Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)I am finding this to be true in my own life. When Jesus calls us he does so no matter why we're burdened down. It can be due to difficulties faced as in adversities, temptations, whatever. Or it can be even due to sin in our hearts and lives; of course of that he wants us to be open in confession before him. But we're to come to him with the promise that he will give us rest.
Jesus understands firsthand our human weaknesses and frailties. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. He became one of us to the very core of his being and helps us as such. He understands our struggle in a unique way, from both his human perspective, as well as from the perspective of Godness. (Hebrews)
Our hope is in Jesus and in this invitation. We come to Jesus and he gives us his life for ours. He gives us his rest, victory and work in place of our weariness, burden, defeat and despair. It's a completely different life, the beginning of such that we thus enter into.
If we're weary or burdened down for whatever reason, this invitation remains opened for us today. Come to Jesus; make every effort to enter into his rest. And let's make this the practice and endeavor of our lives, as we seek to follow Christ together.
6 comments:
Ted,
Thank you for this reminder. I am constantly reminding myself that Jesus said his yoke is easy and his burden is light. He desires to give me rest. If I find myself outside of his rest, or with a yoke that is hard, or with a buden that is heavy, then perhaps the yoke and burden and I have taken on did not come from Jesus. It's then time to throw off that yoke and burden and turn back to Jesus.
-Alan
It's a welcome reminder. As those words go out, I imagine that someone will find the message who needs to hear it right now.
Alan, Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, it's something we have to keep on doing, and can so easily drift from, though when we do, sooner or later we'll know.
Thanks, Craver. I pray my blogging will be a blessing to someone out there.
It is - a blessing that is.
I love the verse you left on Craver's site - a weaned child - when I first found that scripture some 20 years ago, I had to think long and hard about it to even understand what it meant - and I can even tell you to this day exactly where I was (going over a suspensionish bridge that links KY and TN) when the truth finally dawned on me that it was pretty much just the opposite of an unweaned child that is hungry arches the back - almost angry in searching for mom and will, for a short moment, take almost anything into his mouth - any substitute will do for just a moment - even a toxic one - but shortly, they realize that it isn't what satisfies and then they are even more insistent on being fed. So, I think that the image not only makes a really nice comment for Craver's post, but is complementary to what you have written today - when we behave like unweaned children, unable to sit still and trust that we will be provided for and go off searching for our own solutions, we are heavy laden and not at all at rest.
Thanks, Susan for the interesting and helpful thought.
It's dangerous when one begins to feed on what is not good for them, and though they have signs and symptoms that it is not, they come to crave it, just like the prophet said, feeding on ashes and accepting a lie.
But a child, as you point out here, would not do that.
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