Sis, Just RestSample

SIS, REST IN THE WORD OF GOD

In Mark 4:39-40, the thing that sticks out to me is how the disciples responded. How we respond reveals a lot about what's in our thoughts, hearts, and what we truly believe (Proverbs 23:7). The disciples were with Jesus on a ship, sailing to the other side of the lake when a great storm of wind began to blow. You would think that these disciples would be at rest because they had just heard a great teaching from Jesus about the Kingdom of God. What's so interesting and intentional is that Jesus' message about the Kingdom of God was about seed. This is extremely important. They had just received seeds that produce faith from Jesus' teaching ("faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" Romans 10:17), but their response to the storm revealed the condition of their soil/heart. They responded, "Teacher, do you not care that we are about to die?" They believed that they were about to die because that's what they spoke. Where did that thought come from?

The devil planted those thoughts of death through fear. That's what he does. The seed that produces faith and life was sown by Jesus (the Word of God), and not too long afterward, the enemy used a natural element to immediately uproot that seed of faith and replaced it with thoughts of fear and death. After the thoughts of fear, the disciples then planted seeds of fear in their hearts by speaking, "We are about to die," and they were no longer resting in the Word of God. It's crazy how fast the seed was under attack. Side note: don't be surprised when your seed gets under attack immediately. When we don't hold onto the seed of the Word of God and when we don't command our souls to rest in that seed, we give access to the enemy. The devil will do whatever we allow him to do. His goal is to distort our thoughts and uproot (steal) the seed before faith can produce works. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy our seed. The devil knows more than we do about how powerful seeds are. He's after our faith, so we must fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12).

Resting in the Word of God protects us. Resisting to rest in the Word of God puts us in a place outside of the authority that we have in Christ, making us vulnerable to the deception of the enemy. It's the enemy that deceives us into believing the worst. It also makes us vulnerable to plant seeds (words) of death that were produced by the devil's deceptions (seeds). It's our responsibility to speak life and not death. Seeds produced from the devil's deception sound like: "You're going to die. You're not going to make it. Provision won't come. You'll never be loved. Your child will never be saved. You'll never lose that weight. You'll never succeed in life. You'll never get that promotion. The sickness will never leave. You won't be healed. You'll never see it. God is punishing you." He goes on and on, trying to plant bad seeds in our thoughts. If we don't resist those thoughts and cast them down, we (not he) will sow bad seeds into our lives with our words. And our actions will begin to line up with his lies. Satan, if we allow him, will use our emotions to sway us into saying his lies...if we allow him. I keep repeating that because he can only do what we allow him to do. He is not more powerful than the power of God living inside of us. Therefore, he can only do what we give him permission to do, and we must be mindful of this truth. We must be determined to protect ourselves against his lies and continue to believe in the authority we have in Christ. Rest is the protection for us. When we rest in Jesus and the Word of God, when we command our souls (mind, will, and emotions) to rest, and when we command our bodies to rest, there is a spiritual maturity that we begin to walk in. It’s called trust.