First Day - The Secret Of RestSýnishorn

Rest Is Optional

“Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” (Mark 6:31)

When Jesus said “Come,” it wasn’t a command, but an invitation. We cannot be driven or forced into rest, but we can be led to it. However good the idea or necessary the call, rest will never be something we are coerced into – rather it is a pathway we must choose. When Jesus spoke to a weary crowd in Matthew 11:28-30, He invited them to do three dynamic things:

1. Come to Me. In seeking to find the joy of rest, we cannot get away from the essential, intimate connection between who the Lord is and what He offers. It is impossible to consider living in the power of His rest without grasping the truth that this means “living in Him.” We cannot have His rest without Him!

2. Take My yoke. Taking His yoke means accepting His truth and surrendering to His direction. Once yoked, we are no longer driving the agenda. Instead, we’re making a choice to allow His teaching to be our truth and His purpose to be our plan. That’s why His yoke can be easy and His burden light – because it’s not ours. It’s His and He carries it with us.

3. Learn from Me. Jesus promises that when we come to Him He will give us rest, but qualifies this by showing us that rest is found through the process of surrender and submission. This teaches us the powerful duality of responsibility involved in this journey to rest. From God’s perspective, only He can give rest, and from the teachings of Christ, we understand that rest is administered by Jesus Himself. But from our perspective, we must possess what He offers to us. We must enter into rest, just as our first parents were encouraged to do. Rest will not simply come to us, but we must go to it and embrace it. As we yoke ourselves to Him and His purpose, responding to His call, we will live in His rest and His rest will live in us.

We have a choice: Do it our way or yoke ourselves to His way. In the former we reign, but in the latter we’ll rest!