Work = Rest
John 4:34
“My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work."
Life is busy and difficult. Every day, we face new problems that seem to pile up, one on top of another.
The world offers an endless array of tools and methods that claim to provide a reprieve from the stresses of life.
Some people turn to entertainment, others to drugs and alcohol...
These things may temporarily distract you from the problems in your life... But once the distraction ends, you find your problems have remained, waiting to be solved.
What's the solution?
For many, it's to live in a perpetual state of distraction...
Moving from one source of pleasure to another, with periods in between, putting out fires that become too big to ignore.
God has a different solution.
A solution that works...
It is work!
Matthew 11:28-30
"Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
What Jesus says almost appears counter-intuitive.
He says "Are you weary? Do you want rest? Okay, take my burden."
Jesus is not being funny.
He is trying to explain a concept to us that I believe most people do not understand.
A concept that He lived out!
What if I told you, that you desiring to avoid work that was causing your exhaustion?
Your desire for rest is the source of your lack of rest...
God created you with a specific purpose.
He designed you!
In the garden, the first thing He did when He created Adam was to give him a job...
Adam was to husband the garden and husband Eve.
Later, when Adam sinned, God told him in Genesis 3:19 "By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made."
You were designed to work!
James Vernon Mcgee says "God created the universe and He does things His way... you may have a better way but you don't have a universe."
God said that we would work until the day we die...
You may try to fight against that...
You may scroll on your phone for hours on end, watch a million movies, and drink all of the alcohol in the world...
It will not change anything about the way God designed you and the way He structured His universe.
He designed you to work...
A horse was designed to work as well...
A horse can not run continuously.
A horse must sleep, eat, and drink...
A horse does these things so that it can continue working...
Where men run into problems is when we start sleeping to sleep...
When we start eating to eat and drinking to drink...
If you want TRUE rest... it comes from God.
That means you have to do things His way.
Jesus said, "My nourishment comes from doing the will of my Father and finishing His work."
Try it!
Lean INTO work instead of avoiding it.
Go into your job and look for people to serve.
Go home and serve your wife and children.
Go to bed praising God.
Wake up and do it all again.
See if God won't fill you with energy...
It worked for Jesus!