Come Unto Me

My yoke is easy
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Mathew 11:29

The scripture for Sunday’s sermon yesterday was from Matthew 11:28-30: “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.” (NIV)

Before the scripture was read, however, we watched a video created by the Skit Guys entitled, “Baggage”, which used the above-mentioned scripture. It was a powerful video and spoke to our hearts about “the baggage” we carry around with us each and every day–words that cut to the heart from meaningful loved ones–that we take to heart which cause us to become burdened down by negativity.

Jesus said that if we come unto him, He will give us rest. But what does that entail? When we come to someone, it means we have to make a choice. In this case, when we come to Jesus, we are making the choice to leave our “old way of living” and repent and follow Him. We have an open mind and when our hearts are good, we make the choice to have something better in our lives–Jesus as our Saviour.

He also says to “take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle in heart and you will find rest for your souls.” You will notice that I have an image of a yoke. This is used around the necks of oxen when they pull a plow. It is to make their work easier not harder and to take some of the burden off of them as they plow the fields. In the same way Christ is telling us to take His yoke upon ourselves and in doing so we will find rest because His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He is the Good Shepherd who cares for his sheep and He will help us out from under the burden that we carry.

When I read the beginning of this scripture, “come unto me”, I could see Jesus reaching out His hand to me and saying, “take my hand, learn from me, and I will help you find quietness and rest in whatever you are going through at this time.” In the past–our youthful days–whenever my husband and I have gone hiking on a trail towards a waterfall and the path became quite narrow, I always found myself getting fearful from the height. He would tell me to take his hand as he lifted me up. I would then become more relaxed as we continued climbing. That is what Jesus does. He takes our hand and guides us over the “hurdles” that we face in our lives. He makes our burden lighter.

Jesus wants us to come to Him, take His yoke, learn from Him, and find rest in Him.

May the Lord bless you as you continue your walk with Him.

Blessings,

Yvonne