HAPPY NEW YEAR
*WELCOME TO YOUR YEAR OF REST*
By Bishop Mike Okonkwo
Wednesday January 1, 2025
“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own work, as God did from his.” (Hebrews 4:9-10 KJV)
_Beloved I want to welcome you to the year 2025, our year of Rest. What a great joy it is to witness the beginning of another year, indeed God has great and mighty things in store for you this year. God has given us His Word for this year, and no power of darkness will stop the Word from manifesting._
Our text makes it very clear that Rest is available to the believer, but not many are taking advantage of it. Rather, we struggle and struggle, but God hasn’t called his children to a life of struggling; He has called us to function from a place of rest, because of the price that Jesus paid on the cross of Calvary.
However, the question I hear you ask is, “Brother Mike, what is Rest?” “What do you mean when you say that God has called the year 2025, our Year of Rest?”
_Beloved, rest is the disposition of the believer; it is a deep-rooted knowing, an attitude, a mindset that the believer has towards life, such that causes him to enjoy a victorious Christian experience. To rest, is to rely on God: it is to depend on Jesus Christ and His finished work at Calvary, which He wrought for the redemption of mankind, as being perfectly sufficient to satisfy the demands of God’s holiness, justice, and righteousness._
It means that you believe wholeheartedly in the perfectness, completeness and sufficiency of what Jesus accomplished at the Cross, to qualify you before the Father, such that nothing can be added to it, or taken away from it, not even your best and most impressive acts of devotion.
To rest means that you desist from trying to make God do anything for you, because in Christ and through His redemptive sacrifice, everything that needed to be done has been done already – once and for all time. Therefore, your part in this is to believe in what He did, receive it and appropriate it to whatever the area of need is, in your life.
_God saying that this is your year of Rest, also means that you cease being anxious, worrying, restless or disturbed about anything, because your heavenly Father has sorted you out. Rather than worry or be anxious, you rejoice, because it is already done._
Further Reading: Hebrews 4:1-12
Daily Bible Reading: Morning: Genesis 1-3; Evening: Matthew 1