Entering God’s Rest

The following is from a talk given by Pastor Zac Poonen of Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, India.

• Most Christians would read a will written by a millionaire father more carefully than they would the Bible – because they love money more than they love God!
• If we grumble or have unbelief in our heart, then we believe in a “giant” Devil and a “grasshopper” Jesus (Numbers 13:33). To enter into God’s rest is to conquer all the giants in our flesh. For that you need to see Jesus as Almighty and the Devil as a “grasshopper”.
• A gospel that stops at “Christ can forgive us our sins” is not really “good news” - for it leaves us enslaved to our sins.
• The apostles constantly said they were witnesses of Christ’s resurrection – not of His crucifixion! We need to proclaim the resurrection power of Christ each time we speak about the cross.
• The fear of death is greater than every other fear in man. Jesus made it possible for us to be free from every fear when He took away the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
• We can be completely free from all fear because “as Jesus is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17-18).
• God cannot make us holy if He does not give us the freedom to obey Him or disobey Him. He did not make man to be a robot.
• The angel who came to Cornelius couldn’t preach the gospel to him because he (the angel) hadn’t experienced it himself (Acts 10). For that, God needed Peter. We are not permitted by God to preach about anything that we have not experienced.
• The devil couldn’t tempt Adam and Eve during their first day (the Sabbath day when they walked with God). If we walk in the presence of God, temptation loses its power. “There is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God - a place where sin cannot molest.”