By Apostle Aje Pelser
Harvester Reformational Church, Cape Town, May 2020
Mat 11:28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Mat 11:30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Here are some keys that will help you to enter His rest.
1. Meekness & Humility are keys that help us enter into that rest. Meekness is our strength under His control like a king’s horse walking at the pace the rider sets. The more power God entrusts you with, the more you need to operate in meekness. Moses was the meekest man until Jesus, who knew the power of God.
2. Humility is having a sane estimation of yourself according to your measure of faith. To think soberly about yourself. Underestimation of self is inverted pride. It is irritating when someone cant even take a compliment because they are too deflecting. Maturity and sober thinking can acknowledge a compliment without it causing pride, because the acknowledgment of their Source helps keep them humble.
3. Learn from Jesus that His Yoke Easy and His burden is light
What is His yoke? His words… to operate in His gentleness and lowliness of heart.
His command is an easier yoke than the Old Testament because Love summarizes all the commands. Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
4. Positional Truth keep us in rest. We are seated in Christ Jesus in the heavenly realm.
a. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
b. We are more than overcomers in Christ.
c. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God.
5. Orbital thinking around Christ – with communion and commission in balance
6. Sabbath rest. God worked for six days and rested on the seventh.
a. If you do not allow for a Sabbath rest, your body will take it from you. The land also needs a rest – to let the land lie fallow helps the land to recover from constant farming. As I walk around in the mornings I see sports fields and parks resting! The earth has needed a rest like this for ages. Man abuses nature without thinking about it. If we learn some lessons from this period of history it should be to let the earth rest more regularly form pollution, from over working the soil and from taking it for granted.
b. The same, however, applies to mankind. It is sad to hear that people are working harder than ever out of fear.
c. There should be boundaries in our time management now and employers should respect that families are under even more pressure working from home. If you encroach on family time it will negate this exercise of rest completely.
Exo 23:10 “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce,
Exo 23:11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.
Exo 23:12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed.
7. The Rest of Faith: we need diligence to enter that rest of faith. Hardened hearts prevent us from entering the rest God has for His people.
Heb 4:9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
Heb 4:10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
Heb 4:11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
8. Rest in the spirit is deliverance from oppression and possession.
Luk 8:35 Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
9. Rest in the soul is taking thoughts captive and healing broken hearts. Renewing your will according to God’s will. 2 Cor. 10:4, 5; Luk. 4:18, 19.
10. Rest in the body is actual sleep and Sabbath principle application. This prevents disease and chronic fatigue and disorders of various systems of the body. Moderation in all things helps us to enter a permanent restful lifestyle. Taking time for yourself daily is becoming harder and harder while there are more distractions fighting for your attentions.
Jas 5:13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.
Jas 5:14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
Jas 5:15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Photo by Jordan Wozniak