MY YOKE IS EASY

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”  (Matthew 11:28-30)

 

I am writing this message today to those who are struggling under a weight of sin, guilt, temptation, hardship, or difficulty of any kind.  God’s Word holds the answers to all the questions that you have been asking.  You have been working hard to overcome your lesser nature but have only slipped further away from where you know you ought to be.  I have good news to share.  God sees your burden, and He wants to lift it from your shoulders.  The Lord is speaking to all of us who think that our own efforts and strength of will are sufficient to make us more like God.  He is addressing all of us who are weighted down with a heavy burden that is getting harder and harder to carry.  What is His answer?  Jesus says, “Come unto Me…and I will give you rest.”  You will always find that when you lay your burdens at the feet of the Savior, and trust His grace and mercy, that He will give you peace and rest from the struggle.  Jesus tells us to take His yoke upon us and learn His ways (for His ways are much higher than our ways), and we will discover that His yoke is easy and His burden is indeed light. 

 

Christians often find, after their first encounter with the grace of God, that trying to live a holy life is not easy at all.  We are tempted and tried and sometimes fall into sin.  We feel guilty and try to do better only to fall again.  The fact is that we are the ones who are making it much harder than it is meant to be.  It is just such folks as these that Jesus is speaking to in the verses above.  His answer may seem too simple to us or even a little vague where its application is concerned.  The very simplicity of His words may cause many to think them ineffectual, but they hold the key to a richer life in the Spirit for those who believe and apply them.

 

There is a formula that Jesus gave us that will bring victory to our lives if we will learn to follow it.  The formula is this, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23).  In mathematical terms it would look like this:

 

denying yourself + taking up your cross daily = following Jesus.

 

Anyone who believes that they can accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and then follow their own will instead of His has not understood that He must be also Lord of their lives.  We cannot follow Jesus if we will not deny ourselves, and if we do not deny ourselves, we will never understand the purpose of the crosses that God places before us to bear.

 

There are those who have taken the grace of God only to mean “unmerited favor” and have missed the other side of it.  It is God’s great grace that not only forgives the sins of our past but also empowers us to overcome sin.  The Apostle Paul tells us that the grace of God teaches us several things.  He said, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:11-14).

 

Between denying ourself and bearing our cross, you would think that bearing the cross would be the hardest step; but it is the denial step that gives us the most trouble.  It is one thing to ask God’s forgiveness for committing a sin, but another thing altogether to choose to die to our own desires and the will of the flesh forever.  And no, this doesn’t happen all at once; it is a process that we practice the rest of our lives until the time that the Lord takes us home. 

 

Jesus had to face the temptation of the flesh too.  Scripture tells us, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15).  We are also told, “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8).  It was in Gethsemane that Jesus won the victory over the will of the flesh, not on Calvary.  In the garden He was in agony over the decision to deny Himself.  He knew the pain and suffering that awaited Him if He chose God’s will, and He sweat blood over that decision.  “And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44).  He settled the issue, though, when He prayed, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done.” (v. 42).  From that point on, there is no indication of doubt or hesitation in His actions.  His face was set like a flint, and He focused His faith solely on God’s purpose which was the cross.

 

We have our Gethsemanes also - and we have our Calvarys.  In fact, Jesus tells us that we will face crosses “daily.”  We must be clear about what a cross is to recognize them when they appear.  First, let’s discuss what a cross is not.  A cross is not a mishap, an accident, or a boo-boo.  Spilling your coffee on yourself, getting a flat tire on the way to work, or being involved in a fender bender are not crosses.  A cross is not ill health, personal injury, or even a loved one suffering those things.  A cross is also not losing your home to a fire, or someone close to you to death.  It is not even suffering persecution for your faith.  All these things may be trials of our faith, but they are not crosses.  A cross requires a choice to deny the wants or natural inclinations of the flesh and die to self to glorify God.  It is an opportunity to say, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  It is putting God first in our life and putting ourself last.  Paul told the Corinthian church, “I die daily” (1Corinthians 15:31).  He clearly expected them to follow his example.  A cross may be the way we react to all the trials listed above.  Instead of being angry, impatient, cruel, bitter, or revengeful, it is choosing to react as Jesus would. 

 

Immediately after giving His disciples the formula for success, Jesus told them, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it.  For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” (Luke 9:24, 25)  The bottom line is that the Lord is molding us into His image.  When we deny our own passions and fleshly reactions in favor of God’s will, we glorify Him before the world; and people are then influenced by what they see because it is so out of the ordinary.  I was saved largely because of watching a Christian’s reaction to some intense persecution.  He reacted kindly, patiently, and graciously to the injustice that he suffered.  The persecution was a trial for him, but the choice to deny himself the hurt, anger, and resentment and, instead, exemplify Christ to those around him was a cross.  As a result, I wanted to know more about this Jesus that empowered him to act that way.

 

When we come to Jesus, and we learn to deny ourselves, then the crosses of life become easier.  Whether we are tempted or tried, we find that once we deal with self, the Lord’s burden indeed becomes light.  So, it is Gethsemane where we gain victory.  Once we settle that we must deny our carnal nature, our walk will become smoother and our victory assured.  Once we set it down, we must not go and pick it back up again.  This is why many do not have peace or victory.  They are not willing to leave themselves on the altar but are constantly going back and picking up those things that they had sacrificed there.

 

It is faith that is the victory that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4, 5).  If we don’t believe that the way Jesus patterned for us is the way to eternal life, we will refuse to follow it and, instead, make our own way and our own truth.  Like the Israelites of old, we will think about and obsess on all the great things we had in Egypt and desire to go back to our old life.  “And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.” (Hebrews 11:15).  The only way that we can have a joyful, prosperous life is if we follow the formula and walk in Jesus’ footsteps.  Doing anything else is just deceiving ourselves into thinking we are doing the will of God when we have no intention to do so. 

 

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28).  I like that phrase, “the called according to His purpose.”  If we are not careful, we can act as though WE are the lords, and God must answer every prayer and fulfill every desire that we have regardless of whether it is His will or not.  It is dangerous to call Him Lord but then ignore His correction and direction in our lives.  May God grant us all grace to deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and follow our Lord and Savior.  Then we will find that His yoke is easy, and His burden is truly light.

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