freedom – REALITIES MINISTRIES

Finding rest

Beloved: grace and peace be yours abundantly from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. I am pleased to welcome you into another week of the month of May 2020. My prayer is that your life will experience God’s rest in every way in the week and throughout the remaining part of the year, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now I offered that prayer for you because it is in keeping with God’s will for you. What I mean is that it is God’s will for you to have rest, absolute rest, in every area of your life. That is why He says to us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28NIV) This is a free invitation to everyone who is troubled and is bearing loads of life that are crushing him. The Lord says to him, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” If He did not have what it takes to give us rest, He would not say, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” It is because He has what it takes to deliver rest to us from all the things that are troubling us and making us tired of life that He tells us to come to Him for rest.

So, you don’t have to allow any problem of life to destroy you or drive you mad. You don’t have to allow any situation to take charge of your life and turn you into a beast or a slave. All you need is to come to Jesus for rest, and He will give it to you. I mean that the Lord will give you rest right here on earth. Yes, the rest He intends to give to us is beyond something that we enjoy only in this world. Rather, His intention is to give us eternal and permanent rest from every problem of life.

However, while the earth and all the problems that are associated with staying in it still remain, the Lord wants us to have rest in it. And He has been giving those who come to Him rest in it. For instance, we are told this about King David: “After the king was settled in his palace and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around him, he said…” (2Sam 7:1-2NIV) Look at that. The Lord gave David rest from all his enemies around him. So, he settled down in his palace to enjoy his life and kingship. But that did not happen overnight. I mean that he did not come to this place of rest overnight. Only God Himself knows what number of miracles He had to perform in order to bring him there.

As we are told in the bible, this man was ordained to be king at a very tender age, when he was but a boy (1Sam 16:1-13). But did he ascend the throne the day after his ordination by God? No! Instead, even though he was a man after God’s own heart, he went through what many today would call ‘hell’ before he got there. He was persecuted, hunted, robbed, slandered and even betrayed on his way to the throne. And even after becoming king, troubles, wars and betrayals did not vanish from him overnight. They kept on coming for him. But because in all these things, he set the Lord continually before himself and lived according to His word, he was preserved (Ps 16:8). Then there came a time in which even those around him could say, “The Lord has given this man rest from all his enemies around him.”

Now the same God that gave David rest from all his enemies around him is the one we are dealing with. Yes, He is the one that says to us, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” And if you have come to Him, then, rest is already available for you to enjoy. But someone may say, “I have come to Him. Yet I am not enjoying any measure of rest in my life. My life is still full of troubles that are weighing me down and seeking to utterly destroy me. What, then, is the problem?” Well, the problem is that you have not learnt how to take His rest and make it yours.

See, the Lord does not just say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” He also says, “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.” (Matt 11:29-30NIV) Did you see that? The only way to find the rest that God has given is to walk with Him and learn to do things His own way. Even though you have come to Him, as long as you are trying to solve your life’s problems in your own way, you will never find the rest He gives. But the moment you quit using your methods and schemes and start listening to Him and acting on His instructions, you will start finding His rest in your life. Yes, He may have to daily perform a million miracles for you to experience His rest. But what does it matter? He will do whatever He has to do to make sure that someday you are able to look around and say, “Blessed be God, who has given me rest on every side from all that seeks to destroy me.”

Do have a very pleasant week.

Freedom – a difficult thing to manage

One of the lessons to learn from the story of Hagar and her son, Ishmael, when they were wandering in the desert of Beersheba, not knowing where to go, is that freedom can be a difficult thing to manage. This woman and her son had been sent out of the house of Abraham with nothing but some food and a skin of water. Why? It was because she and her son were just slaves in that house. Yes, she bore Abraham a son. That, however, did not change the fact that she was just a slave, the property of her mistress, Sarah. And when the presence of her son began to threaten the inheritance of Isaac, the true heir to all that Abraham had, Sarah insisted that she and her son must be sent away. This, of course, troubled Abraham, for Ishmael, slave or no slave, was his true son. But God overruled in the matter and told him to listen to the voice of his wife. So Hagar and her son were both sent packing the same day. (Cf. Gen 16&21) Now, of course, though they were sent packing with nothing to live on, they were sent away as free people. In other words, what they did with their lives from that moment on was nobody’s business again, not even Sarah’s. Yet there are times that facing life as a free person may be more difficult or dangerous than facing it as a slave. As slaves in Abraham’s house, both Hagar and her son Ishmael had access to food, water, shelter, wears, security, money and so forth. They even had the attention of Abraham because of the relationship they had with him.
But when they were sent out that house, with nothing to their credit, they realised how dangerous being free can be. I mean that it just dawned them that perhaps freedom was not they needed at that time. For though they were free, their freedom could not save them from hunger, thirst and loneliness. And this is something many young people need to seriously consider and learn from. A lot of times, they agitate for freedom from parental guidance and monitoring. And that is because they think being free is synonymous to being on top of the world. Then, when they eventually succeed in taking the freedom they want, they use it to destroy their lives, their future and, sometimes, other people’s lives as well.
In like manner, there are many who want freedom from spiritual guidance and monitoring. They think they have just had enough of being pastored or led by God and the leaders He has appointed over them. So, they have forcefully given themselves freedom from the leadership of the Spirit and are now ordering their own lives as they please. I tell you, a day is coming when, having ruined their lives and perhaps those of others, such people would wish they never had the freedom they took for themselves.
See, the fact that you are free, in whatever sense you want to be free, does not mean you will be able to use your freedom to arrange a better life or future for yourself. There are many independent nations today that are still begging and borrowing all the time to survive. And there are many free men, women and children today who have not been able to do something tangible with their lives with the freedom they have. Is that to say freedom is not good? No! Freedom is great. But freedom is responsibility. Yes, it means you take responsibility for yourself.
But can you take responsibility for yourself without destroying yourself in the process? You cannot, if you do not have God with you, supplying you with the wisdom, knowledge, understanding and resources to do so. This, of course, is what we see in Hagar and Ishmael’s case. Until God showed up to open their eyes to see His provision of water for them in that desert and to also tell them His plans to make Ishmael great, their freedom would certainly have cost them their lives.
So, first, know the kind of freedom you seek to have in your life, for it is not every kind of freedom you can manage without destroying yourself. Second, don’t just seek legitimate freedom from the things that have enslaved or bound you in life; also seek God’s provisions to manage your freedom. And perhaps you have already used your freedom to ruin your life. You can still turn to God for help, as long as there is breath in you. He will not turn down your earnest prayer for help but come to your rescue with speed. But don’t wait any longer. Call to Him now.