Finding Rest For Our Souls
Minister: Pastor (Mrs) Bolaji Ajimati
A lot of times when we fellowship and receive words from the Lord in our hearts, persecution arises and makes us forget these words (Mark 4:17). We ought to take ourselves back to the word of God.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30).This scripture speaks more to believers than unbelievers.
The Lord wants us to come to Him and not labour in futility; He wants us to come to Him and receive His rest. The scripture did not promise rest in our spirits but for our souls (Matthew 11:29).
At the New Birth, our spirit is saved by what the Lord did on the cross, but the soul and the body are yet to be saved.
Man is a tripartite being: spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The soul comprises three parts – the mind, will and emotions. The reason we still struggle with sin is because the sin nature still resides in our soul.
Our entrance into God’s rest comes by knowledge, not head knowledge, but experiential and revelational knowledge.
As we come to receive the word of God through head knowledge, we should not remain there – we must move into revelational knowledge, which will then translate into experiential knowledge for us.
We may be at different levels of our spiritual growth but God has us in mind and He has His view of where He is taking us to. We might assume that the flesh relates to bodily actions, but it operates from the realm of the spirit which is where sinful natures originate from.
The Lord respects our will but He wants us to submit it at His feet. One may be born again but still be strong willed against God.
The Lord will not strive with us against our will, but He wants us to come to a point where we willfully submit our will to Him. It is in doing the will of God that we can grow spiritually.
If the Lord gives us a commandment and we do not obey, we cannot receive a higher commandment from Him.
We must always submit our ways to the Lord. If we say the devil is not our father, then we need to follow our true Father and learn of Him(Matthew 11:29). When the Holy Spirit instructs us, it is because He wants us to grow beyond our current state.
Thus, we should learn to submit our will, worries, emotions, anxiety, jealousy, etc. in the place of prayer as there is nothing we can do by our own strength.
“[16] That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;” (Ephesians 3:16-19).
We need to be strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man so that we would not lose our peace by the activities of this present life.
We should not walk by our feelings but by the word of God (2 Corinthians 5:7). The enemy might seek to make us lose our peace but we should only be moved by the word of God and cleave to the word of God in all situations.
We should not base our needs on what we see or the happening around us, but we should look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
The devil does not give up easily, hence, we should not also give up on the word of God. We should be able to take practical steps to escape the wiles of the devil (Ephesians 6:11).
It is in obeying commandments of the Lord that we will grow spiritually. We must be tested after we have received knowledge. That is how the Teacher will know that we have truly understood what has been taught. Whoever we yield ourselves to is our master (Romans 6:16).
We must understand that the enemy is involved in every contention that we have with our brethren. The devil does not relax when we have overcome in previous seasons, rather, he would seek to ensure that we are unable to fulfil the demands of subsequent seasons. As such, we should not relent in doing the will of God.
If we can find rest for our souls (Matthew 11:29), then we can have rest in other areas of our life. We can have rest such that what we are going through would not overtake us.We enter into His rest through prayer and the word of God.
Satan uses seemingly legitimate reasons to prevent us from attaining the will of God for us. Thus, we must have a personal walk with God that will energize us against his antics.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12). As we labour in the spirit, we would come into His rest and keep the enemy at bay (Hebrews 4:11).
The same way the children of Israel fought enemies before they entered into the promised land, we also must labour on our knees. We must have the culture of praying in tongues as by it, we build ourselves on our most holy faith (Jude 1:19).
Whatever we are going through is only part of the journey and we should pray that the Lord will see us through the demands of each season of our lives.
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