Come unto 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. Matt. 11:28-30
Take my yoke upon you and LEARN from me. This visual illustration is an invitation to look, follow and learn. Yesterday we talked about how if the oxen who are yoked together fight against each other, nothing will be easy. In fact, it will hurt. There is only a shared and lighter load if one looks to the other and follows every step of the way. As the older and more experienced one leads, the one less trained need not worry…they only need to look and follow as they are led or are ‘mentored’ and in doing so gain wisdom and knowledge.
We cannot kid ourselves. We cannot say we are following Christ [in submission yoked to Him] and walking in His footsteps if we then willingly choose sin. This includes gossip, worry, laziness, etc. The oxen don’t go through life not looking at one another, pulling against each other but saying, ‘Oh, we are yoked together and therefore I have rest.’ The one must submit to the way of the other. The one must choose to give way to the leadership of the other. And in this verse, the key is to LEARN FROM ME [Jesus].
It is HIS yoke that we take upon us. It isn’t just handing over to God the burdens and worries of our lives but taking His yoke upon us. The burden or weight of the task or mission God puts on us is easy and light when we are looking to Him. He will task us with things that use our spiritual gifts. He will call us to minister to people and give us His love for them. The mission becomes easy and light when we are looking to Him and not to our own abilities, our own interests or our own strength.
What kind of teacher do we have? We do not have a task master who is thrashing the whip and demanding obedience. We do not have a commander who takes no notice of how tired his soldier is becoming. We do not have a head who has no concern for the rest of the body. We are told the One we are yoked to is gentle and humble in heart. Gentle comes from the Greek word Chrestos which means easy and gracious; sweet and pleasant. Jesus, the one to whom we willfully submit in all things is easy and gracious, sweet and pleasant. He is also lowly in heart which means humble not proud, quietly obedient. This is the character of the One that we are following.
He is kind. He is patient. He will teach and knows that we must learn and to do that, we must sometimes fail. He is humble in heart and doesn’t lord His position over us, but rather is a servant-leader. This is the One to whom we yoke/submit ourselves and learn from, and as a result, we are told we will find rest for our souls.
We all can relate to a family member or teacher, pastor or friend who is this kind of person. When we spend time with them we leave feeling rested and peaceful. We know that we are loved by them and that they have our best interest in mind, and therefore, a visit or time spent in their presence builds us up and drives us to be better people. This is our Lord. He is gentle and humble in heart, and desires to lead and guide us in gentleness and humility.
As the Apostle Paul exhorts us, let us strive to learn from Him as we put our heads in the yoke and submit to follow the leading of our gentle, good, kind mentor Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.
Our song for today is God So Loved by We The Kingdom.