LIFE ON MISSION Podcast with TANNER KLEIN

Tanner Klein - LIFE ON MISSION
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Christianity
  • Weekly

Cultivating a faith-filled, God-fearing, Christ-centered lifestyle with Jesus 🔑Themes: Jesus, LIFE ON MISSION, Avodah with God, God at work in the world, God-glorifying Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Posts/podcasts every M, W, F! lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com

  1. Oct 23

    Counting the Cost: Discerning Before Building — A Series on REDEMPTIVE BUSINESS STRATEGY & ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    Hey friends - Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. My name Tanner Klein. Before we focus on redemptive business strategy I want to take a moment to remind you that you are loved by God. 1 John 4:10 declares, In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Let that sink in for the rest of your days. In love for us, Jesus took your place and mine on that cross made for sinners, and He paid your debt and mine in full by laying down His life in place of ours. This is who we are. You are loved by our Father in heaven, by Jesus our Messiah, by the Holy Spirit our Helper. We are loved. Don’t just take my word for it, take God’s word for it. Jesus Himself said these words, recorded in John 13:34: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: JUST AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, you also are to love one another. Did you hear that part in the middle: “just as I have loved you.” Let’s not forget the cross. Let’s remember that Jesus laid down His life for you and for me. May we remember and never forget what God has done for us. Let’s live like the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you and me — the power of resurrection life is alive and active in you and in me. And as Jesus instructs us again and again, as it’s written in John 15, we’re invited to abide in Him and remain in His love. It is from this place of abiding and remaining in His love that our lives produce really good fruit, like love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. So, this is my encouragement for you: Believe in God’s love for you, receive it, enjoy it more fully, and share it freely. Your life is of priceless value to the God who made you, pursues you, loves you, and desires a relationship with you. Let this reality shape and secure your identity in Jesus. YOU ARE LOVED. That is who you are. In God’s eyes, that is who you are. May God bless you to receive these identity-securing words, to see God as your greatest treasure, and to believe in His love for you, receive it, enjoy it more fully, and share it more freely. This Good News fuels us toward living redeemed lives full of redemptive impact. Two things: First, God can make an eternally significant impact on other eternal souls through us, and He does! Second, the Lord is raising up men and women who want to build with Him, not just for Him. There’s a big difference. So, we’re embarking on our seventh post on this topic of redemptive entrepreneurship. This is our fourth centered on redemptive business strategy. What is Redemptive Entrepreneurship? We covered this extensively in our previous posts linked below. It is about partnering with God in His ongoing work of renewal—right where we are—building, leading, serving, and creating. Our friends at Praxis, define the word Redemptive as “following the pattern of creative restoration through sacrifice in our life and work,” and the word Entrepreneurship as “directing our agency and resources toward organizational creation, innovation, and risk.” I’m excited to explore this more with you all. Also, feel free to check out the other podcast-posts in this series, linked below, or if you want more after this post, come back to this list: * REDEMPTIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP — An Introduction * EXPLOITATIVE vs. ETHICAL vs. REDEMPTIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP: The Three Ways We Build * CULTIVATING the HEART of a REDEMPTIVE ENTREPRENEUR: Surrender, Faith in Action, & the Fear of the LORD * Strategy as a Form of Love, Why Strategy Matters, & Why It’s a Holy Partnership * What Are We Aiming At? Success or Faithfulness? * Business as Stewardship, Not Ownership The first three posts unpack redemptive entrepreneurship and the next three hone the focus on redemptive business strategy. In our post on Strategy as a Form of Love, Why Strategy Matters, & Why It’s a Holy Partnership, we covered this core question from the first chapter in my not-yet-released book on Redemptive Business Strategy, What if strategy — rightly understood and rightly practiced — is not just a business discipline, but a form of partnership with God? In the next podcast, What Are We Aiming At? Success or Faithfulness? we addressed this core question: Before you build anything — a business, a team, a strategy, a life’s work — have you honestly asked what you are actually aiming at? In the last post, Business as Stewardship, Not Ownership, we responded to this question: Who does your business, your influence, your capital, and your time actually belong to — and how does your honest answer to that question shape the way you lead? Today, we are exploring, Counting the Cost: Discerning Before Building Here’s the Core Question we’re addressing today? In a culture that rewards speed and prizes the first mover, what does it look like to slow down, sit with God, and count the cost — before you build? The Focus This post (another chapter from my not-yet-released book) establishes discernment as the essential discipline that precedes faithful action. It challenges the cultural pressure to move fast and seize every opportunity, and replaces it with a biblical posture of prayerful deliberation — counting financial costs, formational costs, and spiritual costs before stepping forward. The 5C Discernment Framework is introduced as a simple, repeatable tool for builders and leaders at any stage. This chapter closes Part I, grounding the entire foundation of redemptive business strategy in the practice of seeking God before acting. There is something deeply countercultural — and deeply Christlike — about slowing down before you act. The world we build in does not reward slowing down. It rewards speed. Move fast, break things, seize the opportunity before someone else does. Hesitation is treated as weakness. Deliberation is confused with fear. And discernment — that careful, prayerful, God-oriented practice of asking should we? before asking how do we? — is often the first thing to go when momentum builds. But Jesus tells a different story. In Luke 14:28, He asks: Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? And Proverbs offers a companion truth: The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. (Proverbs 14:15) Notice the posture behind both. Not rushing. Not reacting. Not impulsively announcing a vision before there is a foundation beneath it. Jesus says: Sit down. Count the cost. Proverbs says: Give thought. Seek wisdom. Pausing to pray and count the cost is not a failure of faith. It is one of the most concrete expressions of faithfulness available to a builder. Discernment Is Not Delay — It’s Direction Let’s name what discernment is not, because the confusion is real and it’s costly. Discernment is not hesitation driven by fear. It is not a spiritually polished excuse for inaction. It is not the perfectionistic habit of waiting until every uncertainty is resolved before taking a step. Discernment is direction-finding. It is the practice of asking better questions before we commit to a path — questions that go deeper than Can we do this? and reach for Should we do this? and How do we do this with God in ways that please Him? And even deeper still: Is God inviting us into this, at this time, in this way, with these people, for His purposes? In redemptive business strategy, discernment precedes decisive action — not because we are afraid to move, but because we are committed to moving with God rather than ahead of Him. Proverbs 21:5 gives us a clarifying contrast: The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty. Hasty action often masquerades as boldness. But underneath it is frequently something smaller — a fear of missing out, a craving for validation, a competitive anxiety that whispers if you don’t move now, someone else will, and you’ll miss out. That is scarcity thinking, not Kingdom thinking. Diligent plannin… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Oct 9

    Rest and Avodah: Bringing It Full Circle / 🇫🇷 Le repos et l'avodah : boucler la boucle

    “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” — Ephesians 2:10 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Last time, we got really practical — daily rhythms, weekly Sabbath, seasons of longer rest. All of it built to help us actually rest instead of just knowing we should. If you haven’t listened to Part 6 yet, I encourage you to go back first. You can find it linked below: * Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For * Rest Interrupted: The Garden, the Fall, and the Rhythm We Lost * The Rest That Remains: Hebrews 4 and the Invitation That’s Still Open * Come to Me: Jesus’ Direct Invitation in Matthew 11:28-29 * Counterfeit Rest - The Disciples vs. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane * How to Actually Rest: Practical Rhythms for a Restless Generation Today, we close this series. And we’re going to close it by bringing it back to the word that’s been quietly underneath this entire LIFE ON MISSION publishing ministry from the beginning: avodah. Why? Because rest alone was never the whole point. Rest and avodah were always meant to be paired together. Let’s see how. One Word for Work, Worship, and Service If you’ve followed these LIFE ON MISSION podcasts and posts for a while, you know avodah is a word we come back to often. But it’s worth slowing down on it one more time, because it really is the key that unlocks this whole final post in this series on REST WITH GOD. I am also committed to reintroducing this ancient concept to the world. It’s God’s original design. Avodah is the Hebrew word behind Genesis 2:15: “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it [to avad it] and keep it.” This word avodah shows up over 434 times in the Old Testament. Here’s what’s remarkable about that word: it’s the very same word used throughout the Old Testament for work, for service, for worship including the sacred work of the priests and Levites in the tabernacle where God’s presence dwelled on earth. It’s also the specific word Joshua used before leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, famously proclaiming this power-packed line: “If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) That is, literally, “we will avad the Lord.” In Hebrew thought, there was never a clean line between “spiritual” activity and “regular” work. Tending a garden, offering a sacrifice, serving your neighbor, building something with your hands — all of it could be avodah with God, and to His glory. All of it could be worship, offered to God, if it flowed from the right place. Whatever we do, we are called to do for the glory of God (see 1 Corinthians 10:31). Not only that, God’s original design is for us to partner with Him, to avad with God, to do whatever we do like Immanuel is with us as He promised, and in us, by His Spirit, giving us the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him (see Philippians 2:13). That’s the vision this whole publishing ministry has been built around. And it’s the exact vision this rest series has been quietly building toward the entire time. Two Kinds of Avodah The Bible also shows us a second, darker kind of avodah — and the contrast matters enormously for understanding rest. When Israel was enslaved in Egypt, the Scriptures describe their labor using the words: “qāšê avodah” — hard, bitter labor — recorded in Exodus 1:14. Pharaoh worked them “ruthlessly” (see Exodus 1:13), with no rhythm, no rest, no relief. Then God delivers them. And notice His message to Pharaoh through His messenger, Moses: “Let my people go, that they may serve me [or that they may avad Me]” (Exodus 8:1) — serve, worship, avad, the same word again. They weren’t being rescued from work into idleness. The people of God were being rescued from crushing, rest-less work under a tyrant into free, worshipful avodah under their God. And what’s one of the very first things God gives this newly freed people, before they even reach Mount Sinai? Rest. Sabbath. The manna rhythm we talked about in Part 6 of this series on REST WITH GOD. Freedom, in the Scriptures, was never just freedom from labor. It was freedom from labor without rest — and freedom into labor that flows from rest with God. That distinction is crucial and foundational to understanding the meaning behind our integrated offering of work, service, and worship to God today, wherever we are. Work That Flows From Rest, Not Toward It Remember what we found all the way back in Part 2 of this REST WITH GOD series: Adam’s very first full day of life wasn’t a workday. It was a rest day. He rested with God before he ever lifted a hand to tend the garden. That order — rest first, avodah flowing from it — is the pattern that sin fractured, and it’s the exact pattern Christ is restoring. Hebrews 4:10 tells us: “whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” That’s not the end of work. It’s the reordering of it. We stop striving to earn what’s already been given — and from that settled place, real avodah becomes possible again. Paul says it plainly in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Read the order carefully. We don’t work to become His workmanship. We already are God’s workmanship — accepted, secure, at rest in that identity — and out of that rest, good works follow. And not just any good works, but good works prepared beforehand by God for us. Good works that we do with God, not just for God, or for the approval of others, or for ourselves or our brand. These are God-given, Spirit-empowered good works that ultimately bring God glory and impact others for good. This is a picture of avodah flowing from rest instead of work performed to earn it. The Shared Yoke, Revisited This is exactly why Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11 matters so much for how we work, not just how we rest. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:29-30). A yoke is a work tool and this is a work image. Jesus isn’t offering to remove your and my labor. He’s offering to share it — to be yoked alongside you and me in our actual avodah, our actual calling, our actual work and service in the world, today. This is where rest and avodah stop being two separate topics and become one integrated life. A life of devotion to God, lived in close communion with Him. You don’t rest, and then separately go labor for God. You labor for God’s glory from a posture of rest, with Him pulling alongside you the whole time. That’s the redemptive entrepreneurship we’ve talked about elsewhere in these LIFE ON MISSION podcasts. That’s love-fueled work, service, and worship — avodah — done while sharing a yoke with Jesus, not apart from it and not apart from Him. Rest That Prepares Us to Serve One more thread to pull together before we land this plane. In Part 5 of this series, we got up close and personal to the scene that unfolded in the Garden of Gethsemane. We watched the disciples sleep when they should have watched and prayed. We covered that counterfeit rest — escapism, numbness, avoidance — doesn’t prepare us for what’s ahead. It leaves us exposed when the test comes. That warning matters here, because it has everything to do with avodah too. Real rest doesn’t pull us away from our calling. It equips us for it. When we rest the way we’ve described in this series — honestly, in faith, oriented toward God, aware of and enjoying His presence — we come back to our work, our families, our service, our creativity with something to actually offer. Not fumes. Not restlessness.Not resentment. Not numbness.Not worn out. Rest that avoids… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Oct 2

    How to Actually Rest: Practical Rhythms for a Restless Generation / 🇫🇷 Comment se reposer, concrètement : des rythmes pratiques pour une génération agitée

    “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” — Mark 2:27 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Last time, we entered the Garden of Gethsemane the night Jesus was betrayed. We watched the disciples choose numbness over presence, sleep over watching and praying. We learned that not everything that looks like rest actually is rest. If you haven’t listened to Part 5 yet, I encourage you, go back first (links below). * Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For * Rest Interrupted: The Garden, the Fall, and the Rhythm We Lost * The Rest That Remains: Hebrews 4 and the Invitation That’s Still Open * Come to Me: Jesus’ Direct Invitation in Matthew 11:28-29 * Counterfeit Rest - The Disciples vs. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane It’s necessary to contrast the rest God is offering us against the counterfeit rest we have all become accustomed to. It will also keep this post from becoming another form of self-medicating escape. As for today, we get practical. We’ve spent five episodes building the theology of rest — Eden’s rhythm, the rest that remains, Christ’s invitation, the counterfeit to avoid. Now it’s time to answer the question underneath all of it: How do I actually do this? Rest Was Built Into Every Layer of Time Here’s something I want us to see before we get to specific practices: God didn’t build rest into just one period of time: daily, weekly, seasonally, annually, etc. He built rest into all of them. Here’s what I mean. Go back to the very first chapter of Genesis, and notice the pattern each day follows: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Genesis 1:5). Evening, then morning. Not morning, then evening. In the Hebrew way of reckoning time, the day begins at rest — at evening, at sundown, at stillness — before the work of daylight ever starts. Every single day of your life, structurally, was designed to begin with rest, not end with it. Then there’s the week — one day in seven, set apart for Sabbath rest, the pattern we’ve traced through this whole series. And then, further out still, God built rest into entire seasons of years: “in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the LORD” (see Leviticus 25:4) — a whole year of rest for the ground itself, every seventh year. And beyond even that, the Year of Jubilee, the year after 7 periods of 7 years, every fiftieth year, when debts were released and land was restored. Daily. Weekly. Yearly. Generationally. Rest wasn’t a single command tucked into the Law. It’s a rhythm woven through every period of time God gave us. So let’s build practices at each of those periods. Daily: Let Your Day Begin with Rest Practically, this means the way you start and end your evening matters more than most of us treat our evenings. If your last hours before bed are spent doom-scrolling, answering emails, or replaying tomorrow’s list of stresses to come, then you’re starting your day already running before your feet hit the floor. Try this instead: let your evening actually be an evening. Put the phone somewhere else. Say a short prayer of surrender — literally handing tomorrow to God before you’ve even lived it. Let sleep itself become an act of trust, the same trust Hebrews 4 called us to: resting from your own works because God’s work is enough. Personally, I have a work cut off time so I don’t get carried away. I like to prayerfully journal to process through the day with God. I set alerts to remind me to get ready for bed long before I am tired, to help me physically and mentally prepare for sleep. I like to listen to the Bible read aloud, usually while I get ready for bed, brush my teeth, wash my face, etc. Before I lay down to sleep, I like to get on my knees to pray. These simple rhythms help me to reflect on my day with God, prepare for the next, and better align my head and heart with God’s eternal perspective. These are such small shifts, but they’re a daily rehearsal of the whole series in miniature: rest before work, not after it. Weekly: Guard One Day This is the big one, and I know it can feel almost impossible in the life you’re actually living, but all things are possible with God. Weekly set apart rest is a gift from God, a gift my wife and I delight in weekly, even with our newborn. Nevertheless, weekly, intentional rest doesn’t accidentally happen. So let’s get to it, practically. 1. Prepare the day before or even days before. When Israel gathered manna in the wilderness, God gave them a specific instruction: “Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning” (Exodus 16:23). They prepared on day six so day seven could actually be rest, not another workday in disguise. You and I can do the same. My wife and I like to cook in advance. We take out the trash, clean up the room, do the laundry, vacuum, and do the dirty work now so we don’t have to when we rest by faith on our set apart Sabbath day. You can clear your inbox the night before, not during. Set out what you need in advance. The goal isn’t perfectionism — it’s removing the friction that quietly turns your rest day into just another list of tasks that leave you feeling no more rested than before. I believe the fuller our schedules, the more we need intentional rest with God, not less. 2. Unplug on purpose. Pick a real window — even a few hours if a full day isn’t possible in your season — and put the phone away. Turn off notifications. Let your mind actually go quiet instead of half-resting while a screen keeps feeding it noise. 3. Be with people who matter to you. Rest, biblically, is not a command to isolate yourself. It’s woven into family, community, and table fellowship. So, share a meal without rushing it. Sit with friends. Play a game with your kids without checking the time. 4. Feast, don’t just fast from activity. This surprises people, but Sabbath in Scripture was never meant to be grim or restrictive. It was a day of delight — good food, gladness, gratitude. “The joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Rest isn’t just the absence of labor; it includes the presence of joy. 5. Be still and let God be God. Carve out real, quiet space with Him — not to accomplish a devotional checklist, but simply to be near Him. In Psalm 46:10, God Himself speaks: “Be still, and know that I am God.I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” So, sit in silence. Read a psalm slowly…pause, contemplate, pray, read it again and give God praise. Explore the life of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, with childlike faith and awe, ready to learn, wanting to simply be with Jesus. Let Him restore your soul the way Psalm 23:2-3 describes: “He makes me lie down in green pastures.He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” 6. Move your body without a goal. Take a walk with no destination and no fitness tracker running. Go outside, don’t just vege-out on the couch. Enjoy God’s creation and beauty that all points back to our Creator — His intentionality, His craftsmanship, His amazing design. Let your body remember what being unhurried feels like. 7. Bring Him what you’re actually carrying. This is the Gethsemane lesson applied — don’t numb past your week; bring it honestly before God. What are you anxious about? What hurt this week? Bring it to Him instead of burying it under distraction. None of this has to happen all at once, and it doesn’t have to look identical every week. But start naming, on purpose, what your day of rest will actually include — because if you don’t decide in advance, the world will happily fill that day for you. And if there’s one thing you prioritize, make abiding with the Lord your priority. We are branches and Jesus is the Vine. Just as branches apart from their source, the vine, don’t produce fruit, but wither away and die, apart from Him, we can do nothing. But… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  4. Sep 25

    Counterfeit Rest - The Disciples vs. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane / 🇫🇷 Le repos contrefait — Les disciples face à Jésus dans le jardin de Gethsémané

    “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” — Matthew 26:41 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Last time, we unpacked one of the most personal invitations in all of the Scriptures. Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). We saw that His yoke is shared, not solo. His heart is gentle, not exhausted with us. If you haven’t listened to Part 4 yet, go back first. It’s linked below: * Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For * Rest Interrupted: The Garden, the Fall, and the Rhythm We Lost * The Rest That Remains: Hebrews 4 and the Invitation That’s Still Open * Come to Me: Jesus’ Direct Invitation in Matthew 11:28-29 Today, we’re doing something different. We’ve spent four episodes building the case for rest — that it’s good, that it’s God’s design, that it’s an act of faith, that Jesus Himself invites us into it. Now we need the guardrail. Because not everything that looks like rest actually is rest. I think we’ve all experienced that to be true. And in my humble opinion, there’s no clearer picture of that in all of the Scriptures than what we see play out in a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives called Gethsemane. The Night Before the Cross It’s the night before the crucifixion. Jesus has just finished the Last Supper with His disciples. He knows exactly what’s coming — betrayal, arrest, mockery, torture, the cross. He leads His closest friends — Peter, James, and John — into a garden called Gethsemane. And He tells them plainly what He needs from them in this moment: “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). We see in Luke’s account, Jesus says to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” This is Jesus, hours from the most agonizing night of His life, making a clear and simple request of His friends. Not for comfort. Not for solutions. Not even for conversation. Just presence, watchfulness and prayer, alongside Him. Then He goes a little further into the garden, about a stone’s throw away, falls on His knees, and prays: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). Luke’s Gospel adds a detail that should grip our hearts: “And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). This is not a peaceful, easy moment. This is the most severe internal wrestling recorded anywhere in the Gospels. And when Jesus returns to His friends, expecting them to be watching, praying, standing with Him in this crucial moment — He finds them sleeping It says in Matthew 26:40, “And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not watch with me one hour?’” In Luke 22:45-46, Luke gives us a small, tender detail worth noticing, that Jesus “came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.’” The disciples were “sleeping for sorrow.” This wasn’t laziness in the way we usually picture it. It wasn’t apathy or indifference. It seems more like they were overwhelmed, probably fearful. It was grief so heavy their bodies simply powered down under it. I think this matters for how we read the rest of this story: their sleep is deeply human. It’s understandable, normal. When sorrow gets too heavy, numbing out the pain can feel like the only relief available. And yet — Jesus doesn’t excuse it in this moment. He tells them: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41). He goes and prays a second time. He returns. They’re asleep again. A third time Jesus goes and prays.He comes back.His three trusted disciples, asleep again. Finally He says, with what I imagine as a mix of sorrow and resolve: “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” (Matthew 26:45-46). Two Very Different Types of Rest Here’s the picture I want you to hold onto from this whole episode. In the same garden, at the same hour, under the pressure of unbearable weight — Jesus is on His face before the Father, wrestling honestly, with sweat like big drops of blood, surrendering His will. And a few feet away, His closest friends are asleep, escaping the very thing they were asked to stay present for. Both were exhausted. Both were under crushing pressure. Only one of them actually found rest, and with it, clarity and conviction to endure the unprecedented suffering to come. Jesus’ posture wasn’t escape — it was engagement. He didn’t numb His way through the anguish. He brought the full weight of it, honestly, directly, to His Father — “if it be possible... nevertheless, not my will, but yours” — and He came out of that prayer with resolve, ready to face the cross with steady strength. That’s the real thing. Full engagement with God, even in agony, that ends in surrendered trust. What the disciples did wasn’t that. It was withdrawal. It was shutting down instead of showing up. It looked like rest from the outside — eyes closed, bodies still. But it wasn’t rest. It was avoidance. Why Does This Distinction Matters So Much? I shared back in Part 1 that this series wouldn’t let rest become an excuse for apathy, and this is exactly why. Counterfeit rest and real rest can look nearly identical from the outside. Both involve stopping. Both involve stillness. Both can even involve sleep. But they’re aimed in completely different directions. Real rest, the kind we’ve spent this whole series building toward, is oriented toward God. It’s honest. It brings the actual weight of your life to Him instead of numbing past it. It trusts Him enough to stop striving — but it doesn’t stop engaging with God. It often costs something, as you choose to rest with God over another way to fill that void. Sometimes it even looks like agonized prayer instead of a peaceful nap. In contrast, counterfeit rest is oriented away from God. It’s escapist. Instead of processing with God, counterfeit rest numbs us. It avoids exactly the thing God is asking us to bring to Him. And it always leaves us less prepared, not more, for what’s coming. I believe that’s a vital point worth noting: Counterfeit rest leaves us less prepared, not more, for what’s coming. The Cost of Sleeping Instead of Watching & Praying Here’s the part of this story that should sober all of us. Just a few hours after the disciples chose sleep over watchfulness, the very thing Jesus warned them about happened. Peter — who slept instead of praying against temptation — denies knowing Jesus three times before the rooster crows (see Matthew 26:69-75). He wasn’t unwilling. His spirit really was willing; Jesus said so Himself. But his flesh was weak, and instead of praying through that weakness in the garden, he slept past it. And when the test came, hours later, he had nothing left to stand on. That’s the real danger of counterfeit rest. It doesn’t make the trial disappear. It just leaves us unprepared when the trial arrives anyway. Paul picks up this exact same language later, writing to a church he loved: “so then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober” (1 Thessalonians 5:6). The same warning. The same call to stay spiritually alert, even while resting our bodies. What Counterfeit Rest Looks Like Today Let’s bring this all the way home, because I don’t think most of us are falling asleep in a literal garden. Counterfeit rest today often looks like scrolling for hours to avoid a hard conversation we know we need to have. It looks like binge-watching som… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Sep 18

    Come to Me: Jesus' Direct Invitation in Matthew 11:28-29 / 🇫🇷 Viens à moi : l'invitation directe de Jésus en Matthieu 11:28-29

    “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Last time, we examined Hebrews 4. We saw that a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. We saw it’s entered by faith, not earned by effort. And we ended standing at a doorway — Jesus, our great High Priest, inviting us to draw near with confidence. If you haven’t listened to Part 3 yet, go back first (links below). * Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For * Rest Interrupted: The Garden, the Fall, and the Rhythm We Lost * The Rest That Remains: Hebrews 4 and the Invitation That’s Still Open These posts build on each other. This week, we are walking straight through that doorway. Today, we’re not looking at a doctrine about rest anymore. We’re looking at a Person, speaking directly to us, in His own words. We’re looking to Jesus. I shared back in Part 1 of this series that this would be one of the most compelling invitations in all of the Scriptures. Let’s find out why. Who Jesus Is Speaking To Context matters here, so stay with me for a second before we get to the verse itself. Right before offering this invitation, Jesus was been denouncing specific cities that saw His mighty works yet still refused to believe in Him and repent from their sins. Jesus has been grieved by unbelief. He’s watched religious leaders load ordinary people down with rule after rule, requirement after requirement. Jesus called this out, saying, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.” (Matthew 23:4). Then, before giving His invitation to all those following Him, Jesus says something astonishing about Himself: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27). Jesus isn’t just a wise teacher handing out helpful tips for a calmer life. He’s claiming unique, exclusive access to the Father. He alone reveals God as He truly is. And it’s that same Jesus — the one with all authority, the one who alone truly knows the Father — who turns, in the very next breath, and says this: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). Let’s slow all the way down and walk through this, phrase by phrase, because every word here serves a purpose. “Come to Me” Not “follow these five steps.” Not “try harder.” Not “fix yourself first, then come.” Come to me. The invitation is relational before it’s ever instructional. How sweet is that? Jesus doesn’t hand us a system. He opens His arms. This is the same pattern we saw all through this series on REST WITH GOD. Rest isn’t a technique. Ultimately, it’s a Person who is the very Source of soul-satisfying rest. And He’s not waiting for you and me to qualify ourselves before we’re allowed near Him. Jesus follows, “Come to me,” with… “All Who Labor and Are Heavy Laden” Notice how wide this net is spread. Not “the especially devout.” Not “those who’ve earned a break.” All. The word for “labor” here pictures exhausting, wearying work — the kind that drains you dry. The word for “heavy laden” pictures being loaded down, weighed under, crushed by cargo you’re carrying. Both physical exhaustion and unbearable burden are in view. The overworked and the overwhelmed. The person drowning in deadlines, and the person drowning in guilt, shame, expectations, and religious performance. If you’ve ever felt like you can’t set the weight you’re carrying down — this verse has your name written all over it. Attached to this initial invitation is both an offer and a promise: “And I Will Give You Rest” Notice it says, “Give.” This is a gift Jesus hands over, not a wage He pays out for services rendered. It echoes everything we saw in Hebrews 4 — rest entered by faith, received rather than produced. This is exactly the rest Eden was built on, back in Part 2 of this series on REST WITH GOD. Rest that comes before work, not after it. Here, it is offered again, in person, by the very Son of God who upholds the universe. Next is the second part of Jesus’ invitation: “Take My Yoke Upon You” Here’s where it gets interesting, and where I think a lot of us might misread this passage. A yoke isn’t a symbol of ease. It’s a farming tool. It’s the wooden frame that joins two oxen together so they can pull a load as one. The teachings and instructions of religious leaders in Jesus’ day were referred to as a yoke. Rabbis also talked about “the yoke of the Torah” — the weight of the law a person took on by committing to keep it. It was a real phrase, a real image, and often it described a heavy, demanding burden. So when Jesus says “take my yoke upon you,” He’s not offering an escape from all responsibility. He’s offering a different yoke than the one religious leaders had strapped onto other people. And here’s a detail that changes everything: a yoke joins two together. When you take Christ’s yoke, you’re not pulling alone. He’s yoked right beside you. He walks with you, step by step. Friends, this is exactly where rest and avodah meet. Rest, biblically, was never only about stopping. It’s also about who you’re working and walking with. A yoke shared with Jesus means your labor is no longer a solo, anxious grind. It’s partnered with the Source of strength, the Source of wisdom, the Source of rest. It’s shared with Immanuel, God with us. That’s why He can say what comes next. “Learn From Me, for I Am Gentle and Lowly in Heart” This line moves my heart every time. Our Creator and Savior, the just Judge and Ruler of all, is also gentle and lowly in heart, desiring that we learn from Him. What a God. What a King. What a Lord.What a Friend. Think about it: this is the only place in all four Gospels where Jesus directly tells us what His own heart is like. Not what He does. What He is. Gentle and lowly. Not harsh. Not demanding in the way the religious leaders were demanding. Not keeping score, waiting for you to slip up so He can pile on more weight. If you’ve spent years assuming God is perpetually disappointed in you, exhausted with your failures, one more mistake away from giving up on you — this verse is worth sitting with until it actually reorders what you believe about His heart. May God bless you to receive these words and take the time necessary to allow them to move from your head to your heart. “Learn from me” isn’t a one-time transaction either. It is ongoing discipleship. It’s a lifetime of watching how Jesus carried Himself — unhurried, unanxious, secure in the Father’s love — and letting that reshape how we carry ourselves. This is a daily practice of embracing the Way, the Truth, and the Life Himself. Following His invitation to us to learn from Him and the way He is gentle and lowly in heart, Jesus offers another promise, the result of this communion with Him: “And You Will Find Rest for Your Souls” There’s something beautiful hiding just under the surface of this verse. This exact phrase — “find rest for your souls” — isn’t isolated to Matthew 11. It echoes all the way back to what the Lord spoke during the time of the prophet Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD: Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16). God had been offering His people rest for their souls for centuries. The ancient paths. The good way. And tragically, in Jeremiah’s day, the people’s response was heartbreaking: “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” Now Jesus stands in that same prophetic posture and reveals this invitation yet again: I am the ancient path. I am the good way. Come to Me, and find rest. This isn’t a new offer. It’s the same offer G… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Sep 11

    The Rest That Remains: Hebrews 4 and the Invitation That's Still Open / 🇫🇷 Le repos qui demeure : Hébreux 4 et l'invitation toujours ouverte

    “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” — Hebrews 4:9 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Last time, we went back to Eden. We saw rest come before work, not after it. We saw sin fracture that rhythm — hiding, toil, wandering. And we saw God, even then, calling His people back to real, intentional rest through the Sabbath command from Mount Sinai. If you haven’t listened to Part 2 yet, go back and start there. We’re building directly on it in this post. It’s linked below: * Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For * Rest Interrupted: The Garden, the Fall, and the Rhythm We Lost Today, we’re landing in what I believe is one of the richest passages on rest in all of the Scriptures. Hebrews chapter 4. This is the passage this whole series is named after. Let’s slow down, draw near to God, and get ready to learn from the Scriptures together. The Chapter Written to Tired, Discouraged People Before we dive deep into Hebrews 4, we need to know who it was written to. The book of Hebrews was written to a community of Jewish believers who were exhausted. Tired of waiting. Tired of being pushed to the margins for following Jesus. Some of them were quietly drifting back toward their old way of life, because it felt safer, more familiar, less costly. Sound familiar? It should. We tend to drift for the same reasons. And right before Hebrews 4, the writer does something surprising. He doesn’t just tell people to try harder. He takes them back into their own history — to the wilderness generation — and shows them a warning worth taking seriously. A Generation That Wandered Instead of Rested Remember Israel, freshly delivered out of slavery in Egypt? God brought them out with a mighty hand, fed them daily bread in the wilderness, and led them toward a Promised Land — a land of rest and freedom from the toil of slavery. And what happened? The 12 tribes sent 12 spies into the Promised Land, each one a leader and a chief in his tribe. 10 came back with a bad report, acknowledging the exceeding goodness of the land, but full of the fear of man — afraid of the inhabitants in the land and their fortified cities. Two faith-filled men, Joshua and Caleb, trusted God’s promises and believed the Lord would bring them to this land and give it to them. Their bold words are written in the book of Numbers 14:7-9: “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” The people stood at the edge of that rest, at the door into the Promised Land… and refused to walk in. Fear overcame them. Unbelief replaced trust in God’s promises. They lost sight of God’s presence with them. So God said of them, “They shall not enter my rest” (Psalm 95:11, quoted in Hebrews 3:11). An entire generation wandered the wilderness for 40 years. Wandering — that word should ring a bell from last week. It’s Cain’s curse all over again, playing out on a national scale. Not because the rest wasn’t available. It was because they didn’t trust God. They didn’t receive His offer of rest nor His promise to provide. The writer of Hebrews looks at the tired, restless, and wavering people around him and says, essentially: Don’t repeat their story. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” (Hebrews 3:15). That word — Today — is going to matter a lot in a minute. The Rest Was Always Bigger Than a Piece of Land Here’s something in Hebrews 4 that is genuinely beautiful, and I don’t want us to miss the logic, because it’s easy to read past quickly. The writer points out something we might not expect: Even after Joshua eventually led a later generation into the Promised Land, the offer of “rest” didn’t close. How do we know? Because centuries later, King David — writing in Psalm 95, long after Joshua’s conquest — still says “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 4:7, quoting Psalm 95:7). Think about what that means. If entering the physical land had been the full and final rest God was talking about, David wouldn’t have needed to speak of another “today” so long after Joshua. Hebrews draws the conclusion plainly: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on” So the rest being described was never ultimately about a promised land. It goes back even further — all the way back to the very beginning. Hebrews 4:4 quotes Genesis directly: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” The rest David was still inviting people into, centuries after Joshua, was the very same rest God modeled at creation. That is the rhythm of Eden. The rhythm we lost. The rhythm this whole series is about. But there remains good news, stated as clearly in Hebrews 4:9: “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” A Sabbath rest remains. Present tense. Even now. For you and for me. Rest Entered by Faith, Not Earned by Effort Now here’s the part of Hebrews 4 that will reorder how you think about rest forever, if you let it. Verse 10 says: “For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” Feel free to read that again. Entering God’s rest means resting from your own works — the way God rested from His. Not because the work was bad or because striving is inherently evil. But because the rest we’re being invited into isn’t a reward we produce. It’s a gift we receive by faith. Hebrews 4:2 makes this explicit about the wilderness generation: “good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.” They had the promise. They just didn’t believe it enough to stop striving in their own strength (or weakness) and simply walk forward by faith. That’s the whole tension of so many Christian lives in one sentence, isn’t it? We hear the good news. And then we spend years trying to earn what was already offered as a gift. As it says in Hebrews 3:18-19, “And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” It’s the presence of unbelief that keeps us from receiving and enjoying a gift God has already given. And that includes God’s gift of restorative rest — a gift to be received by faith. Now, Hold on — Aren’t We Supposed to “Strive” to Enter This Rest? I know some of you caught it in Hebrews 4:11. Let’s deal with this verse, as I said at the start of this series we wouldn’t let rest become an excuse for apathy. Verse 11 says: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Interesting, right? Strive. To enter rest. Make a big effort, over time, to enter this rest. That might sound like a contradiction — but it isn’t. Here’s the resolution: the striving isn’t toward earning rest through works. The striving is against unbelief and for trust. It’s enduring diligence motivated by faith, not diligence motivated by performance. Think of it like this: you don’t strive to make gravity work when you finally trust a chair enough to sit down in it. You strive against the voice in your head telling you the chair won’t hold you. I hope that analogy makes some sense. The striving is in the trusting, not in the holding yourself up. That’s the fight Hebrews is calling us to. Fight to believe and to persevere in faith. Fight against a hardened heart and cut off opportunities to give unbelief a foothold in your heart. Fight against drifting back into self-reliant striving. And on the other side, don’t let any lies or unbelief keep you from receiving the rest God offers you. This is exactly the kind of rest that requires faith, the way we talked about in Part… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Sep 4

    Rest Interrupted: The Garden, the Fall, and the Rhythm We Lost / 🇫🇷 Le repos interrompu : le jardin, la chute, et le rythme qu’on a perdu

    “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work.” — Genesis 2:3 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Last time, we opened this power-packed series on REST WITH GOD. We named the gap between what we know and how we live. We said the goal here isn’t doing less, but that rest, done rightly, is an act of faith. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, go back and start there (it’s linked below) * Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For It will set the frame for everything else we’re building. Today, we’re going back to the beginning. Back before the noise and constant notifications.Back before the hustle and stress of modern life.Back before anyone ever had to be told to rest. We’re going to the garden. The First Full Day of Adam’s Life Was a Day of Rest Think about the order of God’s creation. God creates the heavens and the earth. He creates light, and sky, and sea, and land. He creates plants, and stars, and fish, and birds. On day six, He creates man. Then, on day seven, God rests. Adam wasn’t even created until day six, which means Adam’s very first full day of existence wasn’t a workday. It was a rest day. Consider that. Before Adam ever lifted a finger. Before he ever tilled a row or named a single animal. Before he had accomplished one single thing — he rested with God. Rest wasn’t Adam’s reward for work well done. Rest was the ground he stood on before he ever worked at all. I think that intentional order matters more than we usually give it credit for. In our world today, rest comes after. We act like it’s something we need to earn. We clock out. We collapse. We can then try to numb ourselves with screens and call it “winding down” or “relaxing” before bed, when it’s not either of those things. But in Eden, rest came first for humanity. Work would flow out of rest — not the other way around. Let’s look back to what God did on the seventh day. God Didn’t Rest Because He Was Tired Let’s be clear about that: our Creator didn’t need a nap. Isaiah tells us plainly, “The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary” (Isaiah 40:28). God’s rest on the seventh day wasn’t recovery. It was completion. It was enjoyment. It was God, looking at all He had made, and delighting in it as finished and very good. And then He did something unique: He blessed the seventh day. He made it holy. Genesis 2:3 says: “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” God wove rest into the fabric of time itself. Not as an afterthought. As a core part of the design. This regular and deep rest was set apart and blessed long before sin ever entered the world. Now, what about days one to six? Work Was Also Good — And It Still Is I want to pause here, because I don’t want you to hear this wrong. This series is absolutely not anti-work. God placed Adam in the garden “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15), that is, “to avad it and keep it.” That’s avodah — the very word we’ve spent so much time sharing on in these LIFE ON MISSION posts and podcasts. Meaningful and dignifying work was entrusted to us and empowered by God long before the Fall ever happened. So in the garden, we see both: * Rest that comes first. * Work and service flow out of that rest, as an act of worship and stewardship in partnership with our Maker. Rest and avodah were never enemies. They were always meant to move together, in the right order, like breathing. Inhale rest. Exhale good work in tandem with God. Not the other way around. We lost that rhythm. Let’s talk about how. From Fulfilling Life with God to Everything Fractured and Falling Apart Genesis 3. The serpent. The fruit. The choice. And almost immediately, we see the rhythm break — not just morally, but relationally, physically, and rhythmically. First, communion breaks. Adam and Eve hear God walking in the garden, and “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God” (Genesis 3:8). The most natural rest there is — unhindered nearness to God — is the first thing sin steals. Then, work turns to toil. God tells Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life... By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (Genesis 3:17,19). Avodah — that good, God-given work — doesn’t disappear. But now it comes with sweat, thorns, and painful toil. Work that once flowed from rest now becomes a challenging, grinding thing, that is, when done outside of close communion with God. And restlessness itself enters the story. Just one chapter later, Cain kills his brother, and God tells him, “you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:12). Cain’s own response is haunting: “My punishment is greater than I can bear... I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer” (Genesis 4:13-14). Restlessness — literal, geographic, soul-deep restlessness — becomes part of the curse. Do you see it? Before sin: rest first, then good work, in communion with God. After sin: hiding from God, painful toil, and wandering restlessness. That’s not just ancient history. That’s the diagnosis of every restless heart still walking around today — including, if we’re honest, ours, at least in moments. That leads us toward an important new rhythm that is introduced to humanity: sabbath. The Sabbath Command Was Always a Gift, Not a Burden Let’s fast forward to Exodus, the second book in the Bible. God’s people are newly freed from slavery in Egypt — from a system that worked them without mercy, without grace, without any rhythm of rest whatsoever. And what’s one of the first things God teaches them in the wilderness? How to collect manna, daily bread — and a rhythm attached to it. “Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none” (Exodus 16:26). God was retraining a formerly enslaved people to trust Him enough to stop. That trust factor is key. God was retraining His people to receive provision instead of grasping for it every single day. That’s not a small thing for people who had only ever known relentless labor all their lives. Then, at Mount Sinai, the sabbath becomes a command carved in stone: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God... For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11). Notice where the command is anchored. Not in Israel’s productivity. Not in some legalistic checklist. It’s anchored in creation itself — in the rhythm God modeled before sin ever entered the picture. The Sabbath command was never God being harsh. It was God calling His people back to Eden’s rhythm. Back to rest that comes first. Back to work that flows from communion, not in place of it. Back to trust, instead of toil. What this means for us Friends, our restlessness today isn’t just a modern problem. It’s an old, old ache. It’s Eden’s rhythm, fractured by sin, still echoing in every overfull calendar and every sleepless mind. You and I weren’t made to hide from God. We weren’t made to grind in painful toil with no rest in sight. We weren’t made to wander. We were made for a garden where rest came first. And even though we can’t walk back into Eden, God hasn’t left us wandering. That’s exactly where we’re headed next in this series on REST WITH GOD — because the writer of Hebrews looks back at all of this: God’s rest, Israel’s Sabbath, the whole fractured story — and says something that applies to us today: a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. We’ll get there. For now, consider this: Before you ever accomplish anything today, God is inviting you to rest with Him first — not after you’ve earned it. That was the original design. And our Redeemer is in the business of restoring His original design. Let’s Pray before we… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Aug 28

    Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For / 🇫🇷 SE REPOSER AVEC DIEU : Une nouvelle série pour trouver le repos pour lequel nos âmes ont été créées

    Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28 Hey friends! Thanks for joining us in this LIFE ON MISSION with Jesus. Today, we’re introducing what I believe will be a power-packed series on REST WITH GOD. As always, my aim is to write and share these posts with the Lord who is with us, so:Lead the way, Lord Jesus, and be glorified through this. I want you to think about the last time you actually rested. Not the last time you sat down. Not the last time you scrolled through your phone until your eyes glazed over. Not the last time you binge-watched a show, or slept in, or laid on a beach somewhere with your body still but your mind running full speed on tomorrow’s to-do list. I mean rested. Deep soul-level rest. The kind of rest where you breathe in deeply, and exhale slowly, like you mean it. Where your mind is happily silent. Where you sense God’s pleasure and peace regardless of what’s going on around you. If you’re anything like me, that memory might be harder to find than it should be. It is strange: almost everyone agrees we need rest. Doctors tell us. Parents and friends tell us. Social media tells us. Our bodies tell us, usually by breaking down in some way until we respond. We nod along. We know, in our heads, that rest matters. And yet almost nobody actually rests. Not well, at least. Not on purpose, typically. Not in a way that leaves us restored instead of just distracted. That gap — between what we know and what we practice — is exactly why I am writing this series with the Lord’s help. There is no doubt about it: We Are a Restless People We live in a restless generation. Look around at the world we’ve built. We carry the entire internet in our pocket, which means we carry the entire world’s noise with us into the day and into our beds at night. We wear busyness like a badge of honor. We say “I’m busy” way too much — reflexively, constantly, almost proudly. Vacations come with laptops. Even our stillness is restless: we sit still and our minds sprint. It seems evident that Western culture, as a whole, does not know how to rest. And many of us who follow Jesus have quietly absorbed the same restlessness. Augustine wrote, centuries ago, that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. I believe that’s still the truest diagnosis of what ails us. We were not built for the pace we’re keeping. We were built for communion, and communion requires stillness that can feel unbearable in our constantly connected world. So here’s what I want to offer you over the next several weeks: a compelling, Biblical, Christ-centered vision of real rest — not the rest the world is selling you, but the rest God designed, offers, empowers, and ultimately receives glory through. Rest that’s good for the long haul. Rest that overflows into our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, our work. Rest that actually restores us to avad with God again — to offer Him our love-fueled work, service, and worship — with fresh strength instead of running on fumes. This Is Not a Series About Doing Less I want to be upfront with you all: this series is not going to tell you that rest is the most important thing, or that inactivity is the goal, or that slowing down is automatically holy. It isn’t. Scripture doesn’t celebrate laziness. Proverbs has plenty to say about the sluggard. Jesus Himself, in the very same Gospels that record His invitation to rest, is almost constantly on the move — teaching, healing, praying, equipping, sending, going. And there’s one particular scene in the Gospels that’s been on my mind as I’ve prepared this series: the Garden of Gethsemane. The night before the cross, Jesus asks His closest friends to stay awake and pray with Him. And what do they do? They sleep. Not because they were lazy men — but because in the exact moment they were called to watchfulness, to prayer, to being present with their Lord in His anguish, they chose rest instead. Wrong rest. Rest in the wrong moment, for the wrong reason, at the highest possible cost. That story matters for this series, because it tells us rest can be misused. Rest can become an excuse. Rest can shade into apathy, into spiritual slumber, into avoiding the very things God is calling us toward. So, we will not idolize rest here. We are not using “self-care” as a spiritual bypass for faith-filled obedience and action, empowered by the Spirit of God. But — and this is the whole point — the answer to that danger is not to swing back into restless striving. The answer is to actually understand what God means by rest, so we know the difference between Sabbath and sloth, between abiding and avoiding, between resting in God and resting from God. What We’ll Explore Together Over this series, we’re going to dig into some of the richest, and maybe most overlooked territory in the Scriptures . Here are a few places we’re headed: Where rest began. Before there was ever a command to rest, there was a rhythm established — God himself rested on the seventh day, not because He was tired, but because He was finished, and because He was setting a pattern into the fabric of creation itself for us to walk in and follow. Hebrews 4 — the rest that remains. This is one of the most powerful, and often misunderstood passages on rest in the whole Bible. It tells us a rest still remains for the people of God, and that we strive to enter it not by our own willpower, but by faith. We’ll spend real time here. Matthew 11:28-29 — Christ’s direct invitation. Jesus says: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Friends, that is one of the most compelling invitations in all the Scriptures, spoken by God Himself, to you. We’ll unpack what it actually means to come, to take Jesus’ yoke, to learn from Him, and to receive the rest He’s offering. Gethsemane — the counterfeit. We’ll return to the disciples sleeping when they should have been praying and watching, and let it sharpen our understanding of what rest is not. How to actually rest. This is where we’ll get extra practical — preparing for rest, building rhythms, unplugging in ways that are genuinely life-giving, and learning to receive from God rather than just striving toward Him even in our rest. Rest and avodah. We’ll bring it full circle to the heart of this whole LIFE ON MISSION publishing ministry — how real, God-given rest is what enables sustainable, faith-filled and love-fueled avodah. Rest isn’t the opposite of meaningful work; it’s what makes meaningful work possible over the long run. Rest is an act of faith Here’s something I hope settles into our hearts over the coming weeks: Sabbath rest is not passive. It is not simply the absence of labor. It is an act of trust. When we stop, we’re declaring — with our calendars, our bodies, even our unanswered emails — that the world will keep turning without your constant striving. We’re declaring that God is God, and you are not. We’re declaring that our worth isn’t manufactured by our output. That is not weakness. That is faith. And faith, as we know, is exactly what pleases God (see Hebrews 11:6). Isaiah put it this way to a restless, self-reliant people: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15) And then, heartbreakingly, the very next line records their response: “But you were unwilling.” I don’t want that to be our story. I don’t want it to be mine. Where this is going My hope — my prayer, honestly — is that by the end of this series, you won’t just know more about rest. I hope you’ll actually rest…with God. I hope you’ll hear Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11:28-29 not as a nice verse you’ve heard before, but as a real, standing offer from the God who made you, knows you completely, and sees exactly how heavy your burden has been. I hope you’ll understand the Holy Spirit as your Helper in this — the One who doesn’t just tell… Get full access to LIFE ON MISSION with TANNER KLEIN at lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com/subscribe

    Introducing REST WITH GOD: A New Series on Finding the Rest Our Souls Were Made For / 🇫🇷 SE REPOSER AVEC DIEU : Une nouvelle série pour trouver le repos pour lequel nos âmes ont été créées
See All (176)

About

Cultivating a faith-filled, God-fearing, Christ-centered lifestyle with Jesus 🔑Themes: Jesus, LIFE ON MISSION, Avodah with God, God at work in the world, God-glorifying Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Posts/podcasts every M, W, F! lifeonmissiontannerklein.substack.com

Information