God’s government over our lives is a government of rest, because God does in us and through us what we are incapable of in ourselves, we are just yielding to the inflowing of His Spirit into us and through us.
The kingdom of God speaks of his government, his dominion, the throne upon which he sits. His throne is in heaven but it is also inside of our spirit.
The river of life flows out from under his throne in heaven; it flows like a mighty river of the Holy Spirit out of heaven into our spirit.
God’s government is a government of his presence, a government of love, a government of his peace that flows like a river and expands bringing life wherever it flows.
It is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. We inherit the kingdom, because we inherit his nature qualifying us to inherit his authority.
As we partake of the divine nature we are transformed into his image and we become love and through the out flowing of his love in us, he gives us the authority and power to govern over the creation in love.
As the Spirit of God flows into us, he interpenetrates us so that we partake of the essence of who He is. His D.N.A in our spirit begins to grow and he is formed in us. We grow into a full grown son, patterned after the first born of a whole new creation. We then inherit the throne of our father and govern with him being one spirit.
In order to govern God’s creation we first have to allow him to govern our lives. We have to yield to his influence over our lives; we have to learn how to walk with him.
Our obedience to the Lordship of Jesus over our lives is a participation in his nature. His Spirit works in us to desire and then to do.
The way the Spirit of God works in us is by filling us with himself, his mind and emotions and desires and abilities flow into us where we experience them and partake of them and then we walk in them and become a reflection of him in the earth.
When we learn how to live from the inside out through a flow of the Spirit we experience rest. When we seek first the kingdom and his righteousness everything else is added to us.
When we live from the outside in, then we are trying to get all the needs of our soul met through self effort which usually ends up in being hurt, damaged and fractured because we were not created to live independently of God.
When Jesus is on the throne or the seat of rest in our spirit we will experience rest. If we are still on the throne we will be seeking to meet our own needs in our own strength. The key to being able to fulfill our destinies is to experience living from the place of rest. All responsibility must flow from relational rest.
When God is on the seat of rest in our spirit, we will find the answers to the questions that we have deep down inside of us. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Will my life mean anything?
When God is on the throne of our lives the needs of our soul are met through the inflowing of his presence, we receive from him Love, Affirmation, Approval, Significance, Protection and provision.
Being seated is a picture of rest. In the Old Testament, the priests never sat down. There were no chairs in the tabernacle of Moses because their work was never finished. There was only the mercy seat where God’s presence and glory rested.
In the new covenant we are called upon to enter into his rest.
We are to be diligent to enter into his rest .Not work for rest but surrender and enter rest.
The physical land was rest to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, Heb 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. God’s grace and rest are the inheritance of the believer under the new covenant.
Rest is being blessed or empowered to prosper. Rest is God’s provision and protection and the place where He can be our shepherd so we will not want .Rest is the place where our destiny can be fulfilled.
YHVH, the Creator of the universe, rested on the seventh day. We do not get just one day in seven to rest: we get every day, because our rest is in Him. Our rest is possible because His work is complete but always functioning .He is always working on our behalf.
John 15:4-5 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
Abiding in Him speaks of a relationship of rest where fruit grows .We cannot produce fruit of any eternal value unless we are connected to the source through the Vine (Jesus). In relationship with Him, we allow Him to work through us so our destiny can be fulfilled.
We are a branch of the Vine, but the branch does not provide the nutrients and supply of life itself. If you cut the branch off, it dies. The life is drawn up through the roots of the plant to produce the fruit. Through Jesus we have access to the resources of our heavenly Father.
Rest is about abiding in him, maintaining that connection. Rest is about being and not doing .Rest is not trying to earn our relationship or trying to live a life that is pleasing to God all by ourselves.
Rest is not inactivity but the works that flow from our relationship with God. It is only doing what we see the Father doing and speaking what we hear the Father speaking through the flow of His Spirit, it is never acting independently.
Fruit in our lives comes from being receptive to the life of God flowing through us. We are a channel of God’s blessing .If we want to fulfill our destiny, the call of God on our lives; we need to learn how to abide in Him.
When He is on the throne of our lives we will discover we can truly trust Him .His rule in our hearts brings us his rest .His government in us brings us his peace.
Rest comes as we surrender the rule of our lives to Him .Rest is realized when we stop working for ourselves or for Him, and allow his Spirit to flow through us.
Heb 4:1 Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. Heb 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest .Rest is a result of our trust or faith in God, which is a result of our communion with him.
Heb 4:11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. Rest requires diligence: we have to actively surrender and pursue God for relationship .Our relationship with him is the true rest.
Psa 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God. What does it mean to be still? The NASB translates this phrase as ‘Cease striving’. Striving comes from the word strife .God wants us to stop fighting and struggling and surrender control of our lives to Him .If we are always ‘doing’, we are not allowing Him to be God in our life.
Prov 3: 5Trust (to hide for refuge . A verb indicating to trust, to be confident. It expresses the feeling of safety and security that is felt when one can rely on someone or something else, be bold) in (motion towards, into, to sit at) the LORD with all thine heart; and lean (to rely, to support oneself) not unto thine own understanding. 6In all(every thing) thy ways( root to tread, walk)( a road, path, journey) acknowledge (yādaʿto know-see, intimacy in relationship, (1) to know by observing and reflecting (thinking), and (2) to know by experiencing. Consequently yādaʿ is used in synonymous parallelism with “hear” –Exod 3:7, and “see” –Gen 18:21)) him, and he shall direct(a verb with the primary sense of “please, figurative to be (causative to make) right, pleasant, prosperous , to be straight, make straight or even) thy paths(root- to travel-go)(path, way, highway, a well trodden road).
Rest is the result of knowing the Lord intimately. We hide in him or live in our spirit in union with his. In everything we know him, instead of leaning to our own understanding. What is our own understanding? The pathway of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is Knowledge apart from God, living apart from God.
Isa 40: 31But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Waiting upon the Lord means to be intertwined, twisted & woven together so that we become as one. We don’t have to try and work things out for ourselves; the flow of the Spirit lifts us up into a different dimension of perception and energy.
Matt 7:26 Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
The storms of life come to everybody: it is how we respond to them that will demonstrate to what extent God’s kingdom rest is manifested through us. We are all called to live in a state of rest regardless of what is going on around us .What wears us out is trying to do things in our own strength.
We are called to live in the eye of the storm. There may be 200mph winds blowing all around us, but in the eye, everything is completely peaceful.
He gives us His love, joy and peace. With the love, joy and peace of God in us, we can live at rest all the time, to rest in his nature and his abilities. This rest is not automatic; we have to learn how to enter into it. We have to learn how to let go-disconnect from the problems without and enter into him who is our rest and then live from the inside out.
Jesus is our example. He was asleep in the boat, crossing the lake, when a great storm rose up. His body was at rest and his spirit and soul were in the heavenly places. His disciples were in a panic, even though He had already told them they were going to the other side. He was at total rest but the disciples were not at rest.
They woke Him up, and He brought peace. He rebuked the storm and everything became calm .Peace, be still – rest. He had authority from a place of rest. Our authority comes from a place of rest .When He is on the seat of rest in our spirit we can live in His authority.
Rest in a spiritual sense means primarily to cease from one’s own works and enter into the benefits of another’s. In this context rest means to be done with self-effort as far as salvation is concerned. It means the end of trying to please God by our efforts and dead works. It is resting in God’s grace; His divine ability.
Rest is offered to everyone and is freely available but can only be received as a free gift through faith .Only in Jesus and the Father can our soul be truly at rest.
This rest is called a “sabbath rest” because it is a participation in God’s own rest. When God completed his work of creation, he rested .Jesus has also completed His work and now He is seated at rest .Are we resting on what He has already done?
God’s rest is first of all spiritual not physical. His rest flows into our spirit and then our soul and then our body. Resting in God and trusting in His promises can relieve us of nervousness, tenseness, and other physical problems. These are the by-products of His rest.