Entering the Promise of Rest- Yoke

This second of the devotional's written in 2017.

Dear Friend,

Matthew 11:28 -30– "Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke easy and My burden is light."

Did you rest well? How often do we ask people this? What does the well indicate? If it wasn’t well, what prevented us from experiencing a “well” rest? Yesterday we began this series, “Entering the Rest of God”, the instructions for yesterday were too “lay aside the weights”. Those things that we weren’t designed to carry. Our current burdens, our stresses, our worries, those things that have us anxious and could easily cause us to sin

Today’s focus is on “the yoke”. I have heard this scripture so many times before, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, in this you will find rest for your soul.” What is this yoke that Christ speaks of? We will notice that in the bible, many principles are related to farming. According to the dictionary, a yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull. There is a coupling that occurs between the two animals. When training a “new animal to plow” it was often, yoked or coupled with a wiser, experienced animal. A wise farmer knows, you couldn’t just put the younger less experienced animal out to plow, the animal has to be trained, guided, instructed and depend on the strength of the older more experienced animal in order for them to one day be able to plow, as they should. These are the same instructions to us from Christ, He says, take my “yoke” upon you and learn from me. The desire here, is that He alone, will teach us to navigate through life, His wisdom and instructions through the Holy Spirit will give us the strategies and wisdom we need. The other part is, “His Yoke” is easy and His burden is light. We weren’t meant to carry a lot of these things (burdens) we carry. We aren’t strong enough, we aren’t wise enough, we weren’t designed to carry those things, and it’s why He (Christ) went to “the cross” to carry those things for us

So today, we focus on taking “the yoke” of Christ upon us, becoming coupled with Christ, so that He leads us, He guides us, He carries the bulk of this burden and we don’t have to. There is a promise in taking up the “yoke” and it is to experience the “rest” of Christ, and living with a lighter load.

Prayer: Father thank you for the yoke, your ability to navigate through this thing called life. Thank you for your wisdom and instructions for this season in my life. Thank you for teaching me to enter in rest with you. In the rest is all I need, thank you for allowing me to be “yoked” with you.