Jesus said: “Come
to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you
will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Matthew 11: 28 – 30)
Today, the
world is filled with so much unrest, personal unrest, emotional unrest, social
unrest, political unrest, anxious about what is said or not said, how it’s said
and what needs to be said. We all have
something that burdens us, that weighs us down and tempts us to fall into
depression, sorrow or even despair.
Sometimes we
can go through life with heavy burdens that we are afraid to let go of. We can be fearful of coming to Jesus and
fearful of letting Him in. Coming to
Jesus means we must face whatever it is that burdens us honestly and frankly,
and we must face these burdens in the presence of Jesus. Whatever it is that troubles your heart,
Jesus wants to lift it.
The key
thing we need to know is that Jesus is gentle, merciful, and generous in forgiveness
and grace. He longs to lift our burdens
far more than we long to have them lifted.
He sees the oppression that so many of us face and so deeply desires to
have that oppression eliminated.
I feel that
Jesus is speaking to me personally as He invites us to come to Him so that we
find rest, the kind of rest that will relieve us of our burdens as we assume His
yoke and His burdens. By surrendering
ourselves to Him, we discover someone who is meek and humble of heart, someone
who will enable us to rest easy and peacefully.
If we take
Jesus’ invitation seriously, then we will find rest and peace in Him, in His
word, in His Gospel, in His Truth, in His Life and Death, and Resurrection. These realities were true when Jesus spoke
them, and they’re true now. Love your
neighbor and your enemy, treat the other with kindness and dignity, welcome the
stranger, welcome the children, forgive the sinner, and do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.
If we strive
to do this, we’ll find peace and rest. It
may seem to be hard work, but soon we’ll find the yoke easy and the burden
light!
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