Life is good?

How many of us automatically answer, "good thank you", when asked how we are going or how our life is? Is it really good or are we just giving the standard answer? Have we said it often enough that we believe it ourselves? Maybe we could judge our own tree by it's fruit, as it were? Are we longing for a break, a trip away or some other escape? Do we like to read or watch television to take our mind off life? Are we trying to find a way of rest or escape? Is it a pleasurable experience that we are seeking so that we can feel good? If we are feeling needy in any of these ways then our life is not so good. Instead of looking for something in this world to fulfill our apparent needs, we have all of the answers in Jesus Christ our Lord. The life that He gives resolves our issues. His answers are not a temporary quick feel good but He brings us true rest in a stressful world.

MATTHEW 11 : 28 - 30 NKJV
28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

In verse 29 Jesus is saying that He wants us to learn from Him the way to find rest for our souls. He is not saying that we are automatically rested because we are believers, but that we need to be taught a new way of life. The reason why we are not rested is because we are yoked to the world. It is easy to see people around us racing, striving, competing with one another, but it is not easy for us to see it in ourselves. People who have their own goals in life will be focused on achieving them, for example. Anyone who is trying to achieve their own goals is running their own life and not being led by The Holy Spirit. 

If you can imagine being the organizer of a big function, it could be quite a stressful situation trying to get everything and everyone to work out according to your plan. But if you are the servant of the organizer then it is easy because you only have to turn up and do what the organizer is asking you to do. And so that is the difference between running your own life and entering The Lord's rest, where He is the organizer and you are His servant.

HEBREWS 3 : 7 - 19 NKJV

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.’
11 So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’”

12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; 13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, 15 while it is said:

“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Failure of the Wilderness Wanderers

16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? 17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? 19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

From verse 18 we can see that those who did not obey, did not enter His rest. Therefore it is only those who have given up their will to do the will of God in everything that will truly enter God's rest. Jesus does not expect us to be able to just hand over all of our goals, aspirations and agendas or the running of our own lives, but He is waiting to teach us how. We have been born into this world and, each of us to a different extent, programmed by it. Jesus's plan is that we be reborn into His Kingdom and transformed into one of His subjects, that we may abide in all of His blessings for us and above all that we may have His salvation. It begins with us.

MATTHEW 11 : 28 - 30 NKJV
28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

You see Jesus says "Come to me" , that means that we must seek Him for this rest. He will not impose it upon us, in fact it is only for the obedient. It is a great privilege. However we can simply ask Jesus to journey us into His rest and He will empower us to go there if we are obedient to Him as He leads us there.