Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Matt. 11:28 ESV
The Rest of God means experiencing by faith God’s adequacy and faithfulness in every life situation resulting in freedom from worry, anxiety, and care. This rest is not passivity, inactivity, or idleness. His rest is an encounter with the power of the Holy Spirit who lifts us up into an experience of the resurrected Jesus. It is Jesus who dispels our earthly fears and worldly burdens calming our hearts in the midst of life’s storms. New Testament rest is the peace of Christ, confidence in God’s covenant promise, and assurance in the Holy Spirit’s keeping power.
The more we rest in Him the more we are independent of everything outside of Him at such a time, the more vigor we really possess; and the better we get over the winter, be it ever so severe. If I am independent of the winter, it is evident that I have mastered it, and not it me; and if I have done so, through the strength of the Lord Jesus, I am relieved though in no human way. Peter is delivered from prison in a superhuman way; but first he, though enduring a very trying winter, could lay him down and sleep–take his rest, because the Lord sustained him.
J. B. Stoney, His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 460.