“My Yoke is Easy and My Load is Light!”

“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 is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 ESV)

In Chapter 11, we find Jesus talking about John the Baptist and his ministry of “Isaiah,” who was to lead the way for the Promised Messiah. Matthew’s Jewish audience would have immediately understood what Jesus was talking about and recognized that, once again, Jesus was stating that He was the promised Messiah who came to save His people from their sins.

Then, in verses 20-24, Jesus discusses the judgment that will come upon those who rejected the truth and refused to believe in Him, despite many miracles and signs having been performed in their presence. Just as a side note, for those who say, “If God would just show me a miracle or sign, I’d believe.”, they would not. People have not changed that much since Biblical times. If they didn’t believe after the miracles that Jesus performed, people today would not believe either.

Now, Jesus makes a statement to everyone that we should consider. In verses 28-30 Jesus says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy ladened, and I will give you rest.” What was Jesus talking about when He said, “all who are weary and heavy ladened”? To understand this invitation, we need to understand to whom Jesus was speaking. Remember, Jesus at this point in His ministry was talking primarily to Jews living under the 613 Mosaic Laws, and to add to their burden, the Jewish religious leaders of the time were adding oral traditions on top of the laws that were weighing down any who were trying to be faithful Jews.

Remember one of the chastisements that Jesus spoke to the Scribes and Pharisees in Luke 11:46, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” So, these people to whom Jesus was speaking knew precisely what He was talking about when he said, “all who are weary and heavy ladened”.

This remains true to this day; all other earthly religions teach that to receive God’s blessings, we must accomplish a list of things to do. We must work our way to God by giving money, attending Church services, praying daily or multiple times a day, and believing we must do good deeds to make recompense to God for the bad deeds we have done. We need to be “worthy” for God to love us; we must continue to work as hard as we can to earn God’s approval. In other words, all religions except true Christianity “load people with burdens hard to bear.” These religions create rules for people to follow that can never be completed. The followers of these religions can never know if they have done enough to merit God’s love and thus continue to “labor and are heavy ladened”.

There is an answer for these people, and Jesus simply says, “Come to me… I will give you rest”. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stop constantly trying to earn God’s love and to be able to rest in the fact that you already have that love? Not to get too Greek nerdy with you, but Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me” [emphasis mine] in the next verse. Both “take” and “learn” are commands from Jesus, and both are talking about something that has been done, not something that you must continue to do. Jesus says to “Come to Me” and rest in the fact that you have taken and have learned that He will give you rest for your soul. What a beautiful picture! Finally, those who spend their lives trying to earn God’s love can simply receive God’s love through “Coming to, Taking and Learning” from Jesus.

You see, God’s plan of salvation is very simple, so simple that anyone can achieve salvation from God’s wrath. The simplest way that I know of explaining God’s plan of salvation is through one of the most well-known verses in the Bible, John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. Do you notice there is no mention of doing good deeds, of working to earn God’s love? Do you notice that God’s plan includes “whoever believes,” that is, anyone and everyone who will believe in God’s only Son, the Lord Jesus? Did you notice that once “whoever” accepts His Son, they will have eternal life, and that there will be “rest for their souls”? You see, when Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”, He meant it.

Friend, are you tired and exhausted from trying to be good enough for God? Are you loaded down with the burden of work you feel you must do to earn God’s love? Come to Jesus, take (accept) and Learn from Him, and He will give your soul the rest you are so desperately seeking.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"