Finding Peace: Part 1 (Matt. 11:28, 29)
On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 is very peaceful, 10 is very anxious), how would you rate your life? People are increasingly frustrated in their search for personal peace. In Matthew 11:28, 29, Jesus makes an invitation. Though He doesn’t use the word peace, He does use a word that means to give rest, to refresh, to give one’s self rest, to take a rest.
Read the following verses: “‘Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’”(Matt. 11:28, 29, NKJV). What is Jesus saying to us here? How can we experience for ourselves the reality of this wonderful promise?
From what Jesus is saying in these verses, is He proposing to give us peace as a gift, or does He mean to show us how to obtain it? Is not Jesus teaching that personal peace is a result of some cause and inviting us to learn that cause from Him?
“It is the love of self that brings unrest. . . . Those who take Christ at His word, and surrender their souls to His keeping, their lives to His ordering, will find peace and quietude. Nothing of the world can make them sad when Jesus makes them glad by His presence. In perfect acquiescence there is perfect rest. The Lord says, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.’ Isa. 26:3.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 330, 331.
How does love of self lead to personal unrest and unhappiness?
How can we learn to die to self and to rest in Jesus? What choices do we have to make, every day, that can help make the promise of peace in Christ real? That is, what things are we doing, or not doing, that keep us from having the peace that Jesus offers us?
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