dwelling place, His house! Taking this a step further, now, as a Christian, you have God living in you! You have a will. God has a will. God, who is living in you, has a will! And you, in whom God is living , has a will! Do you see where this might pose a bit of a problem? Can you see that this has the potential to not be the smoothest of paths!? A lots of times, because there are two wills present in the same house, there is the potential for conflict to arise. If you've ever had a roomate, if you've ever been married, if you've ever had to work with other people as you look toward particular goals, you know what I am talking about! A conflict of wills! I want to do this, you want to do that! You want to go that way, I want to go this way! I want us to look at two definitions of rest according to the Webster's New World Dictionary. One definition of rest is "to be placed, based or founded (in, on, upon, ect.)". The other definition of rest that we will deal with here is "relief from anything distressing, disturbing, annoying, tiring, ect.". When we became Christians, God came to "rest" in us in accordance with the first definition of the word rest which we have mentioned above. When we asked Jesus Christ to come into our hearts and into our lives, He came in and found a place of rest IN us. He found a resting place in us. But, just because He now calls our house a home by virtue of our profession of faith and has found a resting place in us does not mean that He has "rest" in us! Can you see the difference? How can Christ find a resting place in us but yet not be at rest in us? To the degree that we allow Christ's will to override our will is the degree that Christ has "rest" in us and not merely a "resting place" in us. If my wife and I decide to go to the movies and we agree on the day to go, that is good. We are at rest. If we agree on the time to go during to particular day we've agreed upon, thats good. We are at rest. But, if she wants to see one movie and I want to see another movie, even though we have agreed on the day and the time frame, now we are at a crossroads and we are at unrest! One of us has to lay aside our will so that we can proceed. Here is where our trouble as Christians comes in! When I want one thing, but God wants another thing! When I want to do this but God says to do that! When what I would say "yes" to, God in me says "say no" to! When what I would say "no" to, God in me says "say yes" to! To the degree that we allow Christ's will to override and take the place of our will is the degree that Christ has "rest" in us and not merely a resting place in us. This also determines our maturity level in God and thus our level of joy and peace! Some Christians are always depressed and sad because they are allowing their wills to override God's will, so, they are in perpetual conflict with God! They would find that if they just simply surrender their will to God's will, peace and joy would overflow into their soul because they have allowed God to have His way in their lives! As my wife and I were looking and working toward our wedding day and honeymoon the question of money came into play. We had already changed our honeymoon plans several times in order to accomodate what we could realistically, financially be able to handle! Well, in the middle of all this, I get into an auto accident. I recieve $1,500 in damages. What do I do? I am torn between getting another vehicle so that I can continue to go to work and make money so that I can be a blessing to my wife or use that money for our wedding expenses and honeymoon. I could use that $1,500 to get another vehicle and have an even less than honeymoon and treat my wife to something better later or I could use that to bless her now, knowing that this is a once in a lifetime thing and we would never have this particular moment of time back again! The answer might have been obvious but I was really torn! Lord, what should I do? As I prayed about it, it was becoming increasingly obvious that I should use that money for the wedding expenses and honeymoon. The more I tried to investigate and look into the purchase of another vehicle, the more uneasy I became with that direction. It was like I wanted to do that but I didn't want to do that. I talked with a Christian friend who has been married for seven years and asked for his counsel and that night found peace and joy as I made the decision to let go of my will to get another vehicle and embrace God's will of using those finances for the wedding and the honeymoon! And, believe it or not ladies, my wife-to-be wasn't constantly riding my back and making a fuss and letting me know what I should do! Rather she was supportive and said that she knew I would make the right decision and she left it at that! What a woman! What a blessing from God! I love you, baby! As it turns out, my brother-in-law and sister, one month later, blessed us with a nice-running, nice-looking 1993 Ford Ranger pick-up! "$500 dollars", they said, "pay us when you can"! You see, God wants you to have your cake and eat it to! He is a good God and has good plans for us! Saying "yes" to a God like that is always in our best interest! Allowing a God like that to have his will and way as we lay aside our own is always a joy and pleasure! With this little story from my history, I would like to ask you, my brother and sister in Christ, "Does Christ find rest in you or merely a resting place"? Now, don't get me wrong, it's wonderful and glorious and advantageous for you and the Kingdom of God that you have allowed Christ to find a resting place in you! That is great and beautiful and I celebrate, along with you, your salvation. But we also must recognize that that decision was just the beginning; that decision was simply the entry level position into the Company (the Kingdom of God!) and God has provided all kinds of opportunities for you for expansion and growth! The Bible says in 2 PETER 3:18, "But GROW in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. ..." and there can be no growth without obedience to Christ or, to put it another way, a surrendering of our wills to Christ's will in us so that His will can be done through us! If you take an entry level position with any company with the objective of growing in and with that company and rising up through the ranks, you will never accomplish that goal without obedience to your superiors--your supervisors, managers, leadmen, ranking officers, whatever the case may be! If you want to excel and grow with that company you will do what they say they need to get done! You will be available to be used by them to accomplish the companys goals and objectives! If they need someone to stay late, you will stay late; if they need folk to come in early, you will be there; if they need help in another department doing something different from what you have been doing and recieved training in, you are open and available to change! Do you get the idea? Now you don't have to take these opportunities for growth in the company, after all, who wants to stay an additional 2 hours when you have already put in a 10 hour day? Who wants to go through the hassle of learning a new position and getting acclimated to a new working environment when you excel at the position you have been at for the past five years and you can do it in your sleep (it is comfortable, you know)? Who wants to go through all that? The person who wants to grow in that particular company, that's who! You may not "feel" like waking up 3 hours earlier to go into work an hour earlier but you do it because you want to grow with the company. Because you want to grow with the company, you surrender your will to the Company's will (sorry, I meant to use a lower-case "c"!), make the appropriate adjustments and punch in a hour earlier because you know that it will benifit you later though it might cost you now. God has plans for our lives, yes, plans to prosper us and give us a hope and a future but in order to see God's good plan for our lives realized let's not forget that we must line ourselves up with His plan (read THE HOLY BIBLE for further instruction, direction and enlightenment)! You say you want a husband who will love you, appreciate you,esteem you highly,ect. but yet you are dating a guy that you know is not a Christian ("Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers..." 2 CORINTHIANS 6:14) and you yourself aren't working at becoming the kind of godly, God-fearing woman that such a man would want (2 PETER 1:5-10 ; PROVERBS 31:10-31)! Oh, we have so much to learn and so far to go and grow but look at how far God has already brought us! Indeed, He who began an good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the day of His coming and He will perfect (mature) that which concerns us, to the praise of His glory and for our good (PHILIPPIANS 1:6 ; PSALMS 138: ! Don't allow yourselves to "settle" in Christ; to settle for where He has you right now; to settle for what He's done in you to date and what He's done through you to date! There are mountains yet to be climbed and lands yet to be conquered! Caleb was still climbing mountains in God and conquering lands in Christ well into his 80's (JOSHUA 14:6-14)! My prayer for you today, saint of God, is that He would make you uncomfortable where you have grown comfortable in unrighteousness; that He would stir up an unrest in your soul where you are resting in a false sense of peace until He bring you into the "promised land" that He has for you, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land that God has for you which is truly in accordance with His plan to prosper you and not to harm you but to give you a hope and a future, in Jesus' name, AMEN! Don't allow yourselves to "settle" in Christ, my brothers and sisters, but rather, allow Him to "settle" in you! Allow Him to come to a place of rest in you where He finds relief from anything distressing, disturbing, annoying or tiring because you've ceased from fighting His will and have come to the point where you are flowing in His will! So let it be done in you and in me, AMEN! Jeff Saenz SLAVES WAGE |
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