Hebrew Root Word for “Rest” ( נוּחַ )
- Rest, settle down, remain
- Lay or set down, deposit, let lie
Greek Root Word for “Rest” ( ἀνάπαυσις ) > anapauo
- Intermission, cessation of any motion, business or labor.
- Rest, recreation.
Have you ever come home bone tired and literally worn out from the day? The only thing you want to do is climb into your favorite recliner and rest (picture below). But the only way you can truly rest is to transfer all of your weight to the recliner and trust it to hold you up and support you without any effort on your part. If you try and hold yourself up (support yourself) in any form or fashion, you will not rest. You cannot rest. It is impossible.
You must release yourself to the strength of the recliner. You must have faith in the recliner. You must totally trust the recliner. Once you do, your body feels the burden of its weight relieved. It is such a blessing to know that you no longer have to hold yourself up physically or support yourself in any form or fashion. Your mind and your body begin to rest.
The same thing is true when it is time to crash for the night on your “blessed bed” (picture below). You must release yourself to the strength and reliability of the bed. You must have faith in the bed. You must totally trust the bed. If you try to put one foot out on the floor and try to help the bed hold you up, you cannot rest. You cannot sleep. It is impossible.
Or, if you hang a bar down from the ceiling close enough to your hands, so you can grab the bar and try to hold yourself up (helping the bed support your weight), as you try to fall asleep….you cannot relax or rest or sleep. It is impossible. You will be miserable until you let go and fall completely into the mattress, so that you are no longer doing anything to support yourself.
The only way to enter into God’s rest, is to totally and completely release yourself into Christ’s righteousness, where you stop trying to save yourself or keep yourself saved.
Jesus Christ is your recliner of salvation. Christ is your bed of salvation. To be saved, you must rely completely on Him to be right with God through His perfectly lived life, His death on the cross, and His resurrection to get you to heaven by His righteousness and His holiness (His absolute moral purity).
You cannot depend upon or rely upon anything in yourself or anything you have done or will do. You cannot have any confidence in yourself, when it comes to going to heaven. You will never make it and as long as you think you can be something or do something yourself to help earn your right to go to heaven. You will never have true salvation or spiritual rest.
In Matthew 11:28-30, the Lord Jesus identified our greatest need and really our greatest desire, if we are honest enough to admit it….as spiritual rest. That spiritual rest will come only when we transfer absolutely all our hope, confidence, faith, and trust to the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation and eternal life. Jesus put it this way.
Come to Me, all who are toiling and being burdened, and I will give you rest (Literally = “and I will rest you.”). Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.(Matthew 11:28-30)
What did He see people toiling (striving) at spiritually and what did He see them spiritually burdened with? People who have not come to Him yet are toiling or striving at how they are going to get to heaven when they die and they are spiritually burdened with their sinful natures and all of the guilt that the sinful nature has caused in their lives.
In the classic Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan portrays the groaning pressure of a man who is weighed down to the depths of his soul with a burden of which he is unable to rid himself of. It is like the apostle Paul’s description in Romans 7:24 where he describes the body of death that crushed his spirit, that he carried around before he met Jesus Christ….Romans 7:24: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
The pilgrim is weighed down by a great burden—the knowledge of his sin and guilt.
This knowledge came from reading "the book in his hand" (the Bible). This burden, that would cause him to sink into Hell, is so unbearable that he must find deliverance. Morally and spiritually, he feels himself in a boggy mire-like swamp where his doubts, fears, temptations, lusts, shames, guilts, and other sins will sink him into the fatal mud of the swamp.
So, how did he finally put on that “easy yoke” and enter into that “soulful rest”? You know the story. The pilgrim came to the cross where Christ was crucified for his guilt and sinfulness. He saw and believed that Jesus Christ had already been punished for his inner-sinfulness and guilt and all of the individual sins his evil nature had spawned.
When he believed this, his burden fell off and he experienced that inner-cleansing and felt totally pure for the first time. Now he wore the yoke of salvation, that was an “easy yoke” and allowed him to enter into that “soulful rest”.
I will always remember that moment years ago at 2:00am on a Saturday morning, when my burden of sin fell off, and I experienced that inner-cleansing and felt totally pure for the first time. I had called on the name of the Lord Jesus out-loud and asked Him to save me from my sin and take over my life as my personal Lord & Savior….Gene
Pilgrim’s faith (trust) in what Christ had already done for him brought the relief and rest. There was nothing more he had to do, but rest and rejoice in Christ, knowing he would never have to face God in judgement.
He could understand what Christ meant, when He said on the cross, “It is finished”. He could feel like Habakkuk who said, “Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet and makes me walk on my high places”. (Habakkuk 3:18-19)
The writer of Hebrews summed up this issue so well in Hebrews 4:1–3.
The promise to enter the place of rest is still good, and we must take care that none of you miss out. We have heard the message, just as they did. But they failed to believe what they heard, and the message did not do them any good. Only people who have faith will enter the place of rest. {Have faith in what Christ did for them.}
God created the entire universe and everything in it in 6 days. Then He rested (He stopped creating). He has not created anything else since then. Christ finished His work of salvation for us in 33 years. Then He ascended back to heaven after the resurrection, where He has been resting. The Holy Spirit has been applying His work of salvation to individuals ever since, while He enjoys the fruits of His labor and looks forward to the next phase of eternity with us.
And His promise and blessing of tangible spiritual rest for you is here right now, but you must take care that you don’t miss out on it, by trying to be good enough to get to heaven on your own. You must believe what you have heard in the Word, that Christ has done everything needed for you to be right with God and to inherit eternal life.
Remember what the Philippian Jailer in Acts 16:30-31 asked Paul & Silas….”Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” Transfer all of your faith, hope, and confidence to Jesus Christ for your salvation. The jailer did that and entered into his spiritual rest. Spiritually, he completely reclined in Christ and rested. Spiritually, he laid down on his bed of confidence in Christ and rested.
If you have never transferred all of your faith, hope, and confidence to Jesus Christ for your salvation, today would be the best time to do that!!! His perfect peace and rest is waiting for you. Romans 10:13 says, “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”.
Until next time….Yours in Christ!
Gene
Replies to the Devotional:
*Fantastic and profound message Bro! Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that think
that their own goodness will be sufficient and approved by God...RC in Texas
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