Today, I’m standing in the middle of a road
that leads to a bridge out,
sounding a cry I’ve sounded before.

I’m seeking with all my heart
to echo what the Lord has cried to me
when he’s found me
hurtling down this road.

And also, I’m seeking to express
what God has taught me
as I’ve cried back to him,
“I’m trying! But it’s impossible! I cannot stop!”

Dear weary one, I cannot say too strongly: If what you’re getting isn’t rest, where you’re going isn’t to Jesus. Whatever relentlessly drives you to exhaustion is a cruel taskmaster, not the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dear battered one, I cannot testify too passionately: If you are being demeaned, dehumanized, isolated, exploited, manipulated, attacked or coerced, the source of it is not godly. The source of it is not God.

Dear overburdened one, I cannot stress too much: If you’re trying to carry what is not yours – feelings or responsibilities that belong to someone else, religious rules that humans made up, traumas and worries not yet cast on the Lord – and the more you struggle, the deeper you sink, Christ is not applauding your futile efforts. He’s crying, “Stop!”

He urges:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28-30)

So how can anyone do that?

Come to me. Learn from me. I will give you rest.

How simple it sounds! How impossible it may seem!

• Come to a person your eyes cannot see.
• Listen for a voice your ears cannot hear.
• Accept a “yoke” that’s supposedly easy.
• And get … rest? Who can afford to rest?  

Dear exhausted one, Jesus invites us to go with him where life relentlessly blocks us from going.

How can anyone do that?

I’d suggest: It takes a Spirit-to-spirit journey.

So can we talk about the spirit realm?

Scripture does, you know. In the Old Testament, God spoke to his people about the spirit realm. Jesus did the same when he walked the earth. Paul and other inspired writers wrote about the subject too.

Our Lord tells us enough that we can:

• recognize what is human, and own it;
• recognize what is HIM, and embrace it;
• recognize what is evil, and overcome it;
• recognize what is rest, and enjoy it.

Yet, when it comes to dealing with anything spirit, the church has a long history of ignoring, twisting, adding to and taking away from the word of truth. As a result, each church culture tends to do what is right in its own eyes.

In the church systems I’ve known, beliefs about the spiritual realm tend to take one of two directions.

East meets West

One view has gained popularity in the West in recent decades, as Eastern mysticism feeds New Age thought. It may not be the approved stance in your church, but it’s rampant in our culture and, knowingly or not, many Christians have adopted it.

According to this view: The spirit realm is alluring and often deliciously frightening. Exploring every nook and cranny brings thrills and chills (and maybe also secret knowledge and power) much of which is beautiful and little of which causes any real harm. What’s more, people can happily embrace whatever they find there that satisfies their view of god.

Wayne Muller espouses this view in his book, Sabbath.

A Christian pastor, Muller says many true things. He gives helpful insights into our need for rest, exposes the reasons we fight against rest and offers creative ways to practice it. As he rightly indicates, anyone who makes time to stop and be still, regardless their religious persuasion, can experience the benefits rest gives us, body and soul.

But Muller does not make clear that it matters very much which spirit you seek when practicing Sabbath. In fact, Muller says just the opposite.

He writes of his steadfast belief in “a persistent luminosity of spirit, an unquenchable resilience” within people. He adds, “Through my seminary training and meditation practice I would learn that the spiritual traditions of the world dearly love this inner resilience, and call it by many names: inner light, still, small voice, Buddha Nature, Kingdom of God, Holy Spirit.”¹

And thus Muller ventures where the truth will not let us go. The Kingdom of God does not equal the Buddha Nature. Further, the Holy Spirit, the human spirit and evil spirits are dramatically different from one another, not different ways to describe the same thing.

The Holy Spirit is the one true God. He is one with the Father and with Jesus Christ, the Son. The Holy Spirit is beautiful, comforting and fierce. He’s past finding out, yet he reveals mysteries. He’s filled with explosive power, yet he alone gives the rest that refreshes completely – spirit, soul and body.

The night before his crucifixion, Jesus promised:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.

He … will be in you.

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things. (John 14:16-17, 26)

Jesus said forever. He did not say: “Oh, but when the Bible is complete, you won’t need God the Spirit any more. Then, you’ll be able to figure out spiritual stuff on your own.”

Your human spirit is your truest essence, as a person created in the image of God. You owe your being to the Spirit of God. You were made to relate to him:

The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4)

The Lord … forms the human spirit within a person. (Zech. 12:1)

The person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. (1 Cor. 6:17 NLT)

Certainly, God has endowed the human spirit with great inner resilience and with the capacity to know and reflect him, yet your spirit is not God.

When the Father generously pours out his Spirit on you through Jesus Christ (Titus 3:6), you become “one spirit” with him, in a similar way that a husband and wife become “one flesh.”

In God’s design, a husband and wife don’t merge into one another. They remain distinct persons. Yet by grace, they are able to interconnect in a unique and unifying way, a way that creates oneness.

Spirit-to-spirit, you are able to interconnect with the Holy Spirit in a way that creates oneness. From your spirit, you can seek and receive rest. God’s Spirit gives that rest.

All other spirits – all other beings that exist in the spirit realm – are not neutral, and they’re not God.

Some spirits are angels who worship and serve the Lord. They adamantly refuse to be worshiped themselves.

The spirits who do not serve in the kingdom of light serve the kingdom of darkness. They are evil, powerful and cunning. Scripture indicates that they are organized into a dark hierarchy, but does not specify how that hierarchy looks.

Here are three of the many Scripture passages that refer to them:

The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. (1 Cor. 10:20)

In the past, when you did not know God, you served as slaves beings which in reality are non-gods. But now you do know God, and more than that, you are known by God. So how is it that you turn back again to those weak and miserable elemental spirits? Do you want to enslave yourselves to them once more? (Gal. 4:8-9 CJB)

Be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Clothe yourselves with the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. (Eph. 6:10-12 NET)

None of these beings, not even the angels who serve God, can give you rest. The spirits who oppose God, and who enjoy being treated as gods, will go to any lengths to deceive and destroy you. They promise rest, and instead give torment. They promise to lift your burdens, then crush you with heavy loads.

When you encounter the view that any spirit you welcome can give you rest, remember: That’s backwards. You’re headed toward enslavement, not peace, when you pursue the occult or any false religion.

But also, you’re headed into bondage when you profess faith in Christ and, knowingly or not, give part of your loyalty and worship to anything or anyone that is not the one true God.

Either way, you open yourself to deception and oppression by evil spirits and the brutal sabotaging of rest.

Greek meets Enlightenment

Another prevalent view of the spirit realm gained popularity in Western culture centuries ago, when Greek thinking met the Enlightenment. This may well be the approved stance in your church, and it too is rampant in our culture.

According to this view: The spirit realm is dangerous superstition. Exploring it is foolish. And rational people will leave the subject alone.

Thus, in countless US evangelical churches, people try to grow spiritually, while:

• sidestepping any real relationship with the Holy Spirit,
• denying the existence and workings of evil spirits, and
• ignoring and pushing down the human spirit.

We may see the devil and his demons in Scripture, but not see them doing the same things today. We may explain away evil spirits, using physical or psychological terms, as if there cannot be body, soul and spirit components to people’s inner woes.

At the same time, we may do everything we can to control the Holy Spirit, rather than to be filled with him and yield to him. We may do everything we can to figure out God’s will, without having to know the Spirit’s voice. Deep within, we may fear that opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit will open us to evil spirits – the same evil spirits that we tell ourselves do not exist and cannot bother Christians.

We may feel justified in this approach when we see people who identify themselves as “Spirit-filled” being moved by spirits that we’re just sure are not God.

And so, we quench the Spirit. That is, we who might call ourselves evangelical often reject what God is saying and doing because his ways don’t fit into our box.

And we grieve the Spirit. That is, we who might call ourselves Spirit-filled often demonstrate something quite different, because we too are trying to control the Spirit, rather than to submit to him.

Know this: When deception and oppression do happen in charismatic ranks, it’s not because people are opening themselves to God the Spirit, but because they’re seeking him with an impure heart.

Some try to manipulate the Spirit in order to gain power, significance or inside information. Some seek the Spirit like an addict seeks drugs, to experience a spiritual “high” or to numb inner realities they don’t want to face.

The Holy Spirit refuses to relate to us in such ways, but other spirits who want our worship come running.

Holy Spirit meets human spirit

Truth is: The devil and his cohorts try to get us going and coming.

If we seek the Spirit, the enemy tempts us to do it for selfish ends, and thus to connect instead with unholy spirits. Ah, but if we choose the seemingly “safer” alternative – if we run from everything in the spirit realm in order to avoid the counterfeit – we run blindly into the arms of the very spirits we’re seeking to avoid. Indeed, our naiveté and denial make us particularly susceptible to the enemy’s wiles.

Further, to try to become “spiritual” apart from communing, Spirit-to-spirit, with the Spirit of God is backwards. It’s the epitome of doing the opposite to what works. In the very way we’re seeking God, we rob ourselves of knowing him.

For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24 NLT)

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. (John 16:13)

By the Spirit of Christ, we know our Lord and his ways. By the Spirit, we experience life, healing and fullness of days.

We humbly receive the Word as God plants it in us. We grow in wisdom and in discerning of spirits. We gain strength to refuse temptation and to stand against all the devil’s schemes. We grow strong in spirit, becoming more and more the person our Father designed us to be.

So what does that have to do with rest?

Jesus cried:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. (Matt. 11:28-30 MSG)

As we look to Jesus, and move toward him, in the depths of our being, we also come to the Father and the Spirit – for the Lord our God is one.

Spirit-to-spirit, we say yes to Christ, even when we are weary, battered, burdened – and his promise just does not seem true.

When the Lord wants to talk about the spirit realm, we may feel intrigued, but we seek only what he wants to show us. We may feel afraid, but we do not turn away. Rather, we search the Scriptures and receive the word implanted. And more, we learn firsthand from the Spirit who is truth, the Word who is God.

As we see what he chooses to show us about the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, we learn to recognize and reject the cruel taskmasters that purport to be him, but are not. We learn to go with God.

The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. (2 Cor. 3:17)

We still live in the real world, with its very real hardships and worries and challenges. Yet in the big middle of it all, he teaches us to walk and work with him, in the unforced rhythms of grace.

Spirit-to-spirit, we journey into rest.

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This post is adapted from chapter 4 of Return to Your Rest: A Spirit-to-spirit Journey.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

More about the Spirit and rest

• Living by the Spirit
• The blessing of rest
• Journey to a divided heart
• Humble your soul, release your spirit
• Spirit to spirit: A matter of life and breath
• He restores my soul: Resting in God’s unforced rhythms

Footnotes

1. Wayne Muller, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives (New York: Bantam Books, 1999), e-book ed., 41. ↩︎