Choose Your Yoke

[cmc]

August 5, 2008
Key Passage: Matthew 11:25-30
Topic: Christian Living
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28, ESV)

Don't those words make you feel relaxed and relieved? They're so compassionate. You know that Jesus is Someone who understands and wants to give you rest from all the worry and fear you haul around daily.

Jesus tells us in the next few verses to "take His yoke": trade in the cares, oppression and confusion you're carrying for the yoke that He is offering.

What is His "yoke"? It's serving and obeying God. It's believing that God wants a relationship with you and that He loves you.

Certainly, during the time Jesus was physically on earth, obedience to God was easier than breaking under the burden of all the imposed rules the religious teachers piled upon their people.

Certainly the requirements to follow Christ (to believe He is God's Son and receive Him into your life) are lighter than the massive weight of sin and guilt we have to bear before we come to know Jesus.

But maybe what makes this yoke that Jesus gives easy is that He helps us bear it. He never leaves us or forsakes us (Hebrews 13:5). And we bear the yoke of obedience to God out of love for Him.

We have a relationship with Someone who loves us and, therefore, we love Him.





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[Lily]

Amen! Well said. I can testify that since I gave my life to Christ on May 8, 1989 my load has become so much lighter. Not to say I have not experienced hardship cuz I have experienced tremdous hardship, (death of my spouse of 2 years to brain cancer) but I have experienced HIS peace.

And while we were yet still sinners....Christ died for us..... :-)

Thanks for the post! CMC

[Gertiegirl]

Thanks CMC.

I think its important in this passage to note what a yoke actually is also - when two oxen were used to plow fields they were held together by a "yoke" that rested across the shoulders of them both, binding them together so that the burden they were pulling was shared equally between them. Often a young skittish oxen was yoked to an older better trained oxen so that the older steady ox could help train the skittish one.

We have the choice to be yoked to (or bound or connected to) the sin of the world which is a very heavy load to carry, or to take the yoke of Jesus... I certainly know my preference!

Thanks for expanding upon and teaching with this verse CMC, I think its a great recovery verse, to strengthen and reassure us. In Christ, all things can be accomplished.