“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.” (Mathew 11:28)Webster’s dictionary defines a “beast of burden” as an animal employed to carry heavy loads. Often times these animals work in pairs, such as when they are plowing a field. In order for them to plow in a straight line as one, they are joined together by an apparatus called a….YOKE.
This wonderful passage in Mathew is a personal invitation from Jesus Himself. It is an invitation to something he calls “His Rest.”
Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This he did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted:
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 4:6-7)
The word “Today” has a very significant meaning in this passage. “Today” is a word which speaks of eternity . Since eternity has no beginning or end the only place it can exist is in the here and NOW. And Now can only exist as part of the eternal “Today.”
God is eternal, and so the Rest He provides must also be an eternal Rest.
He is saying in essence, the Rest He has prepared is only available to those who live in His eternal “Today.”
The natural man, the man of time has no other choice but to live in his naturally appointed days. The days of time we know as…Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (I Corinthians 2:14)
But the spiritual man (not religious), the man IN Christ who truly understands eternal things, sees there is only One day IN Christ, and that day is called “Today!“
So in the same way it was impossible for the children in the wilderness to store up the Manna until the next day, it’s just as impossible for us to take anything that is eternal and try to save it in time. Yesterday and tomorrow, the past and future are in time. The present is “Today.” “Today” is where we were created to live! “Today” is the only place we can find His Rest!
He is called I AM, not I was or I will be! He lives NOW because He lives in eternity. He is called our EVER PRESENT HELP in times of trouble. (Psalm 46:1)
We were created to live in the day. This is why we become so overburdened in our society. Because we try to live our lives where we weren’t created to live, which is in yesterday and tomorrow.
There are not many believers in this day and age you will find at peace and content in the “Today” of their life. Most people are weighed down with the cares of what is going to happen tomorrow.
Naturalnews.com reports the following:
90% of visits to healthcare professionals are for stress-related ailments. Learn more:
http://www.naturalnews.com/019561.html#ixzz1SiBepgiL
Our stress being the exact opposite of…His Rest!
We don’t have to look too far to find evidence in the Bible either.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Mathew 6:34)
Why would Jesus instruct us to “take no thought for tomorrow?” Could it be because He specifically designed us to be totally dependent on Him “Today?”
So going back to Mathew 11:28, we can see what Jesus was really saying. We were not created to be beasts of burden, yoked to the heavy weight of what is beyond “Today.“ We were created to see ourselves in Union with Christ, One with Him, and yoked (joined) to what He is yoked to.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, FATHER, JUST AS YOU ARE IN ME AND I AM IN YOU. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20-23)
Jesus was yoked to His Father. Which is why his yoke was easy and His burden was light. He was at Rest IN His Father’s love. Mathew 11:28-30 is His personal invitation to experience life as we were created live. He did not create us to walk through life weighed down with the heaviness of the condemnation of yesterday and the fear of tomorrow.
In the same way the yoke is meant for the beasts of burden to work as one, our being yoked to Christ allows us to see with the Single Eye and opens the door for us to enter into His Rest. The “Today” Rest…reserved only for those who are willing to release what they are still holding onto.
We are no longer people weighed down by the cares of this world, we have been rescued from the (temporal) domain of darkness and translated into the (Eternal) Kingdom of His dear Son! (Colossians 1:13)
And as we Rest IN Him “Today“, the worker of workers (The Spirit) takes up our cause and performs the work within us that could not have been accomplished without our taking our appointed place of Rest!
We know since we are NOW eternally yoked to Christ (as He is to His Father) we no longer need to identify with walking in separation and division. His yoke enables us to SEE only Him in all things!
Therefore if any man be IN (eternally yoked to) Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (II Corinthians 5:17)
Facebook comments on this post
Dan Powers Thanks Rich.. always a blessing!
6 hours ago · Like
Rich Novek Bless you Dan, I have been out of commission for a while. Iin April, (on the 11th), my 52nd birthday, I hurt my back, after a month of treating what I thought was a bulging disc, I found out I had a potentialy life threatening infection in my spine. I went into the hospital on May 17th. While there they found a tumor on my kidney twice it's size that all of the doctors were sure was cancerous! It wasn't! I finally got out of the hospital on June 27th. I was there for 41 days,,,,and on my back a total of 77 days. I am so glad to be back here again. Now slowly recovering at home. I wrote an article about the whole three month long experience and God's amazing Grace, titled Prisoner of Christ III. Bless you brother! :)
5 hours ago · Like · 2 people
Heaven's Grace It is so good to see you posting all these wonderful posts again Rich. Great truths that feed the soul. Love it!
4 hours ago · Like · 1 person
Dan Powers Rich, I was following your progress all along by reading the updates here. I posted a few times my encouragement, but maybe I didn't hit the right button ( I seldom do hit the right buttons but am expert at the wrong ones)... so really glad you are mending and back here to continue your great adventure and journey with the rest of us. Hope to be hearing a lot more from you. Love ya man.
4 hours ago · Like · 3 people
Betty Lorine Schwabedissen I always get so much out of your notes and messages to the Body of Christ, Rich...and His yoke is easy as He is the ONE doing the Work, all we do is let Him use us as His vessel to do the work..He is the ALL in ALL! Blessings to you Always! \O/
2 hours ago · Like
Chris Welch I'll try to express what this passage has done to me in the past month.It's something like what you've written here. Think about the Plan of God from say Abraham onward. if we were working an organisational plan to reach the entire earth, we just wouldn't have taken this long. But you see our version does not come out of our loins, and God's world plan does. All Abraham had to achieve in his lifetime was believe for one son....but that way past bearing age. And that was his yoke....and so it goes on through every character in the plan, and those who bust their way in like Rahab and Ruth...both gatecrashers into the line of God. We'd have rushed way ahead, but then what we have is an "out there message", what God's yoke leads to is a gospel of our own loins, our own bowels, something that IS US.The Spirit's work that Rich describes is a dual engrafting that is the work of God, not man at all. We are being engrafted in Christ, like wild olives, and He is being engrafted in us.This Yoke walk is fantastically huge because God is huge.What to man looks always like an irrelevant baby out the backside of a hotel in some kind of feeding trough for animals, turns out always to be the CENTRAL PLAN oF GOD in the earth. And without His Yoke walk we'd miss it...every time.
about an hour ago · Like · 1 person
Kim Flink I love this Rich! this scripture also came to mind =) we cast our cares to you daddy, cause we were never meant to bare them. Psalm 55:22
(KJV)
22Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
18 minutes ago · Like
Chris Welch i like your version Kim :-)
A few seconds ago ·
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