Rest

Matt. 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all you 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."

Rest. What an amazing word. Jesus uses the word “rest” twice in these verses. The basic same word is used which means:
1) to cause or permit one to cease from any movement or labor in order to recover and collect his strength
2) to give rest, refresh, to give one's self rest, take rest
3) to keep quiet, of calm and patient expectation

To stop and recover and collect strength. To refresh. To keep quiet. To be calm and wait in patient expectation. Amazing stuff this thing called rest. It really is what the people of this world clamor for. We are too busy, too frazzled, too hurried, too involved, too worried, too self absorbed, too tired, too exhausted, too burdened. We labor and are heavy laden. Jesus said that we need to get away from that and stop. We need to recover and collect our strength and refresh ourselves and learn what it means to be quiet and calm.

How? How can I do this? By coming to Him. He is the only One who can give us true peace, true tranquility, true rest. The weird thing is that He tells us to come to Him and take His yoke upon us. Isn’t a yoke something that is hard? Isn’t it something that they put on cows to make them work together? How can it be easy? How can a burden be light?

It has to be remembered that Jesus was talking to people who had been weighed down with the rules and regulations that the Pharisees had placed upon them. He was talking to those who had been kept under the thumb of unreasonable expectations. Jesus came and said: “Come to Me. I will set you free from all of that.” Yes, I have a yoke. Yes, I have a burden. But it is nothing like what has been placed upon you by these rulers and teachers of the law. I am gentle and lowly of heart. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. You don’t have to perform any longer. You don’t have to worry any longer. You don’t have to feel burdened any longer. I am taking you from law to grace. I am taking you from slavery to freedom.

So how does this apply to me? I am not under the law but many times I think that I wrap myself in a performance oriented Christianity. I wrap myself in legalism. I find my worth in what I do. Jesus said: “No. Find your worth in Me. It is not all about your performance, it is about My finished work. Concentrate on Me. Focus on Me. Seek Me first. You will find rest, you will find refreshing, you will find peace, you will find quiet.”

A timely reminder as I face a new year of demands. Focus on Jesus and rest.