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THE WORLD AT WAR WITH CHAOS

Everywhere you look, humanity is exhausted. The language of our age is haunted by striving: grind, hustle, competition, survival of the fittest. It is Darwinian through and through, a creed of endless struggle.

Corporations devour one another, families break under pressure, and individuals medicate their restless souls with distraction. Humanity is perpetually trying to hold chaos at bay—an echo of the cosmic disorder unleashed in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve fell from their divine state.

And here lies the tragedy: the Church, which should know better, often mirrors the very world it is meant to redeem. Pastors burn out. Congregations compete for influence. Believers carry the same anxiety as their neighbours. Instead of offering rest, we offer a sanctified version of the grind—a “spiritualised” hustle. It uses, “hijacks” the language of faith using all the right words but leads us further from the freedom and rest we seek since it has redefined what these words mean.

But Jesus’ words still cut through the noise: “It is finished” (John 19:30). If He has finished the work, why do we still live as though everything depends on our frantic effort?

Why do we persist in the struggle when the invitation has always been to enter His rest?

REST AS IDENTITY: THE HIDDEN TRUTH OF VICTORY

Rest is not the fruit of effort but of surrender; it is not born from doing, but from being.

True rest is a matter of identity.

When we define ourselves falsely—as unsaved, incomplete, unhealthy, poor, or broken—we are drawn into the primal survival cycle of fight or flight. The body reacts instinctively, bracing against perceived threats, a pattern that modern psychology calls the “lizard brain.”

Yet as Christians, we do not adhere to atheistic philosophies, whether Darwinian evolution or political communism, which, historically, devolve into chaos because they are rooted in deception.

But this “universal panic” is not evolution at work—it is the soul’s desperate attempt at self-preservation. And here lies the problem: chaos in the world is not primarily biological, psychological, or political. Its root is spiritual. And you cannot resolve spiritual conflict with physical means.

As Christians, we carry a greater awareness. We are not mere flesh and blood; we are eternal beings clothed in mortal frames. The body may tremble, but the spirit is called to rest. Our true identity transcends the limits of flesh, time, and death itself.

Only when we recover this identity can we dwell in victory, unmoved by the turbulence of the world.

The body may want to react in fear, but our spirit is called to rest, for our true identity transcends the limits of mortality and physicality.

Only when we map our true identity will we be able to live in victory and rest in a chaotic world.

The key is this: the condition of the spirit shapes the condition of the body and external world. Inner rest is never achieved by forcing order upon the outer world, but outer peace flows naturally when the inner world is cultivated and guarded.

In Christ, identity is already settled. We are new creations—vessels of rest, peace, and wholeness. The Promised Land is not a distant horizon but a present inheritance: health, abundance, and fullness. Victory is not something to be achieved but something to be recognised, enforced, and embodied.

What remains is for us to recognise, enforce, and embody that victory.

The enemy’s tactic is not to create new prisons but to blind us to the freedom already secured. His weapon is not iron but words. Through deceit, false narratives, and lies, he attacks identity.

The most fundamental deception is the lie of separation—that we are far from salvation, far from peace, far from rest. The truth is the opposite: separation is an illusion.

Our suffering stems from believing his lies over God’s truth, which in itself stems from neglecting to arm ourselves with the knowledge of Scripture.

“My people are destroyed [they suffer] because of a lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” —Hosea 4:6

Ignorance does not stop with us; its consequences reverberate across generations. The lies we accept today can bind our children tomorrow, until the cycle of deception is cut.

By reclaiming our true identity in Christ, we begin to break this cycle. Rest is restored. Peace becomes tangible. Abundance ceases to be theory and becomes testimony.

If left unchallenged, the soul—even of the believer—can be hijacked by weaponised language. Not chains, but words. Words that recode the mind into slavery, replacing the vocabulary of freedom with the grammar of bondage.

Such words strip away the authentic identity in Christ and replace it with an identity of servitude, fastening the mind within invisible prisons. And tragically, those imprisoned often become the wardens of their own captivity—mocking, shunning, and punishing any language that dares to use the vocabulary of freedom.

But the ones who know their true identity in Christ walks in a deeper law: rest as victory, being as overcoming.

WHAT IS THE REST OF GOD?

The writer of Hebrews speaks plainly:

“For we who have believed enter that rest… So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:3, 9–10).

Rest is not laziness. It is not passivity. It is not retreat. Rest is the posture of a soul so rooted in faith that labour ceases to be a frantic attempt to prove or preserve itself. It is participation in God’s own settledness, His shalom.

Psalm 127:1–2 sharpens the point:

“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to His beloved sleep.”

The Fall in Genesis 3 robbed us of this rest. Before the Fall, Adam was placed in Eden to “work and keep [protect]” it (Genesis 2:15). The Hebrew words here are ʿābad (to serve, cultivate) and shāmar (to guard, protect). His vocation was not toil under curse but the joyful tending of a garden—order flowing from rest. After sin, the same man was told: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). Work became war. The inner garden of peace was overrun by thorns.

Yet there is a deeper layer. When God “placed” Adam in Eden (Genesis 2:15), the root verb used is related to nuach—to rest, settle, abide—not merely motion. Adam’s first calling was to be settled in God’s presence. Eden was not built on striving but on resting since the Lord had already subdued the chaos within the confines of the Garden (cf. Matthew 6:10, 6:33). Rest, then, is not a luxury; it is the result of divine alignment. It is not inactivity; it is an active discipline of faith. To rest is to make a statement: I trust God enough to stop fighting battles He has already won.

Think of a marathon runner. His daily practice of setting a set time aside for training benefits every aspect of his life. So too with the believer—rest is not occasional relief but daily practice.

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). Rest is the training ground of faith. It is not passive collapse but the deliberate cultivation of confidence in God’s Word and presence.

Though the instruction is strikingly simple—return, rest, quiet trust—it sounds almost too simple to our restless age. The barrage of messages clamouring for our attention, colonising both mind and heart, insists that effectiveness lies in endless effort, noise, and self-exertion. Yet God’s way remains steady, unadorned, and unchanging.

And so the refrain still lingers, haunting in its brevity: ‘But you would not.’

Faith and works of self-salvation are mutually exclusive; to grasp one is to let go of the other. To rely on human effort is to dismiss grace, but to embrace faith is to rest in the finished work of Christ.

WEAPONISED CONVERSATION: HOW REST WAS LOST

The serpent did not wield a sword; he wielded words. Eden was lost not by violence but by conversation. By listening to a twisted narrative, humanity was shifted:

• A change of focus – from God’s abundance to the one forbidden tree.
• A change of location – from spiritual consciousness to carnal reasoning.
• A change of story – from divine image-bearers to anxious self-preservers.
• A change of state – from thriving to surviving.

This is what Scripture calls yetser, the inner formation or framework of thought (Genesis 6:5; 8:21). Our imaginations were hijacked. Our inner landscape, once a sanctuary of order and health, was terraformed into a wilderness of dysfunction and suffering. When we ignore the inner Eden because of ignorance or slackness, the result is suffering, not rest.

Matthew Henry comments on Genesis 3:

“Satan ruined mankind by persuading them to seek for more knowledge than God had allowed them… They would be as gods; but, by aiming at more, they fell short of what they were.”

They had crowned themselves as the gods of the earth, while rejecting the divine backing they had. In severing alignment with God, they unplugged from the very Source that sustained them, and dysfunction inevitably followed. All of it sprang from the new programming—a virus—they had allowed to be planted (installed) into their minds, installed as truth, and lived out as law.

The serpent’s words implanted doubt—a re-storying of reality that displaced trust in God. In other words, paradise was not stolen; it was reframed.

THE INNER LANDSCAPE AND THE GARDEN OF THE HEART

Scripture repeatedly returns to this theme:

• “Beloved, I desire that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul” (3 John 1:2).
• “Keep [to watch, guard from danger] your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

The Hebrew in Genesis 2:15 (ʿābad and shāmar) reveals the original human calling: to cultivate and guard the inner sanctuary. We were never called to battle chaos on the outside; our first vocation was always to steward the inside.

Paradise is not lost; it has been relocated within. The true wilderness is neglect. If your inner terrain feels like a wilderness, it is only because it has been left uncultivated.

REST AND RESTLESSNESS AS PRODUCTS OF THE INNER STATE

Disorder, dysfunction, and suffering are not primarily external realities. They are reflections of an inner state. And so is their opposite: rest, order, peace.

This is why Paul could write, even in a Roman prison,

“We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). He was not free externally, but inwardly he reigned.

We have two options:

1. Focus on external chaos – which magnifies disorder and fuels fear.
2. Focus on cultivating the seeds of transformation internally – which multiplies rest and releases shalom.

But this raises the practical question: How do we enter that rest?

FAITH AS THE ENTRANCE INTO REST

Hebrews 4 tells us clearly: we enter rest through faith. But what is faith, and how is it cultivated?

Many are told, “Just believe.” Yet few explain how. Faith is not conjured by effort. It is the fruit of conditions we cultivate.

Two truths stand out:

1. You cannot trust someone you do not know. Faith requires intimacy. You cannot know God without spending time with Him—in His Word, in prayer, in silence.
2. Faith is shaped by the message you focus on. Focus is a choice. As Isaiah asks, “Whose report will you believe?” (Isaiah 53:1). The psalmist models this wrestling: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God” (Psalm 42:5).

Notice why his soul was downcast: “They continually say to me, ‘Where is your God?’” (Psalm 42:3). It was the pressure of voices—weaponised words again—that unsettled him. This is precisely why Proverbs 4 commands us to guard the words God has spoken to us: because those words are what the enemy is after. Jesus’ parable of the sower (Luke 8:11–15) confirms it—the devil comes first and foremost to steal the word. If he can uproot the seed, he can prevent the harvest.

Here is how the process works, and it is a process! Luke 8:11-12 gives us the recipe for faith.

“Now this is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. The seeds along the path are those who hear, but the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. [divine intervention]”

1. Take the seed (God’s Word).
2. Plant it in your heart.
3. Faith grows.
4. Faith draws God’s saving power.

This is why the angel told Cornelius to send for Peter: “He will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household” (Acts 11:14). Salvation came not through effort, but through words.

All of creation begins in the realm of words. Each day, in thought and speech, we plant seeds that will one day blossom—into chaos and suffering, or into peace and wholeness. The harvest is not distant; it is born from the soil of our own choosing and the seeds we sow today.

WORDS, LOGOS, AND THE FORMATION OF FAITH

The Bible often relates to logos—the word, reason, structure.

Logos embraces both en-diathetos (word conceived in thought) and pro-pheretos (word spoken aloud). Thought and speech are inseparably bound.

• Prophorikos → from pro (“forth”) + phorá (< phérein, “to carry”) = “that which is carried out, uttered aloud.”
• Endiathetos → from en (“within”) + diathetos (< diatithenai, “to arrange”) = “that which is arranged within, inner thought.”

Faith is simply the product of what we consistently say (internally and externally) since thinking both flows from and grows our inner mindset or worldview. As focus magnifies, whatever we rehearse inwardly expands outwardly.

This is important because speech/thought is the meta-framework of reality (c.f an upcoming post)

Much of our internal mindset and worldview has been shaped passively, yet we have the power to actively reprogram ourselves by practising new patterns of speech and thought until they are physically embedded in our neural pathways.

This resonates with the Hebrew practice of hāgāh—to meditate, murmur, and rehearse (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). Unlike the common cultural notion of meditation as emptying the mind, biblical meditation is a process of filling: rehearsing God’s Word until it forms an ark (tevah) within. Remarkably, tevah in Hebrew signifies both ‘ark’—as in Noah’s salvation or Moses’ basket—and ‘word.’ Our repeated thoughts, therefore, become vessels, carrying either salvation or destruction.

Thus, the art of biblical meditation is like shaping reality through words—rehearsing and haggling (hāgāh-ing) until the material world itself begins to respond.

Academic studies support this. Research in cognitive psychology shows that 90–95% of daily thoughts are repetitive. If those thoughts are negative, the brain literally entrenches pathways of fear and anxiety (see Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow). To think the same toxic thoughts daily yet expect transformation is, as Einstein quipped, a form of insanity.

Paul put it differently:

“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

PRACTICAL WAYS TO CULTIVATE FAITH AND ENTER REST

So how do we move from restless striving to divine rest?

1. Spend time with God. You cannot trust someone you do not know. Prioritise unhurried presence. Read slowly. Pray honestly. Listen deeply.
2. Guard the gates of your mind. Curate what enters—news cycles, conversations, entertainment. Every message is a seed.
3. Rehearse the right words. Speak God’s promises aloud. Write them. Mutter them under your breath. This is hāgāh—building a tevah of salvation.
4. Shift your focus. Instead of magnifying external chaos, magnify the inner garden. Daily ask: What am I cultivating? What am I guarding?
5. Remember: faith is not striving. It is not self-generated. It is the by-product of intimacy and focus which produces faith.

THE POWER OF INNER TRANSFORMATION: LIVING FROM COMPLETION

The key lies in reforming our inner framework—the identity that defines us—not from wanting, striving, or earning, but from having, resting, and knowing. When we cling to a false identity, we perpetuate unrest. This inner turbulence radiates outward, subtly manifesting as low-level anxiety or agitation in ourselves and those around us. Yet when we believe, and repeatedly rehearse, the report of the Lord, we are internally terraformed; the new creation begins to unfold, not just within us, but in the 3D reality around us. This is the process of transformation Paul indicate in Romans 12:2.

The outer world is nothing more than a mirror of our inner convictions. Until we install the truth of God in our mind and heart, we are subject to arbitrary, subjective, and often false assumptions about God, ourselves, and reality itself. The world is not the problem—it simply reflects the identity we hold within. Change the internal identity, and the mirror will reflect the transformation. Until then, all attempts to “fix” the outside are akin to putting makeup on a cracked reflection: superficial and fleeting.

Opinions, external pressures, and human counsel are irrelevant in this mirror. The truth revealed is the truth of your own inner convictions. Whether we genuinely believe the words “It is finished,” or attempt to add our own effort to the work of Christ, the mirror responds accordingly.

The key is to think, speak, and act from the place of completion—from the perspective of your new identity in Christ.

This is why faith is the doorway into the promised land of rest. Faith restores the spiritual consciousness we lost in Eden—”Ayden” Lit. pleasure opulence, comfort, and divine rest (Heb. Nuach) when He placed us in it—allowing us to know with certainty that what God has promised is already ours.

Rest is not the product of endless striving, but the fruit of spiritual perception. Faith is the instrument that aligns our inner reality with the eternal truth: that all we desire has already been accomplished, “finished” in Christ.

Scripture reminds us:

“By grace you have been saved through faith.” —Ephesians 2:8
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught.” —Colossians 2:6–7

The danger arises when we begin in the Spirit but attempt to continue in the flesh—relying on effort rather than faith. Paul addresses this tension in Galatians 3: the work is finished; the victory is complete. Our task is not to earn it, but to walk in the reality of what has already been done, allowing faith to manifest the fullness of Christ in our lived experience.

Rest, then, is the living testimony of a soul aligned with its true identity. It is the evidence of faith that perceives completion, the fruit of surrender, and the reflection of God’s reality made tangible in the human heart.

THE SECRET GARDEN OF THE HEART

Our first calling is not to hustle, compete, or conquer. It is to be gardeners of the heart.

Eden is not gone; it has been relocated within. The true wilderness is neglect. If you find thorns of anxiety or brambles of bitterness, it is not evidence that God has abandoned you—it is simply a sign that our inner garden needs tending again.

God is waiting—not for you to save yourself, but for you to trust Him. And trust grows where the soil of the heart is cultivated.

“It is finished.” The work of salvation is done. The only question is whether you will enter His rest.

So the key is this, take care of your faith and your faith will take care of you and give you rest!

If suffering and ceaseless toil are born of turning our gaze away from God’s Word, then the pathway back to rest and wholeness is nothing less than the reorientation of our sight—fixing it once more upon His eternal truth.

A DEVOTIONAL PRAYER

Heavenly Father,
Thank You that in Christ I am already a new creation, already victorious, and already resting in the fullness of Your promises. Forgive me for the times I have believed lies—about myself, about You, and about the world—allowing fear, striving, or doubt to shape my inner identity.

Lord, today I choose to surrender my false self and embrace the truth of who I am in You. Transform my phronema, my inner disposition, and align it with Your Spirit. Let my mind (nous), my soul (psyche), and my spirit (pneuma) be terraformed by the reality of Your Word. Let the latent words in my heart—logos endiathetos—be filled with Your truth until they shape my speech, my actions, and the very world around me.

Father, help me to live from completion, not striving; to act from faith, not effort; to speak and think from the reality that it is already finished in Christ. Restore to me the spiritual consciousness I lost in Eden—opulence, comfort, and divine rest. Let Your Word form an ark (tevah) within me, a vessel of peace, wholeness, and abundance.

Guard my heart from deception, and let no lie of the enemy take root in my identity. Teach me to rehearse Your truth daily, meditating on Your Word until my inner life reflects the victory that is mine in Christ. May my life be a mirror of Your reality, a testimony of faith, and a reflection of Your eternal rest.

I declare that I am rooted, established, and steadfast in You. I walk in the truth that all You have promised is already mine, and I release every struggle to grasp what is already accomplished. Let Your peace guard my heart and mind, and may my life radiate the rest and abundance of Your Spirit.

In the name of Jesus, who has finished the work, I pray. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. In what areas of your life do you feel most restless, and how do these reveal an inner state rather than an external problem?
2. What conversations (like Eve’s with the serpent) are shaping your focus, location, and story today?
3. How might you practise hāgāh—muttering, rehearsing, meditating—on God’s Word this week?
4. What specific “garden” task (cultivating or guarding) do you sense the Spirit calling you to today?
5. Whose report are you currently believing, and what would shift if you chose God’s?

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