Baroni Bloggin’

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he that has entered into his rest has ceased from his own labors as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4: 9,10) 

One time I told a friend’s mother, (who was obviously stressed out about a lot of different things in her life,) that Jesus said that we could come to Him and rest, to learn of Him and to take His yoke upon us for His “yoke is easy and His burden is light”. She responded: “That’s for after you die! I don’t want to die yet!”

It was a slightly amusing response, but mostly a sad one. Sadder still when I consider the lack of rest that I see in my own life, and in so many believers’ lives.  I am not speaking here of sleep deprivation, I am writing about an addiction to busy-ness in the Name of the Lord. A subtle pride (or fear) that causes us to think we have to “work harder for God” than everyone else.

A teacher informed me years ago that to be “need- based” is to never be at rest. Some say “the need is the call”. Is it, really? This man went on to say that Jesus didn’t heal everyone or meet every need when He walked the earth, (though, of course He could have). He said, “I only do what I see the Father doing. The Father in Me does the works”. Was Jesus not being compassionate? Or is there some wisdom here for us?! 

Major Ian W. Thomas in his powerful book- “The Saving Life Of Christ” puts it this way:

“Serving God in our own strength is like someone giving us a fine automobile that we proceed tp push wherever we are trying to go. We make some small progress, we are going in the right direction, we are sincere, … and we are sincerely exhausted.” (my paraphrase)

He goes to write that it is much better to utilize the power of the engine and operate the car the way it was designed. We were never designed to serve God in our own ability, we are “naturally supernatural” through the Word and Spirit of God in us!

Watchman Nee said: “Only Jesus Christ has ever lived the normal Christian life and only He can… so stop trying to live it, and let Jesus live His life in you through the power of the Holy Spirit!” (again my paraphrase).

The Apostle Paul put it this way: “I live, nevertheless not I, but Christ lives in me.” The New Testament says that “if anyone be in Christ, he (or she) is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.

We have not received the “rat-race” spirit of the world, the spirit that says do more, try harder- but the Spirit of God Who says, “it’s not your effort that pleases me, it’s your being my son or daughter through Christ.”

As I travel and share, I often speak about how sad it would be for a caterpillar, who crawled facedown all it’s life, after risking the cocoon and becoming a beautiful butterfly, still insisted on walking everywhere, dragging those beautiful, heavy wings behind it.

Yet how many of us are butterflies walking!

Isaiah says…” but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew (exchange) their strength. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. They shall mount up with wings as eagles…” (or butterflies maybe?).

As we enter into the Life and Rest of Christ, then the works that God has prepared from of old for us will be done through us. Jesus said it this way: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you and ordained you that you would go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit will remain.”  (John 15:16a)

Not inactivity but God’s activity in us!

The church at large is in a transition from being a task-oriented group into a relationship-oriented family. The task is important: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

However, the task is secondary to the relationship, in fact, the reason FOR the task is relationship! God wants an eternal love relationship with mankind, He teaches us how to live in love with Him, with each other, even, by His grace, to love our enemies.  Let’s be patient with each other and ourselves.!

Godrest and Godspeed

David Baroni 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Random Thoughts, Spiritual Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.