-
Philippians 2:5
- LET this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
- John 14:1
- LET not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
- John 14:27
- Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. LET not your heart be troubled, neither LET it be afraid.
The place of peace is the place of let
; but, alas, most of us are still attempting to make
something positive happen. The ways and means are endless —by making affirmations, speaking the Word,
obeying rules of touch not, taste not, handle not
(Colossians 2:21), searching the Scriptures (John 5:39), doing word studies, attending seminars and Bible colleges, listening to tapes, reading books and commentaries, etc., etc. —only to find that of making many books there is no end: and much study is a weariness of the flesh
(Ecclesiates 12:12). All we want is rest for our souls
—the feelings of total safety and security described so beautifully by the psalmist, the feelings found in the place called the secret place of the Most High
(Psalms 91). We want that place to be our habitation
(v 9); we want to LIVE there, not just visit once in a while. We want to ABIDE under the shadow of the Almighty
(v 1).
We have read and quoted the words of Jesus; at long last we really HEAR them:
Matthew 11:28-30 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Now we know that we can simply come
and let
the Christ within GIVE
us the rest we have been working so very hard to attain.
But we have to get to the within.
Jesus said that it is in me
that the Father dwells; it is from the within
that He speaks:
John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
Paul tells us that the mystery hidden but now revealed is that Christ is IN us (Colossians 1:26-27; 2Corinthians 13:5 —Jesus Christ is in you) and Jesus comforts us with the promise that the Holy Spirit will be in us (John 14:17), guiding us into all truth (John 16:13) and that both He and the Father (who of course are one and the same) will make our abode
with us (John 14:23).
We cannot know this rest that Jesus offers us and experience the love of Christ which passeth [mental] knowledge
until we find it within where the fulness of God
dwells (Ephesians 3:19).
And to get to the within
we have to learn to be still
(Psalms 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God) —perhaps the most difficult task the twenty-first-century American will ever undertake. The technological world we live in
(but are not to be of
—(John 17:14-16)) is seemingly designed to keep us from being still. But we have many Scriptures which speak of the value of quietness
(which our world seems to value not at all):
- Proverbs 17:1
- Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.
- Ecclesiastes 4:6
- Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.
- Isaiah 30:15
- For thus saith the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
- Isaiah 32:17
- And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.
I suppose this is why the writer of Hebrews admonishes us to labor to enter into that rest
(4:11). Now this labor
cannot mean more work on our part —since we must cease from our own works
(v 10). It is more like the labor
of childbirth, the travail
spoken of by Jesus when He was talking to His disciples about the coming of the Holy Spirit after His crucifixion, about the sorrow followed by the joy that could never depart. This is rather a long quotation but well worth our meditation if we wish to come to the place of let.
John 16:12-22 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
This travail
or labor
we undergo is the crucifixion of our old man
(Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ), the letting go of all our false beliefs about God and our relationship to Him, letting them die
that the Christ life might be birthed in us:
Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
It is the same travail
spoken of by Paul —the travail
that brings forth the Christ in us.
Galatians 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
We have to use metaphors to speak of that which is beyond words, that which must be experienced —but can be experienced only by getting still and coming to the within
where we can let
the Christ in us live His life through us.
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
It is the place where we let
the mind of Christ be in us (Philippians 2:5), let
our hearts be untroubled and unafraid (John 14:1,27), let
ourselves receive the free gift of righteousness (Romans 5:17-18), let
ourselves know that we are saved
by grace and not by works and that it is all the gift of God
(Ephesians 2:8), let
all the promises of God be yes
and Amen
(2Corinthians 1:20). It is the place where we let
ourselves hear, as Jesus did, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased
(Matthew 3:17).
And when we can let
ourselves hear that, REALLY hear that, we will have entered into that place of rest prepared for us. Our sorrow (travail
or labor
) will have come to an end and our hearts will be rejoicing with the joy that no man (not even our old man
—which is now dead) can take from us (John 16:22).
Now we have come to the place of let.
All our struggling and striving to know God is over. We continually come apart
and rest a while
(Mark 6:31), letting
God reveal Himself and His ways to us. His perfect love
casts out all our fears which have brought us so much torment (1John 4:18) as we learn to abide
in Him (John 15:4). We know that we are His sheep and that we know His voice and will follow no other voice (John 10:4-5).
We do not fear, as David seemed to, that He will cast us away from His Presence and take His Holy Spirit from us (Psalms 51:11) because we hear Him saying to us that I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world
(Matthew 28:20) that I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee
(Hebrews 13:5), and that the Holy Spirit (the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth) has been given to us to abide with us forever
(John 14:16). These are not words we read in a black book, but words God Himself speaks to us (John 6:63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.) in that quiet place of listening to the still small voice inside —the place where we let
God (the Spirit of the Lord
) take us from glory to glory
— or revelation to revelation of the truth of our being.
2Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.