Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
What times we are living in! In the last chapter of this era, we get closer each and every day as we await the rapture of the Church and meet Jesus in the air! While we wait for this joyous event, we must still live in the world. If you are like me, you are getting weary of what is happening in the world. I don’t want to say we are stressed about it because we know who is coming for us and who is in control. I would gander to say that there is anxiety amongst the believers of waiting and wondering when this chapter ends.
The only way to relieve this angst of the times is to find peace and rest in Christ. I mean, most believers’ sixth sense is telling them that something big is coming (rapture) any time now, and with each passing day, the anxiety of waiting continues. It may ebb and flow from our minds, but it is still there, and it needs to be dealt with. One way is to find rest in our Savior for what He did on the cross for us.
Matthew 11:28 tells us Jesus will give us rest. He doesn’t give us anxiety but takes it away. He won’t turn us away, nor will He ignore our calling out to Him for rest. We can… no, we will find rest in Jesus if we seek Him out and worship Him as our Captain, our Leader, and our Savior.
Each day that comes brings with it new ills to worry about relating to our world and faith. Apostasy is rampant. People and church leadership are getting soft on today’s obvious issues and coming rapture. As believers, we can get frustrated and anxious about all of this.
Feel-good messages. Watered down sermons. Reality avoidance. These are all happening in churches and circles of believers. I feel alone most of the time because of the lack of like-minded folks around me, and I want to scream and yell at my fellow believers that can’t see what is going on.
Argg! It drives me crazy to see them not see the obvious. It causes me to become frustrated and, yes, anxious. But that’s not all.
There is the world we live in and the society we are surrounded by. I won’t even begin to describe what the world is or how society is twisting out of control with evil, other than saying it is bad today and will be worse tomorrow or next week, etc., until the Church Age concludes.
Though there is no hope for the world, there is hope for believers. Not hope of a miraculous change of heart by the world, but a hope of rest and peace until the rapture. There is no need to be stressed, anxious, or scared of the world. Jesus overcame the world with His death and resurrection. We don’t need to worry at all because the rest and peace we can have if we want is found in Christ.
Even though things are amiss and disintegrating around us, we can gain strength and peace and rest through the knowledge that there is a God in Heaven who is in control of the present and the future. He oversees everything. He made everything and directs everything. Nothing happens without His permission, and He has been guiding us to this time and to the yet future to be for the moment of the rapture and so on.
John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
Jesus leaves us peace and gives us His peace. Notice this? Notice that He gives us His peace. Not the world’s peace, but His peace. Do you think His peace is greater and more than the world or our idea of what peace is? Surely it is. If it weren’t, the Word would not have expressed it this way.
When everything is going well in our lives and there are no troubles, we feel at peace. Yet, when something goes amiss and throws a wrench into our lives, our peace is disturbed and taken away. The peace Jesus offers to those who partake in Him and His peace is above the worldly peace that we have. It is greater than our circumstances and our problems. It surpasses anything; any type of offered peace by the world or others is nothing compared to His offered peace.
It is one thing for Him to offer it to us, and it is another thing for us to partake in it. We have to want this peace and have to be willing to do what is necessary to have it. What is the necessity? To surrender to Jesus!
The peace and rest of Christ is not for the unbeliever.
It is only for those who believe and surrender to the faith in His deity, His death, and resurrection. Only through this belief and faith can we have peace and rest in Him.
I want you to think for a moment. Think for a moment of the peace and the rest that the world has compared to that of Christ. It is quite different.
Think for a moment of your interactions with unbelievers when you are held by the peace and rest of Christ. They act differently than us. They have a different disposition and reaction to the things going wrong in the world than believers do. We have the disposition of a peace they don’t understand.
I’ve been asked before why I don’t worry about things going on in the world with the downward spiral and all its troubles.
I’ve been asked if I care or not because of my lack of perceived concern. I’ve been asked why I’m not all spun up about what is happening. My response is that God is in control. That I need not worry because I have the peace of Christ in me. And yup, I mostly get that “look” we all get from unbelievers, and they move on.
Though we may have anxiety about the world, we can be at rest. We can have peace knowing that history happening now and not yet complete is under the authorship of God. No person nor evil entity can take that peace and rest of Jesus away from us believers.
How do you attain and maintain the peace and rest of Christ? Simple; studying the Word and through prayer. By doing both, you will remain and grow stronger in your faith.
God bless.