May we who Toil and are Burdened come to the Lord and take the Will of the Father

We need to come to the Lord, all we who toil and are burdened, and He will give us rest; as we take His yoke upon us and learn from Him, we will find rest for our souls, for when we take the Father’s will and do His will, sharing in with Christ in His yoke, we are at peace, we have perfect rest and full satisfaction.

Lord Jesus, we come to You. We toil and are burdened concerning so many things; we just come to You. Give us rest. We take Your yoke upon us, dear Lord, for You are meek and lowly in heart. May we find rest for our souls. Lord, our souls need rest! We take the Father’s will as our yoke, we share in with Your yoke to do the Father’s will, and we take Your burden, which is light! Amen, Lord, we love You!

This week in our prayerful consideration of the Gospel of Matthew to see, enjoy and experience the all-inclusive Christ, we come to chapter 11, verses 28-30, to see Christ as the One who gives us rest.

Many times we are in an inward tumult. There are many things going on around us, there are many feelings and thoughts within us, and the whole world situation is in tumult; inwardly, we are in tumult, so we need rest.

Our souls need rest. We need not only an outward situation that is peaceful but an inward condition that is restful.

Even in serving the Lord, in doing things for the Lord, many times we are burdened, we are not at peace, and we have no rest; we have inward struggles, stress, and tumult.

May we answer the Lord’s call to come to Him and receive Him as our rest.

Our work for the Lord should be an overflow of the inner life, for the Christian life and work should be one, and our living is simply the overflow of the Christ whom we enjoy and experience.

Our work for the Lord is not just a movement borne of man but it is the Lord’s power moving; it is not just the deeds done outwardly but inward action proving.

Our work for the Lord and before the Lord is not just an enterprise or toil but the Lord working in us.

May we come to the Lord with all our plans, our aims, and our energy, and give ourselves to Him, so that He may work His plan through us for His aim and object solely.

On our side, we need to surrender to death all that we are and have so that Christ may live Himself through us with His riches and in His splendour.

May we be those who stop and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ in our daily living.

May we realise that He is the all-inclusive One, and may we just love Him, appreciate Him, and come to Him so that we may receive and find rest for our souls.

As those who Toil and are Burdened, we Come to the Lord, and He will Give us Rest

The Lord’s call in Matthew 11:28-30 resounds throughout the ages, Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Many times these verses are used by us when we preach the gospel, for we call all the sinners who are enslaved, struggling, striving, and endeavouring for whatever matter, to come to the Lord.

For example, someone may be working to make a living, raise a family, have a successful business, and take care of their household.

Or someone may be a religious person, endeavouring to be good, to be ethical, to be absolutely moral and religiously righteous; all these put a lot of burdens on him, so he is under burdens, toiling.

And even we as believers in Christ who have the Lord’s mercy upon us to see Christ and the church, God’s economy, and His eternal purpose.

When we see these things, even as we live the church life in the Lord’s recovery, we strive, struggle, toil, and are burdened to work out these things, for we want to be a testimony of God in all these things.

All these are a huge burden, and we toil and struggle to do these works. Perhaps there’s no other burden as heavy as the burden to work out what is in God’s heart.

So the Lord calls us to come to Him. He calls not only the sinners, the unbelievers, but especially us, the believers in Christ.

He spoke these words to His disciples, not to the Jews in general; He calls us, His disciples, to come to Him. We are under the burden, we need to be free, and we need to be delivered and find rest.

In the context of these verses, we as the Lord’s followers are called to come to the Lord.

The Lord Jesus was preaching the gospel in city after city, but He was being rejected in quite a few cities; the whole city rejected Him. Against that background, the Lord extolled the Father; He not only praised the Father but even more, praised Him with a meaningful acknowledgement.

When others reject us, when they reject us as we labour for the Lord and bring the gospel to them, we need to simply praise God with a certain kind of understanding of who our Father is.

Everything was delivered to Christ by the Father, and no one fully knows the Son except the Father, neither does anyone fully know the Father except the Son and him whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Praise the Lord!

Many today reject the Lord and also reject us; they seem to be smart, intelligent, and bright, but they see nothing of God, they know nothing of God, and they cannot receive the things of God.

But praise the Lord, He has revealed these things to us, even to the infants; as we come to the Lord, He unveils us to see Him, His will, and His economy.

May we come to the Lord with all our burdens, our toiling, and all our hard labour and work for the Lord or struggle to fulfil His will, and may we receive and enjoy His rest.

As we work for the Lord, we may be fatigued, tired, for we are under a heavy burden and we toil for Him. As we come to the Lord, He gives us rest.

The toil here refers not only to the toil of striving to keep the commandments of the law and religious regulations but also to the toil of struggling to be successful in any work; whoever toils thus is always heavily burdened.

We may toil quite a lot, seeking to do things to please God and be successful either in our work for God or in our work in the world.

We may want to carry out something in a good way, finish what we have started, and we realise that we are heavily burdened. Oh Lord.

This call of the Lord is for us, for each one of us. It is not for those who are relaxed, who do not toil for the Lord, who are not burdened for His interest, and who do not struggle; it is for the Lord’s seeking ones, for those who labour for Him.

May we come to Him and find rest for our souls. As we are burdened to live a normal Christian life, be an overcomer, work out God’s economy, and carry out and work out the New Jerusalem, we are burdened, and we toil.

So the Lord calls us to come to Him. We are such ones, we can come to Him!

When we come to Him, we receive rest for our souls. We are not only set free from the toil and burden under the law or religion or under any work or responsibility, but we also have perfect peace and full satisfaction.

This doesn’t mean we are burden-free or toil-free; rather, we are full of peace and satisfaction as we toil and are burdened.

We are diligent to be one with the Lord, serve Him, and toil for Him, and in the midst of doing this, we have perfect peace and full satisfaction.

This is what the Lord wants to experience, in the midst of all our labouring and toiling.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we give ourselves to You to labour for You, toil for You, and be burdened for You. Amen, Lord, we care for Your economy and for the building up of the church. We want to live out and work out the New Jerusalem so that You may gain a built-up church, the Body of Christ, in reality on earth today. Oh Lord, as we toil for You and are burdened, we come to You to receive You as our rest. We need rest for our souls even as we toil and are burdened. Amen, Lord, we come to You. In You and with You, we find rest. We want to learn from You, for You toiled for God, yet You were meek and lowly in heart. Oh Lord Jesus, grant us to find rest for our souls even as we toil for the Lord, are burdened for Him, and do things in the Lord and for the Lord! Amen, Lord, grant us perfect peace and full satisfaction today. As we labour for You, as we toil in You and with You, we take You as our perfect peace and our full satisfaction. Amen, Lord, we love You and we come to You!

Take and be Constrained by the Will of the Father by the Lord’s Life of Submission in us

The Lord Jesus did not tell us that, if we come to Him with our toils and burdens, He will give us rest and rescue us from our toiling for the Lord.

Rather, He said that we need to take His yoke upon us and learn from Him, for He did the same, He took the Father’s will as the yoke and bore it (Matt. 11:29).

To take the Lord’s yoke is to take the will of the Father; it is not to be regulated or controlled by any obligation of the law or religion or be enslaved by any work, but to be constrained by the will of the Father.

The Lord’s yoke is the will of the Father. The Lord said that we need to take His yoke; He is already bearing the yoke, and He wants us to bear it with Him.

To bear a yoke is to be yoked with someone and bear something heavy, to pull something or carry out a work that is heavy and requires more than one person to do the work.

In the old days and even today, two animals are yoked together to plough the land.

The Lord Jesus bore a yoke, and He wants us to take up His yoke. He wants us to join Him and come under His yoke to bear His yoke with Him.

This is the only way that the yoke can be light and peaceful, if we bear the Lord’s yoke with the Lord.

The Lord’s yoke is delightful, easy, and precious; duty is changed to delight and prayer into praise as we join in with the Lord to bear His yoke.

This yoke is the will of the Father. Whatever comes our way is the will of the Father; even when we are rejected when we do a good work for the Lord, that is the will of the Father.

We are not here to gain popularity or be received by man; we are not here to gain something for ourselves, but we are here for the Father’s will.

When we say, Father, Your will be done, we are full of rest and satisfaction. When we take the will of the Father and bear it as our yoke, with the Lord, we are at peace, we are in full rest, and we are full of satisfaction.

But if we work for the Lord or labour in anything and are struggling, not having any rest, that is not the Father’s will but it has become our thing, so it is rough and harsh.

The Lord Jesus lived a life caring for nothing but the will of His Father (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38). He submitted Himself fully to the Father’s will (Matt. 26:39, 42), and He asks us to learn from Him.

He is our example, our pattern; He cared for nothing but the will of the Father. His food was to do the will of the Father and finish His work. He did not seek His own will but the will of the One who sent Him.

We as believers copy the Lord in our spirit by taking HIs yoke – God’s will – and toiling for God’s economy according to His model (Matt. 11:29; 1 Pet. 2:21).

We are co-yoked with the Lord; we have the fellowship of His sufferings, we walk along with Him in the same yoke, and we take the will of the Father today.

The Lord Jesus, who was submissive and obedient to the Father throughout His life, has given us His life of submission and obedience (Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 5:7-9).

We cannot submit; we cannot take anyone’s will as our will, but the Lord submitted fully and was fully obedient to the Father’s will.

He has now given us His life of submission, and we can be obedient and submissive by His life of submission and obedience.

May this mind be in us today, the same mind that was in Christ.

Christ was the first God-man, and we are the many God-men; we need to learn from Him in His absolute submission to God and His uttermost satisfaction with God.

God is doing in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ that we may be able to do His will (13:20-21).

God today operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

He is doing it in us, and we cooperate. We are co-yoked with Him; we take the will of the Father, and He operates in us both the willing and the working.

Lord Jesus, we come to You to take Your yoke. We don’t want to carry our own yoke, which is harsh and hard; we open to You, and we come to You to be co-yoked with You. May we take the will of the Father and be obedient and submissive to the Father. Oh Lord, we want to copy You in our spirit by taking God’s will as our yoke and toil for God’s economy according to Your model! Amen, Lord, we can do this only by Your life in us. Thank You for giving us Your life of submission and obedience. We want to live by Your life so that we may be submissive and obedient to the Father throughout our life! Amen, Lord, You in us can be submissive and obedient to the Father, so that the will of the Father may be done! Hallelujah, God is doing in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ that we may be able to do His will! Amen, Lord, we open to Your inner operation: operate in us both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chan on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Matthew, pp. 372-373 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-inclusive Christ as Revealed in Matthew (2025 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 5, Christ as the One Who Gives Us Rest – day 1.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Come, every soul by sin oppressed, / There’s mercy with the Lord; / And He will surely give you rest / By trusting in His Word. / Only trust Him! Only trust Him! / Only trust Him now! / He will save you! He will save you! / He will save you now! (Hymns #1031 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – My Savior, Thou hast offered rest: / Oh, give it then to me; / The rest of ceasing from myself, / To find my all in Thee. / This cruel self, oh, how it strives / And works within my breast, / To come between Thee and my soul, / And keep me back from rest. (Hymns #414 stanzas 1-2)
  – I heard the voice of Jesus say, / “Come unto Me, and rest; / Lay down, thou weary one, lay down / Thy head upon My breast.” / I came to Jesus as I was, / Weary, and worn, and sad; / I found in Him a resting-place, / And He has made me glad. (Hymns #323 stanza 1)