Incredible Men,
We've spent the last two weeks establishing that rest isn't a nap, it isn't a day off, and it isn't something you earn by grinding hard enough first. Rest is a Person. Jesus already finished the work, and He's inviting you to stop striving and start trusting Him with it.
Here's a question worth sitting with: why are so many of us unhealthy, exhausted, and never actually at rest? I think it's often because we're living life our way instead of the way Jesus actually invited us to live. And this week I want to show you something that might surprise you — Jesus got in real trouble, the kind that eventually got Him killed, for how He handled rest.
Go read the Gospels closely and you'll notice a pattern. Everywhere Jesus went, the religious crowd kept accusing Him of breaking the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, so they picked heads of grain to eat as they walked through a field. The Pharisees didn't see hungry men. They saw criminals. "Why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" (Mark 2:24). A man with a shriveled hand stood in the synagogue. Jesus healed him on the spot — on a Saturday, no less — and the religious leaders didn't rejoice. They got so angry they started plotting how to kill Him (Mark 3:6). Over a healed hand. At the pool of Bethesda, a man who'd been paralyzed for thirty-eight years finally walked, and instead of celebrating a miracle, the leaders hunted Jesus down because he told the man to carry his mat home on the wrong day (John 5:8-16).
Stop and let that sink in. The most loving, most obviously good things Jesus ever did — feeding hungry men, healing broken bodies, restoring a man's ability to walk after nearly four decades — got Him accused of sin. Not because He actually broke God's heart. Because He broke their rulebook.
That's what happens every time religion gets more concerned with form than with love. The Pharisees had turned a gift meant to restore people into a fence meant to police them. They could recite the Sabbath rules from memory and still miss the God standing right in front of them, healing the very people the rules were supposed to protect.
I've seen this same pattern up close, and it still bothers me. Years ago my son played high school football, and I got asked to man the grill at a team pool party — coaches, parents, students, the whole team. A lot of those boys didn't have an involved father in their life, some didn't have one around at all. I ended up in a real conversation with a couple of my son's teammates — both starters on the team — about Jesus, and right there by the pool I got to lead them to the Lord. I asked if they wanted to get baptized, explained what it meant, and they both said yes. Once word got around, the rest of the team started asking questions, so I shared the gospel with the whole group — players, parents, coaches. By the end of the day we had a full-blown baptism service. Every player on that team who hadn't already given his life to Jesus did that afternoon, and got baptized right there in the pool. Someone took pictures and posted them online.
That Sunday at church, a decon pulled me aside and said he needed to talk to me. I figured he'd heard about the baptisms and wanted to celebrate. Instead he told me that, "if I'm going to do a baptism, I should make sure everyone keeps their shirts on — it wasn't appropriate for the boys to be shirtless in the pictures." Forty young men had just given their lives to Christ and been baptized, most of them fatherless, many of them meeting Jesus for the first time in their lives. And all that man could see was the lack of shirts!
That's a Pharisee. Same spirit, different century. Form over love. Rule over relationship. Compliance over the actual miracle happening right in front of him.
Jesus told the Pharisees exactly where they'd gone wrong. He quoted the prophet Hosea back at them: "Go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.'" (Matthew 12:7). God was never impressed by perfect religious performance. He has always cared more about the heart than the checklist.
Here's the part I need you to actually hear: religion and performance will kill your rest every single time. Every time. It's exhasting and there is no rest. Because religion always whispers the same lie — you are not good enough, you need to do more, try harder, keep more rules, and maybe then you'll qualify. That voice will run you into the ground and call it holiness. It will keep you working for a rest you already have, and it will never, ever let you stop, because performance never gets to say "finished." It just gets to say "not yet."
Christ says something completely different. He says, I am enough for you. I already did the work. You don't need to perform for Me — you need to trust and obey Me.
"It is finished" (John 19:30) was not a suggestion. It was a declaration. The debt is paid. The performance is over. There is nothing left for you to add to what Jesus already accomplished on that cross — not your quiet time streak, not your church attendance, not one more rule kept perfectly. Real Sabbath rest was never going to come from religion. It was never going to come from getting the form right. It only comes one way: sincere surrender to the Lord.
"For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." — Hosea 6:6
So stop measuring yourself by the checklist. Stop treating God like a boss you have to impress and start receiving Him like the Father He actually is. Trust Him. Obey Him. That's it. That's the whole thing. Surrender is not weakness — it's the only door into the rest you've been chasing your whole life.
With you in the fight,
Pastor D
You're receiving this email because you matter to God — and you matter to me. Whether we've met or not, I'm for you, I believe in you, and I'm praying that you step fully into who God created you to be. I consider you an Incredible Man — not because you're perfect, but because you're called. Called to live with conviction, lead with integrity, and stand firm when life gets hard. The word incredible comes from the Latin incredibilis, meaning "not believable." It describes a man who lives differently — set apart, grounded, and unwavering.
I'm grateful you're here.
