This week’s reading: Matthew 11:20-30
Hi Friends,
Offering. Because God is Love, He never forces His Will on anyone of us. Yes, He will urge us and prompt us and even woo us, but He will still allow us to choose whether we will be His forevermore or not. This week, we read some sobering verses where Jesus speaks plainly about the judgment that is to come. Jesus also states His offer to keep us from such a fate clearly and plainly. We will be reading Matthew chapel 11 verses 20 through 30, but listen to this wonderful gift Jesus is ready, and eager to give us even now:
“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.” Mt 11:28-30 NIV
Come to Me. This is the first step in receiving Salvation, as well as getting help with all of life’s challenges after we are born again. As simple as it sounds, it remains the most difficult step for us humans. And why? Because Pride continues to cloud our heart and make us think we do not need God. This MMI mentality is the root of all evil, and it keeps us locked up in a prison of pain, darkness and sin. But if we will humble ourselves, if we will take Jesus at His word and just choose to come to Him, Jesus begins to alleviate our burdens and give us the life we truly desire. We all want to be loved. We all want to be secure. We all want to have peace that lasts, joy that stays the same no matter what is going on, and we all want to feel right within our heart. This first step is the only way to have all those desires met and then some. Let’s choose to come to Jesus each and every day, with each and everything in our lives, the good times as well as the needy moments.
All you who are weary and burdened. Again, the reason we are so very weary and feel overwhelmed with burdens is because we are trying to live this life all on our own, when we were never meant to do so. We must come to Jesus because we were always meant to be one with Him. There is a piece missing in our lives, and in our hearts, when we are apart from Him. And so, even though by God’s Grace, we can experience moments of true peace and joy, apart from Christ, they do not last. But when we come to Jesus and admit we are so very weary, that we cannot handle our burdens, then we are ready to receive the relief we so desire. Like human children must mature to be able to live more fully, so too do we Christians. But if we are never born again and/or we do not begin to grow in Christ, then we stay stuck in the same old rut of wanting peace and joy, but not being able to achieve a life that has these blessings more and more, and, more and more steady. We will try to fill our lives with worldly things, with other people, with money and entertainment, but none of it will satisfy. I know, this was me before I met Christ. But when my Beckie fell into that first coma, I was so weary, so overly burdened, that I came to Jesus and fell into His open and waiting arms…and my life has never been the same.
I will give you rest. I am certainly not saying that life has been a bowl of cherries…although cherries do have pits! Life has been deeply challenging, and continues to be. But the major difference is that I am not going through any of it on my own strength, insight or resources. Jesus has been, and will continue to be, right by my side, giving me His rest, each and every step along the way. You see, this rest Jesus offers is not circumstantial. It is not based on anything outside of us. It is solely dependent on Jesus who comes to live within our spirit via the Holy Spirit. United with God this way, we have the ability to access all His blessings, whenever we realize we need Him. Talk about rest! To know that the Creator of all that is seen and unseen, the Father Who knows the end before the beginning even starts and has made The Way for us to get through it all, He is with us… always? This alone is such a relief for our weariness and overburdened lives. But then to understand that He desires to give us precious gifts like patience and self-control, so we can endure whatever comes, and stay in His rest? It is priceless, my Friends, and this is what Jesus desires to grant to every human. All we have to do, though, is accept His rest.
Take My yoke upon you. One of the ways we receive the rest God wants to give us is by taking on the yoke of Jesus. This means choosing to live like Jesus lived. Surrendered to the Father, obeying His Will over our own and serving others in whichever way God moves us to serve, is all part of this. And how does this give us rest? Not only does God open doors for us and provide all the resources we need as we choose to live like Jesus, but following God’s plans and purpose for our life brings fulfillment with it. It is want we were created to do and so we get that wonderful sense of righteousness that brings with it the peace and joy we crave. For instance, for some, being a Mother is God’s greatest purpose for that person’s life. It is a big calling that we often dismiss, but we are raising the next generation who will either further God’s Kingdom or dismiss it. Again, that is a mighty mission! As we follow that calling and live it out with Jesus, doing things His way, teaching our children to follow Him as well, our life feels more and more satisfying and abundant. Notice, one of the lovely parts of this yoke is that, this harness has two openings, one for us and the other for Jesus. He walks right along our side so long as we are following His lead. We are never alone…ever! Again, we must live our life of service out His way, this means with humility and self-less-ness. Life is not about MMI anymore, right?! The more we serve the way Jesus did, we are able to take whatever yoke God has designed for us with ease. And please understand that God has designed our yoke, our mission in this life, specifically and specially for each of us. He knows what we can handle and what we cannot handle. Again, we can only handle it, whatever “it” happens to be, WITH Jesus. WITH Jesus. Have I said that enough times?
And learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. Living out our lives according to the way Jesus lived out His perfect life requires we become more and more like Him. So first we come to Him. Then we take on His yoke and begin to learn from Him how to live our lives as He did. This of course is what we call Sanctification. Again, let me stress: if you are not yet born again, then you cannot grow in Christ because, well, you have to be IN Christ first! God is so very merciful and He certainly can come UPON us to help us when He wants, but He will not remain IN us until we surrender our lives to Jesus as Savior and Lord. But once we do, Sanctification is how the quality of our lives, and hopefully of those around us, begins to get more and more blessed. As I said above, one of the things that causes our life to get more pleasurable is because we will be living within God’s design for our life. But also, we will work with the Holy Spirit to develop His Fruit, and so, we will naturally have more love, peace, joy, patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) As we learn from Jesus how to apply this amazing Fruit to all of our situations, to act humbly like He does, then the standard of our lives increases to the point where it really almost doesn’t matter what happens to us. We remain with a steady and consistent nature, displaying this Fruit no matter what is going on around us. That is a priceless way to live, my Friends. Now, I did say it “almost” doesn’t matter what happens to us. Because we are children who will continue to grow and learn and mature and mess up, this side of Heaven, we may have times of momentary afflictions. (please see Romans 8:18; 2Corinthians 4:17; Hebrews 12:11; 1Peter 5:10) But this is good because this should keep us WITH Jesus so that we CAN live that type of Abundant Life.
You will find rest for your souls. I know it seems like I already talked about this, but there is a difference between having rest in our spirit and having rest for our souls. Our spirit, or what the Bible refers to as our heart, is the core of who we are. It is where we connect with God via the Holy Spirit and it is where we get our identification from. Because of sin, each human is born with a dead spirit because of our sinful nature that we inherited from our parents, who inherited it from their parents, and so on all the way back to our original forefathers, Adam and Eve. But God has made The Way to change this. As God told me a long time ago, “Child, you may not have had a say in being born sinful, but you DO have plenty to say about whether you STAY a sinner or not, for I have made The Way for you to be forgiven and reconciled.” If you have not yet surrendered your life to Jesus, then your “name” is sinner and your destiny is an eternity apart from God, the Giver of Life. But if we are born again and the Holy Spirit has come to be united with our dead spirit, transforming us from death to Life, we are now called wonderful things like saints, children of God, forgiven, chosen, redeemed, friends of Jesus, beloved forevermore. This New Identity grants us the potential to become more and more like Jesus. In our spirit, we are sinless, like Jesus. Our soul, on the other hand, has some catching up to do! So to have rest in our spirit is lovely and requires nothing else but to have Jesus in our hearts. But then to grow so that rest overflows into our thoughts, emotions, will and actions? This is a whole other level. As we work with God and grow spiritually, the influence of the Holy Spirit begins to penetrate our soul. The Bible says God renews our minds, so we begin to think more and more like Him, gaining His perspective so that we can see this world, and life, through His eyes. Eventually, we also begin to act more and more like Him too. Things that we used to think were acceptable, if they go against God’s Way, will no longer seem ok to us. For instance, I am finding it more and more difficult to watch movies that cuss all over the place. The type of “entertainment” I am allowing into my heart is changing drastically of late, and this is a good thing! Why? Because we are what we eat! If we watch or listen to things that we know are not godly, eventually, that junk will come out of us, and we will not be living like Jesus, and we will sense it! Our peace and joy will leave us…that is, until we come to Jesus again, take His yoke again, continue to learn from Him and receive rest for our souls.
My yoke is easy and My burden is light. At first, if I am honest, the yoke of Jesus seems kind of awkward and heavy. But as we continue to learn from Him, to walk in pace with Him, Jesus shoulders most of the weight and life does get easy and light. As I said above, we will be able to be more consistent in our decisions of what we will do and how. It is like the more mature in Christ we get, the less choices to sin we have because we won’t want to make those type of choices anymore, which leads to us making the right ones more and more. Do we get that? I have a video that teaches this very thing using a diagram that God showed me a while ago. I call the diagram, “Walking in God’s Will.” If you want to get more information about this narrowing of choices and how it really does make our lives better, you can check it out here and link is below. For now, know that God is not trying to take away our pleasures of life, He is refining them so that they are true pleasures. Things that will grant us a more fulfilling, steady, Abundant Life. Abundantly filled with all the good things like the Fruit, like healthy relationships, like occupations that mean something, like loving others into the waiting arms of Christ. Things that will last, not only in this life, but then in the next as well. That is the true Abundant Life.
Woe to the unrepentant. I would be remiss if I did not at least mention this part of our reading. Jesus warns those in these particular cities, because He had performed miracles there, and the people still refused to believe. Today, we can look at this warning as if it is going out to the Church at large. There are so many well-meaning people who attend a service or mass, but they have no idea why, and so, nothing ever improves in their lives as a result. There is a huge difference between attending a service and participating in it, by the way! Perhaps these folks think that going to a church building for an hour or so, now and again, pleases God so much that this action alone will get them into Heaven. But this is not the case. There is only One Way to enter Heaven and that is by repenting of living our lives apart from Jesus. These cities, and perhaps the person next to you on the pew, did not choose to live their lives surrendered to Jesus. My Friends, take heart to what Jesus says here. Pray about our own Salvation and make sure it is secure. But don’t stop there. Pay attention to those around you in your congregation, as well as anyone else God places in your path…but especially those that go to a church service and who should be hearing about how Jesus has preformed the greatest miracle, His Resurrection. “Woe” is a very scary term which means great sorrow and distress, here and forevermore. Let us live lives so connected to Jesus, reflecting Him more and more, so that others will be open to repenting and receiving Eternal Life too. This is serious, my Friends, and yet the more we come to Jesus with our weary and burdened hearts and receive His rest for our spirits, the more we take on His yoke and learn from Him how to live as He did and receive the rest for our souls, the more life will get easy and light and the more we will be a witness to others that Life with Jesus is the only way to live here, and forevermore. This is certainly my goal in life, how about you? Then won’t you join me?
Until we meet again, keep lifting your eyes to God, He’s closer than you think.
<>< Peace, Diane
“Walking in God’s Will Explained”
See the videos on:
-Spread the News Ministries website: https://spreadthenewsministries.com/walking-in-gods-will-explained/
or on
-YouTube: https://youtu.be/7miAJxbKQ08
