When is the last time you felt rested? I don’t mean the time you managed to get to bed before midnight. I mean really rested.

We don’t live in a culture conducive to rest. Even in the church we can end up being overcommitted because we say yes too often. After all, it’s easier to say no to attending a neighborhood party than to signing up for a Bible study. If something sounds spiritual, we too easily think we should line up behind everyone else and take a ticket. But being busy for God and knowing God are two different things. And often they don’t fit together well.

One day when Jesus addressed a crowd, He spoke right to their bone-deep weariness: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He wasn’t speaking about the kind of tiredness you and I feel at the end of a good day’s work, when we just want to sink into a chair and not move until Christmas. No, Jesus was speaking to those who were worn out trying to do the right thing to please God and earn their salvation. Remember, this was before the Crucifixion and the resurrection, so if you were a God-fearing Jew listening to Jesus that day, you still woke up every morning under the burden of 613 laws. We know the Big 10, the commandments God gave Moses on Mount Sinai, but there were 603 more for the Jewish people to follow. Add to that weight the reality that the religious leaders of the day did nothing to ease the people’s burden. Jesus spoke directly to that fact:

The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden. (Matthew 23:2–4)

Jesus loves you. That’s the whole sentence. There’s no if tacked on at the end. It stands alone. Jesus loves you and me just as we are right now. Despite the countless shades of light and dark that live inside us, we are loved completely by God. Hard to take in, isn’t it?

That kind of love doesn’t exist apart from God.

That kind of love is hard to grasp when we’re busy running from one activity to another.

That kind of love calls us to rest—really rest—in the presence of the One who made us, who knows us, who loves us.

Real rest comes with knowing the grace of our salvation in Jesus. We don’t have to earn it.

Spend 2 Minutes in the Word and ask God to lead you to “Your Quiet safe place”!

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
Matthew 11:28–30

I said to myself, “Relax and rest. God has showered you with blessings. Soul, you’ve been rescued from death; Eye, you’ve been rescued from tears; and you, Foot, were kept from stumbling.”
Psalm 116:7–8 msg

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.
Psalm 23:1–3

I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope.
Acts 2:25–26

Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1

– S Walsh