FINDING REST

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

"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

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Rest.

It’s something we all want and need, even if it can be elusive at times. I mean, life happens, right? And when it does, it can often happen in a way that steals away our time to rest or leaves us concerned enough that we find it difficult to rest when we do have time.

As we have seen in the scriptures over past devotions, God definitely sees the need for rest. It’s why He designated a day called the Sabbath, a day where people were to refrain from labor. The idea was that people could work six days a week but for at least one day, they would take it easy. Look to the opening of the Book of Genesis and how all things were created and you’ll find that even God rested on the seventh day. If He can rest, so can we. He told us to do it and also showed us how, leading us by example.

So with all this, we can make time to rest by remaining obedient to God’s command. We can also find rest in and through His Son Jesus. He tells us so Himself in today’s scripture passage and the final verses of Matthew 11. Look again at the words of our Savior here:

"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

Here we find Jesus speaking special words to His followers during His time of ministry and those words of  amazing comfort and relief have brought rest and recuperation to countless believers ever since. In these three simple verses, He provides us a simple prescription for when we become “weary and burdened”. When that happens, we just need to follow the following steps:

1. Come to Jesus.

"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”

As with everything else in life, rest begins when we go to Jesus. Through His words, He offers to bring us respite from the challenges and trials of life. All we need to do is take Him up on that offer and surrender our life circumstances to His care for He and He alone is capable of handling anything we are going through. Remember we can do all things through His strength (Philippians 4:13) which includes resting.

2. Take up the yoke of Jesus.

“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me…For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
People in Jesus’ day would get the analogy of the yoke. You see, a beast of burden would be fitted with a yoke, a curved piece of wood that would be strapped to the animal or animals for the express purpose of them pulling some kind of load that would be attached to the yoke, like a plow or cart. As the animal or animals would attempt to move forward, the yoke would serve as a heavy burden on them when connected to the load behind.

But Jesus wasn’t talking about beasts being weary and burdened in this passage. He was talking about the people who were weighed down by the legalistic expectations of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other religious leaders of the day. The imposed laws, not just the commandments of God but added regulations from the Jewish religious establishment, left the people oppressively encumbered as they strived to earn their way into heaven and a life with God through works of righteousness.

Back to our scripture passage as Jesus wanted to offer the people a way to find relief, to get out from underneath the legalities that were weighing so heavy on them.

What was the remedy?

It was Him again. Jesus wanted His disciples to know, then and now, that He is always the answer.

For after He had told the people to come to Him and find rest, He assured them that His yoke was easy and burden light. Those who chose to follow Jesus would not have to try and earn their way to salvation. All they would have to do is trust and believe in Him as their Savior. That’s it.

Easy, right?

Have you found your rest in Jesus, accepting His yoke which is easy and light?

Well, Jesus wasn’t finished telling His people what they could find in Him. For He had one more thing to share, reminding them where they could go for direction and instruction.

3. Receive the teaching of Jesus.

“Learn from Me.”

I don’t know how many times I have needed to find peace and rest from concerns or difficulties I was dealing with and found that peace and rest while reading and studying from the Word of the Lord. There’s something incredibly powerful and empowering when we seek the Lord’s guidance and find just that through His holy Word. Jesus said, “Learn from Me” and there isn’t a time that we go away from the Bible void when we willingly and willfully seek to have our hearts and minds illuminated by His wisdom and training. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled (Matthew 5:6) and then He backs up that promise by doing what He promised, satisfyingly fulfilling any believer who seeks His teaching with a desire to learn from Him.

Comforted and left in a place of calm and rest.

Unencumbered by taking on a lighter yoke.

Enriched and educated through the only perfect teaching in existence.

All these and so much more are found in our Lord Jesus, the One through which all things are possible.

Have you found peace and rest in Him today?

Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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