The Grace of God is so pervasive that He will go with us wherever we go…

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,”

Titus 2:11 (KJV)

If we have been Bought with the Blood of Jesus then Jesus will never leave us or forsake us, wherever we may go, whatever we may do, He will be with us and will rescue us, declares the Lord…

The word of God tells us in Psalm 139 that it is impossible to get away from the Holy Spirit of the Living God for those who are His…

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

Psalm 139:7-12 (NIV)

There is no escaping from the Presence of Almighty God…

He is everywhere and He lives in our hearts, He never leaves, He may be silent but He never leaves, He stands by us through thick and through thin and is faithful to His commitment never to leave us or forsake us…

He is the Faithful and Almighty God of our Salvation, He is by nature Loyal and Faithful to all His children, He can not be contrary to what He is, even when it appears that He has forsaken us, He will turn again in great mercy and reveal to us that any distance we felt from Him was necessary to bring us even closer to His heart…

He is the Great I AM and He is Ever-present, our Ever-present Help in Time of Need…   

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

Psalm 46:1 (NIV)

The LORD spoke to Moses and said,

“My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Exodus 33:14b (NIV)

Hallelujah!!!

Praise You Jesus, You are the God of Rest, You created Rest and You created mankind to enter in to Your Rest…

Adam and Eve were in Your Rest in the Garden of Eden before the fall…

They communed with You and walked with You in the cool of the day…

They knew Your Presence and they knew Your Rest…

Jesus came to give us Rest…

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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 (NASB)

Man was created to enter into the Rest of God…

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

“It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.

Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;

for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.”

Hebrews 4:6-11 (NIV)

God does not want “any to perish but for all to come to repentance”, He is not willing that “the wicked” should die but rather that they “repent and live”…

He takes no “delight in the death of the wicked”…

He is not longing for the day when they die so He can send them to hell, yes, He will send them to hell when they die if they do not repent but it is not His desire that this is their eternal destiny, He yearns in His heart for all men everywhere to “repent and live”…

He is a Great God of Compassion and yearns for the salvation of all mankind, He “deligheth in mercy” is “rich in mercy” and characterises Himself as a God of Mercy…

“And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.

And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”

Exodus 34:5-7 (KJV)

Yes, He is Vengeful and Wrathful and hates sin and will not tolerate unrepented wickedness and yet His heart burns with the desire that all men should be saved…

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 4:12-16 (NASB)

Man was created for Rest…

Man was not created to strive, man was not created to take control, man was not created to worry, to be anxious, to be fearful, to go out and “grab for himself”, man was not created to “figure it out for himself”, “sort it out for himself”, “think it through for himself”, “come up with a plan to make it work”, or any other form of striving, control or self-effort to “make his life work”…

God had a plan that He would create man and enjoy a “stress-free” relationship with man where man didn’t know or even need to worry about “good and evil” but just “knew God”…

Where man had direct contact with God every moment of every day and could ask Him anything and God’s answer would be believed and trusted and the relationship of quiet rest between man and God maintained…

“For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength.” But you were not willing,”

Isaiah 30:15 (NASB)

We were not willing…

This is the problem, there was nothing wrong with God’s “Way of Salvation” – to enjoy a quiet “stress-free” life of dependence on Him – but “we were not willing”…

We have condemned ourselves to hell…

We all now deserve to go there because we rejected our “Rest Giver”, we thought that by striving and stressing and working and overstretching and trying to “get ahead” we could somehow “outdo” God and His “Way of Salvation”…

“But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

Isaiah 57:20-21 (KJV)

What the Lord has been showing me with greater and greater clarity is that He has “called us to peace”, the Peace of God which “transcends understanding” – i.e. is better than the “knowledge of good and evil” which we “grabbed for ourselves” so that we could “live independently” from God – is what will “guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus”…

Nothing else will guard us but “the Peace of God”…

We are to “let the Peace of God Rule in our hearts”…

We are to be surrendered to the “Peace of God”…

When the Peace of God reigns in our hearts then we hear from God, then we know that what we are receiving from God is from God…

The Peace of God will not lead us astray, He will lead us into the Presence of God, He will lead us to God Himself, to the very Throne Room of God in Heaven…

He will lead us to the place where the angels cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, The Whole Earth is Filled with His Glory”…

And they cry this continually…

They never stop…

The Throne Room of God is a place of Perfect Peace, the Prince of Peace is seated there, waiting for “His enemies to be made a footstool for His Feet”…

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Isaiah 9:6 (KJV)

It is this “Prince of Peace” – Jesus of Nazareth, “God With Us” – who goes with us and gives us rest…

“He is our Peace who has broken down every wall, He is our Peace, He is our Peace, He is our Peace, Who has broken down every wall, He is our Peace, He is our Peace, Cast all your cares on Him, For He careth for you, He is our Peace, He is our Peace, Cast all your cares on Him, For He careth for you, He is our peace, He is our peace”

as the song says…

Jesus Christ has called each of us, as His children, to peace…

He has called us to enter into His Rest…

He longs for us to “cease from our labours” and believe that He has done everything necessary for our eternal salvation…

In terms of our practical every day lives He is not calling us to strive to “make ends meet”…

He is not calling us to strive to “sort it out”, He is calling us to abandon ourselves to Him in unbridled trust and devotion and believe Him that “He is our Peace” and that He will provide for our every need as we sit at His feet as Mary has demonstrated to us so beautifully and “delight in Him”…

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

The life of faith is to live believing that God “will provide all our needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus” and to “cease striving and know that I am God” as the scripture says…

“O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”

Psalm 34:8 (NASB)

As we lose control, He takes control, as we cease striving, He establishes His Rest, as we forgive, He establishes His forgiveness in our hearts, as we humble ourselves, He establishes His humility in our hearts…

All this is from Him, He does it all, but as He does it, we see the freedom growing and are encouraged to surrender more and more and more to His purposes to gain more and more and more of His Peace…

The Place of Peace is a Place of incredible clarity…

It is a Place of deep knowing…

It is a Place of Abiding…

 There is deep unity in the Place of Peace, deep unity between man and God…

This is the Place that He is calling each of His children to, this is the place which He yearns all of His creation – men, women, boys and girls – could inhabit…

“For this is what the high and lofty One says–he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

Isaiah 57:15 (NIV)

If we would inhabit this Place we would inhabit a Place of Peace and Enter into His Rest…

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Matthew 6:24-34 (NIV)