All who labor and are heavy laden with sin, the Lord calls, ‘come to Me!’  For only He can give us the rest we need.  We may seek rest from other things, but this is not the kind He gives as it goes beyond this world and is everlasting.  It’s ours if we will hunger for it and be willing to come to Jesus – empty, that is, in total surrender. Then these will not be just mere words: ‘Be still and know I am God,’ For God will open up to us a new place called the stillness of God for all who would place their faith in His Son Jesus Christ.  Though the world around us is spinning in much chaos and even as it touches our own life, with grief, sickness and tribulation of all kinds, the Lord will not allow the storm to overtake us but will grant us His everlasting peace in it.  Let us be clear that when we seek others or things, we will not receive this peace.  We also must see the difference between one who is desperate to save their life to one who is desperate to lose their life to be saved.  As to seek to save your life, you will lose it, and to lose your life for the sake of the Lord, you will find it.

This is worth repeating; we must forsake our life so that we may be able to cling to the Lord and be saved; this is what repentance means.  Without repentance, we cannot receive Jesus Christ to become our Lord and Savior, for we are still serving ourselves.  You cannot put new wine in old wineskins.  We must give up the old to receive the new.  The Lord calls us to follow Him, and this is the only way. 

The Lord is looking for those who would seek Him to learn who He is.  He searches for the hearts that desire to walk with Him in fellowship.  Are we interested in wanting a relationship with the Lord?  Do we seek God to (merely) be saved from the fires of hell?  Do we come before Him only when we are in a stressful situation or when we have a to-do list for Him?  He tells us that He already knows what we need and cares for us just as a Husband, his wife and father of his children. It is strange if we heard a wife ask her husband for protection, isn’t it?  Or for a child asking his father for necessities?  Yet, how much time do we ask in our prayers for these things?  Our job is to make sure we know the Lord we claim to believe and obey.  That we would take time to sit with Him, in prayer and the reading of the Word, asking for His Holy Spirit to illuminate our path.   

He will lead us in His Light which is truth, and away from the darkness in the world and sin.  We will receive His cleansing through His blood and will understand what clean is and will lose the desire for all that is unclean.

We may overcome all that has had a place in our lives because He has already overcome, and now we can walk as He walks.  It is up to us to resolve that we will go by the narrow gate, which is Christ and His way and as we do, He shows us what is evil that we otherwise did not know.  He will show us things that we think harmless that is.  He will open up to us the mind of Christ, and we will only increase in the desire to turn from what is not pleasing to Him.

For all who are the Lord’s will walk away from evil and in and toward His Light.  As it rises, we will be like the sun; it only grows brighter and more glorious with the Light it contains.  For it is the Son who shines in us, and our path will be illuminated in the Glory of God we will be clothes in His peace and know His joy.  We will know Him, and He will know us. 

Once, we were led by fear, but no more, and fear has no place in us now, not even fear of death.  For death is only the doorway to the one who we love to be finally with Him forever!