The Lord Jesus sounds out the call to all those who toil and are heavy burdened – Come To Me (Matt. 11:28)! Have you ever felt like you’re toiling and you are burdened? We need to personally come to Him every day – and He will give us rest!
He even encourages us, Take My Yoke Upon You… – if you take this verse to the Lord in prayer, tell Him, Lord, I want to take Your yoke upon me – give me rest! I want to learn from You (Matt. 11:29)! What is the Lord’s yoke? As the Lord reveals it here, His yoke is the Father’s will, and His burden is His actions to accomplish the Father’s will.
We may think that the Father’s will is a great thing, it is so much to be done, and to accomplish the Father’s will is so difficult and hard; but the Lord Jesus says that it is easy and it is light! What kind of yoke do YOU have on you? We definitely have the wrong yoke – if we’re not joined to the Lord to do the Father’s will, our yoke is heavy and burdensome!
This causes us to toil and be heavy burdened… Our burden is so heavy because we don’t come to the Lord first to enjoy Him first!
To toil means to struggle to be successful in any kind of work, whether in the world or for the Lord (see note 1). To have rest means to have perfect peace and full satisfaction… When we enjoy the Lord as our Sabbath, He becomes our rest, our supply, our encouragement, our person, our love, and our everything – we have perfect peace and full satisfaction!
The Lord’s yoke needs to become our yoke – we need to be enslaved by the will of the Father! What is the Father’s will? What does the Father want to accomplish? We may see a lot of needs around us – human needs, family needs, or even needs among the saints in the church life.
But are we governed and led by doing the best to meet the need, or are we governed by doing the will of the Father? Are we constrained by the need, or by the will of the Father? If we take the Father’s will as the yoke upon us by being one with Christ, the Lord will be able to meet the need in His Body, in His time, and in His way.
The Lord is the LORD – He directs us to meet a need, to as much as He wants us to do – the work is His! Don’t be constrained by the need or by the work that needs to be done – come to the Lord first and spend time with Him!
We need to learn from the Lord Jesus in this respect.
In Mark 1:32-38 we see that He rose up very early in the morning and He went to pray to the Father – He wanted to be one with the Father to accomplish the Father’s will. The crowds and the disciples hunted for Him – Christ hid Himself in a place so that He may have a private, personal, intimate, sweet time with the Father!
When they found Him, the Lord didn’t say, Praise the Lord, now that you all are here, let’s do this or that (some big work). No, He said, Let’s go somewhere else! The Lord Jesus was not enslaved by the work and He was not driven by the need He saw around Him – rather, He was constrained by the will of the Father, who at that time (and most of the time) wanted Him to go elsewhere.
Our leading in doing things, going places, and saying things comes from our personal time with the Lord! We need to get saturated, soaked, permeated, and filled with the Lord Jesus in order to know His will and do what is on His heart! Take Him as your life, your replacement, and your everything! And then, the work becomes something easy, an overflow of life, with no strains or struggles.
If one is inwardly abundant and rich with Christ in a fresh way, there is no strain when he does something for the Lord in oneness with Him. Let’s take the Father’s will as our yoke, and the doing His will as our burden. The Father’s will is mild, pleasant, gentle, and kind….
[enjoyment from message nine from the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah (2); this article is a continuation of, Come to Me, all you who toil and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest! Take My yoke upon you!]
We come to You, Lord, with all our toils and burdens! We come to You to receive rest! You are our rest, You are our life, and You are our everything! Lord, we love You! We love to turn to You… out of any toil and burden, we just come to You! Give us rest, Lord… We want to learn from You – we want to lean to be one with You in taking the Father’s yoke and bearing Your burden! Lord, amen, keep us coming to You to enjoy You! We want to learn to be one with You to such an extent…
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