Jesus . . . Rest

Greetings Friend.

What follows are some thoughts on Christ and the Christian’s Rest. I’ve compiled a few items on the theme. The main biblical passages are Matthew 11:28-29 and Hebrews 3 and 4. You may be very familiar with Matthew 11:28-29. If you can recite the text, are you as familiar with the reality it describes? Have you responded to Jesus’ call and have you entered that rest? Having entered, do you live from that rest? What about your life confirms this to you?

Or, does your life, at its deepest recesses, evidence the complete opposite of rest—unrest: …”chaos” …”turmoil”…”fear”…and “always scurrying about needing something but never seeming to be satisfied and quieted?” Do you seek something you see as rest from your own resources, from other people, or from the world? What describes you?

Today, some may need to hear a call to rest for the first time. Others of us may need to hear a call to rest as a reminder. Do you need to hear a call to receive rest for your life? Does it seem as if the help you sense you really need cannot be obtained, so you just assume your experience is life and is all you’ll ever possibly know? Have you given up? If there were a peace or rest available that promised you a new view of life, enjoyment, and separation from the world’s woes and your own, what cost would you be willing to pay? Would the offer even interest you?

As you read what follows, consider the rest described, the source, and the cost. Consider what people did who were contemporaries with Jesus. Will you do the same? If Jesus were to call you specifically, would your ears hear?

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me.” (Jn 6:44-45)

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Mt 11:28-29)

“Since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.” (Heb 4:1)

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest.” (Heb 4:9-11)

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” (Mt 9:12)


“Come unto me, all ye who mourn, with guilt and fear oppressed;
Resign to me the willing heart, and I will give you rest.

Take up my yoke, and learn from me, a meek and lowly mind;
And thus your weary, troubled souls repose and peace shall find.

For light and gentle is my yoke: the burden I impose
Shall ease the heart which groaned before beneath the load of woes.”

(Author Unknown)


“Oh! Wonderful, wonderful! That the one who has help to give is the one who says, Come hither! What love is this! There is love in the act of a man who is able to help and does help him who begs for help. But for one to offer help! and to offer it to all! Yes, and precisely to all such as can do nothing to help in return! To offer it—no, to shout it out, as if the Helper were the one who needed help, as if in fact He who is able and willing to help all was Himself in a sense a needy one, in that He feels an urge, and consequently need to help, need of the suffer in order to help him!” “As for the danger that too many might come, He had no fear of it.” *

“All His willingness to help would perhaps be no help at all if He did not utter this word and thereby take the first step. For in His summons, ‘Come unto me,’ it is He in fact that comes to them … He who utters this saving word, ‘Come hither,’ was not deceived in Himself when He uttered the word, neither will He deceive thee when thou comest to Him to find rest by casting thy burden upon Him. He follows the prompting of His heart in uttering it, and His heart accompanies [follows] the word—follow then thou the word and it will accompany [follow] thee back to His heart.” **

Friend, when considering Matthew 11:28-29, backup and read first chapter 10. Then, after reading into Matthew 11, continue on into chapter 12. Doing so, you will notice the theme of “rest” as it pertains to Christ, captured and conveyed many different ways, all crowned by His call in 11:28.

Matthew 10 reveals Jesus, the Jesus message proclaimed, and reactions to that message. Matthew 11 reveals aspects of John the Baptist’s message (people “came to” him), differing reactions to the Baptist’s message, the Baptist’s own sense of looking to Christ and rest, but then the Spirit has us look beyond the Baptist to see Christ Himself (…as the one to whom all people should come to, and Jesus as “The Caller”). Then, with the Caller, the Call, and the reality of Rest revealed, the first part of Matthew 12 positions Jesus as Lord over the Sabbath (Law, etc.).

As a result of Jesus being proclaimed and believed in, the record shows people experienced physical rest, relational rest, spiritual rest, etc., both immediately and anticipated during future events. These examples of what I (correctly or incorrectly) see as “rest or peace in the life of a person separated to Christ and, thus, in opposition with the world,” extend from a person being yoked to Christ. Once yoked, a person lives in concert with Christ as the fundamental relationship in life, following His lead through life. One who has answered Christ’s call then lives from a position of rest (barring the disruption of that rest due to unbelief or hardness of heart). See John 10:4, 9; Psalm 121:7-8; Psalm 23.

Matthew 11 also connects the concept of rest to final judgment. There were those during Jesus’ life (as now) who rejected Christ, believing they were safe resting in “their” estimation and judgment of Christ and proclamations regarding Him. Yet they were blind as to their true condition and true need, so they could not foresee the time when their apparent rest would vanish and horror become their enduring condition. Thus, there is a sense of rest, or false rest, (actually, it may be termed “being self-reliant”) that exists as a normal attitude associated with people’s view of Christ.

“Come to Me.” The call is Christ’s. It is His own unique pronouncement and narrow invitation to be with Him and forever partake in the Divine relationship of everlasting life. His pronouncement offering rest to all follows, in the text, and flows from His confession to the Father of Divine wisdom doing things just the way His Father purposed. There is no mistake in Christ’s offering of rest. Do not be fooled! You cannot self-generate, nor can the world generate, the type of rest Jesus here emphasizes and offers, and that you and I need.

Following Christ’s call is chapter 12. The first eight verses show Christ as rest from the Law (from self-righteousness and religiosity). In Christ, one is free from the Law, both its demands and judgments. Christ fulfilling the Law means those who came to Christ could rest. The Law could lead to Christ, but only Christ could return rest. Law has this neither by design nor capacity. But, still, many prefer life under and by Law because this way of life seems fashioned for the flesh and fallen human nature. It demands and self-justifies, which, strangely, appears right and safe to some. But it does not provide the needed rest. It does not stem from mercy. It demands.

The entire set of chapters, Matthew 10-12, display for us Christ and reactions to Christ, be those reactions rejection or receipt of His person, message, or rest.

Now, with Jesus’ call from Matthew fresh in mind, proceed to Hebrews chapters 1 through 4. Chapters 3 and 4 emphasis the unique rest related to Christ. The message of the writer is that this rest can be missed. The writer, in similar fashion to Matthew 10 and 11, presents Christ (Hebrews 1-2): His person and position. The writer then provides an example of those who earlier in Divine history rejected, thus missed, God’s offered rest. Interpretations may differ, but I take this example, primarily, as a physical rest conditionally offered to the Israelites. Christ, the substance of Old Testament shadows and history, is the true and promised rest of God that remains for some to enter.

As with Israel then, people today hear Christ presented, but they have not faith. These fail to enter into God’s offered rest (primarily spiritual, relational). Faith moves one toward the reality of what is revealed about Christ as Christ is presented. Faith is a believing response to the call and movement toward Christ. The rest that both Matthew and the writer of Hebrews call people to be sure they participate in is enduring rest: it is being reconciled to God through Christ, then living from that ultimate relationship.

This particular rest bears its own reality and validation to the believer:

“He who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” God rested. He enjoyed the new reality He created! He pronounced His work both Good and Very Good. Friend, if a Christian, do you enjoy—as a primary description—your life? Are you resting in God? Frequent admonitions and warnings fill Hebrews 3 and 4 that one can miss out on the life God wants that person to experience. As in Matthew 11, so the Hebrews author encourages us to get and stay close to Christ:

Matthew: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Hebrews: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Reader, “rest” is what you and I need. Jesus offers it. We can not create or find the necessary rest apart from Christ. We are the needy ones. We don’t have the basis or source within ourselves to generate it. Neither does the world. There are numerous varieties of false rest to mislead us from coming to and staying with Christ. Jesus is true rest and He invites us to both live in a condition of rest and from a condition (state) of rest. Both Matthew 11:28-29 and Hebrews 3-4 reveal Christ as true rest and stress the importance of one knowing he or she has entered into that rest. What would our lives look like if we lived from a state of Divine rest? Let that thought or vision take hold in your imagination and instruct you.

May you let your life tell you whether you have entered in and live from this rest. If you doubt, revisit Christ’s call. Then, without further delay, enter into His rest today.

God’s best to you.


“With tearful eyes I look around;
Life seems a dark and stormy sea;
Yet, mid the gloom, I hear a sound,
A heavenly whisper, ‘Come to me.’

It tells me of a place of rest;
It tells me where my soul may flee:
Oh, to the weary, faint, oppressed,
How sweet the bidding, ‘Come to me!’

When the poor heart with anguish learns
That earthly props resigned must be,
And from each broken cistern turns,
It hears the accents, “Come to me.”

When against sin I strive in vain,
And cannot from its yoke get free,
Sinking beneath the heavy chain,
The words arrest me, “Come to me.”

‘Come, for all else must fail and die;
Earth is no resting-place for thee;
To heaven direct they weeping eye,
I am thy portion; come to me.’

O voice of mercy! Voice of love!
In conflict, grief, and agony,
Support me, cheer me from above!
And gently whisper, ‘Come to me.’”

(Charlotte Elliott, d. 1871)

(Soren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, *p 6 and 9, **p 16; ISBN 0375725644)