How to learn to rest properly
We looked at the causes of what prevents us from resting. – What were the 5 reasons?
unabled Poorly set self value (I base my self worth on my work, on performance, on what I do and can do), materialism, envy, Success is more important to me than relationships, uncertainty and concern, that I won’t have enough.
So how to do it, how to learn to rest? How to live a more sane, more balanced, less stressful and blessed life? How to live a relaxed life interwoven with rest instead of constant restlessness?
We will look at the antibodies of all five reasons that prevent us from resting. Because God gives us an antidote in His Word for each of these causes.
So what to do? unabled Trust Your Shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd, I will miss nothing. I have everything I need. He puts me on green pastures. And it leads me to quiet waters.
If you follow God, if you follow the Good Shepherd, Jesus, he will not lead you on the path of the Rat Race. He will lead you to rest on the green pastures. And he will lead you to the quiet waters. A sign of calm and peace. How does he do it? Here are five antibodies.
antibodies
1.Don’t forget how important you are to God
When you try to create a more sensible plan or schedule for yourself, this is your starting point – don’t forget your value, how extremely important you are to God!
It’s the exact opposite of base your value on your performance. It’s the exact opposite of basing your identity on your career. It’s a completely anti-cultural approach, because when you first meet someone, one of their first questions is: ‘What do you do?’ As if your work or school was your identity. You don’t tell them who you are, you tell them what you’re doing. But God says that if you want to get out of this rat race, in which the majority is, remember the value you have for God.
So what’s your value?
Think about it. unabled The heavenly Father made you. God does not create anything that has no value, that has no meaning. God does not create anything without purpose. That you live means that God loves you and wanted you to live.
The heavenly Father created you, that is your value.
You are priceless, you are a masterpiece. You are unique. No one like you was ever created! God did not create any clones or copies. There are no two identical flakes, each has its own fingerprint, eye, etc. Each of us is unique and this shows how much God has worked with each of us when creating us.
- Heavenly Father made you.
- Jesus died for you. This shows your value. Jesus wouldn’t die for some junk.
- The Holy Spirit lives in you. God puts His own spirit into you. (He wouldn’t just put it in someone, it’s part of it.)
All these three things show your incredible value. Please write down:
It is not what I do gives me value, but who I am (whom I belong to).
Because what would happen if you had an accident and remained disabled, then suddenly you have no value? Of course not! – What you do does not give you value, only that, Whose Are You. And for some of you it will mean a fundamental change in thinking. Because you grew up feeling like you’re nobody. You always thought, ‘I’m zero, I’m not a masterpiece, I’m not unique. I’m not extremely valuable, etc.’ And this is how it plays in your head for years! But you’re actually worth an immense price!
When you grew up, someone might have told you that you are worthless, that you will never mean anything and you will never be able to do anything proper. And you started the ‘recording’ in the back of your head, and since then you’ve been thinking: ‘I’ll show them! I can do it to mom, dad…etc.!’ And that drives you to work and to do, to perform and to prove….!
Fortunately, this is not the case for everyone. But for some people it is their driving motivation. That voice that says you have to prove that you care.
You have to prove that you are not ordinary, you are not average, you are a superstar. Maybe they even compared you to your brother or sister. Or they compared you to your parents or someone else. – “Why can’t you be like them?” And that drove you and keeps you to overwork yourself. And even after so many years you can still hear that inner voice. And that’s why you can’t afford to take time off because you have to keep paddling. And you paddle upstream and the current rolls in the opposite direction. And you have to prove what you’re worth.
unabled No, you don’t have to!!! You don’t have to prove your worth to anyone (or yourself). Because you are already extremely valuable.
God made you. Jesus died for you (yes, you)! The Spirit of God himself lives in you. You are unique. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
You don’t need their consent to be happy, nor to have any value or importance.
God says you are already important. Jesus’ death says you are important. The spirit that lives in you says you are important. What are you still afraid of, why don’t you believe it?
An antidote to building your value on what you do on your work is to remind yourself of your value to God.
You will never be more valuable to God than you are right now!
You will never be less valuable to him because he made you, he is your father. (In addition, your physical father created you without planning. But the heavenly one, he planned you beautifully.)
My children are valuable to me not because of what they do. But because they are mine. And I love them. It doesn’t matter what they are and what they do, I still like them.
James 1:18 says: voluntarily He begat us with the word of truth, so that we may be the first His creation. This is what God says about you. God decided to give you life, that’s a big deal. Through the word of truth, that word is Jesus. To be – circle it: original-by that Most important of all that God created. Do you realize that you are more important than the moon, more important than the Milky Way? Do you realize that in God’s eyes you are more important than all animals combined? Do you know that in God’s book you are more important than all the precious flowers and all the trees and all the beauty of all other creation?
Look at that verse one more time. voluntarily He begat us by the word of truth, so that we may be the first of his creation. God will decided through the word of truth, To be the most important of all that has ever created. So what does it matter what someone else says about you? If God likes you, if anyone else has a problem with it, it’s his problem. You, you can stay calm.
One of the reasons why you don’t have to keep performing is that you don’t have to prove anything to yourself (or anyone else). tho You are the daughter of God, the son of God, you are the child of God. He made you. He wanted you. He loves you. And he created you exactly as he wanted you. You don’t have to try to be someone else. – Therefore, never forget how important you are to God!
In Isaiah 49:16 God says:
Behold, I carved you in my palms.
unabled When Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross and those nails passed through his palms, God proved forever how much he cares about you. When you are in heaven, for eternity you will see the palms of Jesus and how much he cares about you. He said by:
‘I love you so much. I care about you. I carved you into my own palms, you are so valuable!’
When people fall in love, they sometimes get a tattoo of their boyfriend, girlfriend, husband or wife’s name. God is wearing a permanent tattoo – he carved you into the palms of his hands!
Why are you trying to prove your value through your work and what you do or can do? Based on the cross, you are already infinitely valuable. And on the cross, Jesus says: ‘I care about you so much!’
Prayer
Please close your eyes. Just close them for a moment and think about yourself. Take a deep breath and say:
“Father, help me to truly and fully believe that you love me. Help me to feel your love.”
“Jesus, help me realize how immensely valuable I am to you”.
“Holy Spirit, help me feel how important I am to you. Amen.”
Antibody Summary Number 1
So the antidote to the search for your value in performance is to realize how valuable you are to God.
Are you broken?-yes. Are you a sinner?-Yes, so am I. Are you perfect? – Definitely not. Are you making mistakes?- Yes. But are you deeply loved by God? – Yes. Do you have infinite value? – Yes. God says, ‘I’ve dug you into my palm.’ So stop trying so hard to find your value in what you do!
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the 2. Enjoy what you already have
The second step to learn how to rest properly and also the antidote to materialism and wanting to have more of it is – Enjoy what you already have.
If you learn to enjoy what you already have, you can break out of the rat race. It’s called be satisfied. Satisfaction is not natural for a person. We are not satisfied by nature, on the contrary, we are dissatisfied. By nature, we are not peaceful resting sheep, on the contrary, we are restless sheep. And we are still dissatisfied by nature. We always want more, we always want something different. But even so, you can learn to be satisfied.
in Philippians 4:12 and 13 Paul says: I can Living in renunciation and well-being when the table bends even when I have nothing to do. I have strength for everything, Christ gives it to me. (SNC) I can=I learned. note that Satisfaction is something that can be learned. You can educate yourself in it. Pavel says, I learned the secret of satisfaction in every situation. Whether I’m full or hungry, whether I live in abundance or lack. I have the strength for everything because Jesus gives it to me.
learning satisfaction means that I don’t have to be subject to that constant desire to have more, to the constant stretching and grabbing for something else. It’s sad when we’re so preoccupied to gain more that we can’t enjoy what we already have.
If you were walking on the beach in Southern California, you would see beautiful houses everywhere. But what you won’t see in them are people! No one has time to enjoy it because they are always at work. – Someone has to pay off the huge mortgages!
The constant desire to have more – I have to have this and this too – makes us buy things that we can’t really afford. Especially regarding the mortgage, which is actually a debt that will go over our heads. And then we are forced to constantly brandish to make do with money, because we are financially over-indebted. And soon, due to financial pressure, our relations will begin to deteriorate. And then we lose the reason to even have the luxurious house! This is written in Ecclesiastes 4:6: Better a pinch of calm than an armful of effort and the pursuit of the wind! A little bit of food enjoyed in peace is much better than having twice as much earned and being overworked and chasing the wind. It’s just better to have peace of mind. The greatest things in life are not things.
I couldn’t count how many deathbeds I was sitting on. And in all the years I’ve been a pastor, I’ve never had someone say to me at my last breath, ‘I wish I had spent more time at work!’ I’ve never heard that. And I’ve never had someone ask me on that occasion for a specific item that they love, respect or worship. – ‘Please bring me my trophy, I want to see it one more time… Please bring me my diploma from college! …I want to see your coin collection.’ No one who was dying told me this before. In the last moments of their life, no one ever asks for things, they always want to see people. Because eventually everyone will find out that it’s all about relationships. I just hope we learn this before we lie on our deathbed. At the last moment of your life, you will realize that these are people you like. unabled To love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Can’t we learn it sooner? We would certainly be very relieved of stress. Our life would certainly be more fulfilled. It’s not about achievements. It’s about relationships. I’ve said it so many times – we won’t take anything else with us to heaven!
In America, it is considered a tragedy when a person dies without money. However, I think there is no better time to leave. The moment I spend the last penny, boom, I go away. That’s what I call wisdom, not stupidity. I’m out of money, I’m going to heaven. That’s just brilliant in my opinion.
And then I’m still irritated by the stickers that people have stuck on the bumper, where it’s written: ‘Whoever dies with the most things wins.’ Are you kidding? Even the one who dies with the most things will die anyway. And he won nothing. With a high probability, he probably lost a lot of relationships when he tried so hard for those things.
This week is Valentine’s Day and I have a verse for gentlemen: Ecclesiastes 9:9 Enjoy life with your beloved wife. Enjoy life with the one you love! Ecclesiastes 3:13 He says this: If anyone can eat and drink and enjoy themselves in the midst of their sallows, it is God’s gift! (B21) We should all enjoy what we worked on. It is a gift of God. God says: Enjoy what you have as long as you have it.
Look at this verse Matthew 6:31. So don’t worry about the questions: What are we going to eat? What will we drink? What do we wear? (snc) –I like this verse in the paraphrase in the message translation. Jesus says: You know what I’m trying to do here, I want to make you relax and relax. So that you don’t worry so much about getting.”
Are you awarethat Is release a spiritual matter? A that rest is a part of trust and is the way to blessing?
summary so far
Keep reminding yourself of the value and importance you have for God. And then secondly, enjoy what you already have. Stop trying to get something else. Just enjoy and be satisfied!
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3. limit your work to six days in week
The third antibody is also very important – limit your work to six days a week. Now you say, ‘You’re kidding!’ But I say that if you don’t do it, you are breaking one of God’s great Ten Commandments. Rest and recreation are so important for life that God has included them in the 10 commandments. It is right next to the commandment You will not commit adultery, you will not kill and you will not steal. It says that you have to take time off every week.
Imagine you have a bow and an arrow and if you never pull the bow, it will lose its power. You will lose the tension in that bow. Even the best of us need rest. This is the fourth commandment. When God gives a commandment, he means it. It’s not like an option like, well, if you want, take a day off, somewhere. It’s called Sabbath.
Let’s go through a few verses now. Exodus 23:12. Six days do your work but stop on the seventh day, so that your bull and donkey rest and your slave and day laborer take a breath. unabled Work the first six days of the week. But on the seventh day, rest and relax. This law is not only intended for us, but also for our animals, so even our pet needs a day of rest. God said that everyone should be protected from excessive work, including immigrants and foreigners. They shouldn’t be overworked either.
And now there’s the fourth commandment. Exodus 20:9 and 10. You will work and do all your work for six days, but
The seventh day is a day of rest, consecrated to the Lord your God.
You will do no work – you, your son, or your daughter, your slave or your girl, your cattle, or the immigrant in your gates. ―ofar circle ‘rest dedicated to God’.This is called a Sabbath. Every seventh day you have time off. Shabbat means day of rest.
And now for the whole thought when God says: I want you to have a day of rest and worship. It is not for the good of God, it is not just arbitrary law, God did it because, So that you don’t burn out. And the reason why people are so stressed today is because they forgot about it. And culture has forgotten behind culture. In fact, a day of rest is for your benefit. Look at it, Mark 2:27 ‘Saturday peace is supposed to serve man.’ Jesus said that the Sabbath was created for the benefit of man. In other words, God did not create the Sabbath for his own benefit. He made it for us. If you ignore God’s laws, who will it hurt? Not to God. When is your rest day? It doesn’t matter which day of the week you choose, the Bible says this many times in the New Testament. What day do you take a day off for rest and recreation, it doesn’t matter.
The main thing is that you take it regularly every week.
My Sabbath is not Saturday or Sunday, I work these days. I take time off every Monday. And by the way, I would like to encourage you not to call it a day off but day with God.
Rest – physically, gain new strength for your emotions and reorient your spirit
Now you might be asking, well, what am I supposed to do on that ‘Day with God’? I’m glad you’re asking. Write these three things. – Now here I will summarize the material lasting several hours. tho Rest for your body, gain new strength for your emotions and focus again on your spirit. Let me repeat it and explain more.
The first thing that needs to be done is to rest your body. You know it, If you don’t stop yourself, your body will stop itself. You can’t keep pushing him and stressing him out. Did you know that during the French Revolution they canceled Sunday as a day of rest? They just canceled the day of rest. They later restored it because the nation’s health collapsed. They completely collapsed and burned out. But you feel guilty when you rest! Jesus did not feel guilty and knew how to rest. So The first thing is – rest physically!
The second thing to do in “Day with God” is, recharge your emotions. What will recharge them for you will be various things – you can recharge them through silence. solitude, That’s a good thing. Just be quiet, turn off all the noise. You can recharge your emotions with rest. And I would like to encourage you to recreation, which rejuvenates. I’m talking about non-competitive things. Because some people break down in competitive sports just to win and that’s not rest at all. The competitive spirit you’ve been in for the entire work week is now being transferred to the tennis court, or to the golf course or anywhere else. You need to do something non-competitive that will give you new strength, not to be stressed when you lose. (Which can happen.) Your emotions recharge through calm. Through recreation. You recharge your emotions through relations. Spend some time with people.
Summary So – I rest my body, recharge my emotions.
thirdly, reorient your spirit. And that is exactly what we do when we meet other believers. That’s what you’re doing right now! You reorient your spirit. When you spend time with God, it gives you a life perspective.
You not only need time in a group service, but you also need time alone with God. You need to consciously decide to make time for things other than work. I would like to encourage you to He thought about how many hours a week you actually want to work. And then stick to it! And plan everything else. No sense of guilt – plan a visit to the doctor, plan a vacation, plan which day you will have a ‘day with God’ I highly recommend having it Every week on the same day.
Plan time with family, friends, etc. Do you know who this is especially important for? For those who are self-employed and those who are entrepreneurs.
If you don’t plan it, you’ll never take that break.
And you will take your work home in a briefcase.
I heard of a little girl sitting at the dining table. And every day her dad came home with a briefcase. And she asked, ‘What is it, dad?’
‘Well, that’s a job I didn’t finish in the office.’
And she said: ‘If you can’t keep up at work, why don’t they put you in a slower group?’
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When you start to follow the ‘Day with God’, you will take a day off and rest.
I know this is a constant struggle. It’s always round and round for me too.
But Do you know what happens when you start having a ‘day with God’? You will eventually have more time! God promises it.
The Lord is my shepherd. I won’t miss anything. tho He says, ‘If you do it my way, if you take one day off a week to rest and gain new strength for your body and emotions and focus your spirit again on me, you know what? – You will suddenly have more time for other things!’
Look at this verse: Proverbs 14:30 relaxed attitude extends your life. Envy destroys him. What did I say? Envy is one of the reasons why we are reworking. I want what they have. That verse says that instead of envy, you’d better adopt this relaxed attitude, it will prolong your life. It will add hours to each day.
Don’t forget – you’re important to God, enjoy what you already have and limit your work to six days a week.
Continuation
