Blog Post

Are you weary? God’s Presence brings rest.

Vikki Waters • Jul 10, 2020

God works because of love, not obligation, and it is this reality that He invites us into when He calls us co-heirs and rulers with Christ. Paul describes exactly this quality in the believers in Thessalonica:

“We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 1:3).

Their hard work and labor for the Kingdom were rooted in faith, love, and hope. They were not performing to earn God’s love but performing because of God’s love springing up in their hearts. The distinction may seem small, but it makes all the difference in our ability to live at rest, no matter how full our lives might be.

In God’s presence we find the peace we need to stop striving. We find the ability to let go, to trust God, and to simply be with Him.

With Him, we discover the rest, refreshment, and renewal we need to be active partners in the expansion of His Kingdom on earth.

The presence of God gives us rest.

In Exodus 33, Moses went to the tent of meeting to experience the presence and glory of God. There God met with him “face to face, as a man speaks to a friend” (Exod. 33:11), and He promised him, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exod. 33:14).

In this we see a pattern that has continued to our present day.

The place of connection with God is the place of rest. And as stated before, true rest means having a heart of rest at all times and in all circumstances. This is what Jesus meant when He said:

 

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. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30).

Here, He was not promising an absence of difficulties or activity in life. He was promising that regardless of what is going on, we can have a heart of rest when our hearts are connected to Him. The more we turn our hearts and attention to Him, the more we will learn from Him, grow in His ways, linger in His presence, and find rest for our souls. This is our inheritance in Christ.


This is an excerpt from  my new book Loved Like Jesus.

I wrote it because I want you to experience the deep love that your heavenly Father has for you. Living from this reality as a much loved son or daughter, you can rest in a confident connection with Him and experience abundant living and lasting freedom.

Order my book today for yourself and an extra copy for a friend, your pastor and/or your small group.

Thanking Him for you,
Vikki

By Vikki Waters 20 Sep, 2021
Not long ago, I learned that when I was a baby, one of my primary caregivers regularly told me that my mother didn’t love me and that’s why she left me to go to work every day. Of course, when this was discovered, my parents found a new babysitter, but the invisible damage had already been done. Although I...
By Vikki Waters 09 Feb, 2021
When I’d accepted Jesus into my heart, I’d allowed my driven personality and my wounds from the past to inform my faith, and I became a works-oriented Christian. Somehow, though I’d been wooed by God’s unconditional love, once I was in His Kingdom, I was driven by performance, not by love. This, I was discovering, was contrary to what the...
By Vikki Waters 04 Nov, 2017
I grew up in a fairly normal American Christian family being the youngest of five children. A couple of times a week as a family we went to a mainstream evangelical church. At the age of nine I was baptized because some of my friends were but I didn’t really understand what it meant. I...
By Vikki Waters 24 Oct, 2017
When Deb Mileur said, “I do” to Jesus in 1988, she fell so in love with the Bible that she began sleeping with it under her pillow; she read it, highlighted it, memorized and taught it. In 2009, during a friend’s visit to India (where Deb and her family lived as missionaries), she learned about...
By Vikki Waters 16 Oct, 2017
Stephanie Johns joined the prayer team at GGM in late 2015. Her introduction to GGM was at the suggestion of her daughters after the death of her husband in July 2013. She experienced firsthand the breakthroughs the ministry could help facilitate as that very day she took a huge leap forward in her grief journey....
By Vikki Waters 11 Oct, 2017
Anne Armstrong unofficially joined the Growing in Grace Ministry (GGM) family in December of 2010 after receiving her first SOZO there.  Anne was referred to GGM by a former ministry team member after sharing her heart and struggles about feeling “stuck” in certain areas of her life. Even before finding healing for herself at GGM,...
By Vikki Waters 03 Sep, 2017
Before coming to Growing in Grace, my life was a mess. I was in pain, I was angry, I was confused and I only knew God through religion’s eyes. I was raised in a very conservative and strict religion and that is how I saw God. I always felt His eyes of displeasure on me...
By Vikki Waters 30 Jun, 2017
About three and a half months into my husband Richard’s out-of-state job, I realized I had been internalizing my resentment about being alone. On the weekends, we focused on being together, but during the week I focused on keeping busy with ministry and activity. Inside, I felt depressed and tired. These feelings were an old default that I had become...
By Vikki Waters 22 Jun, 2017
Though Jesus had become my Savior, the walls barricading my heart remained. Some of them softened, but many of them were my closest allies. It’s hard, even for Jesus, to have a relationship with someone who has walls like I did. I only had so much capacity for His love. Because I didn’t believe He really loved me unless...
By Vikki Waters 13 Jun, 2017
We are new creations, filled with a new belonging and a new power—all because of Christ’s work in us. In Ephesians, Paul painted a beautiful picture of this: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith....
Show More
Share by: