Tag: Matthew 11

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The Ingredient for Holiness

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“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, or I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Welcome back to our second look at the recipe for holiness in our sanctification journey!  If you missed last week’s post and my quest for the perfect Southern buttermilk biscuit, click here!

In today’s scripture, Jesus reaches out His hand and yearns for you throughout the Gospels.  It’s like you’re His perfect buttermilk biscuit!  However, so many read the first line of this scripture and forget the rest.  How does that turn out in following a recipe?  

Jesus goes on to say, “take my yoke.”  That means to put it on and bear it.  You see, we all are yoked right now to something.  We are obedient and submissive to many worldly things.  The rules of the road, rules of propriety, relationship rules, government rules, corporate rules, and the modern virtual signaling rules.  We commit ourselves in obedience each day to them, seeking to be accepted, seen, and loved.  Yet when Jesus commands us to be obedient and submissive to Him, so many decide His rules leave a bad taste in their mouths.  

Unbelievers so often think of Christianity as a set of rules you have to follow.  Plus, plus a bunch of fun-filled ingredients of life you have to give up.  All the while, they search in futility for fulfillment of those nine life goals we talked about last week by being obedient to the culture and fleshly desires.  

Come and Belong

Jesus says, come, all you who are weary.  Weary of trying recipe after recipe to find a sense of belonging and being seen and understood.  Weary of the world’s weight on your shoulders, never feeling like you’re winning at life.

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” Luke 9:23-25

Friends, I know Christians who yearn for good relationships yet harbor unending unforgiveness.  Others turn their backs on God’s demand for submissiveness as they write up their own life plan to which God must submit.  There are plenty of Christians who seek treasure over Christ.  Man’s approval rather than God’s eternal love.  There are so many miserable Christians wearing God’s head chef hat.

Come and Enjoy

We can enjoy all the goodness God offers today.  The ingredients for the life we all so desperately desire can be found in His Word.  Throw off sexual immorality, despise greed and selfishness, forgive even your enemies, and be loving and a peacemaker to all.  If we know His Word and we have seen Him at work at our most desperate hours, how can we continue to just dip our finger in the cake batter and call us “done?”  I want to be the finished product that God desires for me, don’t you? 

If Jesus, on the eve of His death, could pray, “Your will, not mine” to the Father, then shouldn’t we? 

Christian friend, are you just a churchgoer, someone knowledgeable about God?  Have you gone through trials and learned God loves you?  And yet when you hear His voice speaking to you through His Word, you either pretend it doesn’t apply to you or you flat out ignore what He asks of you.  

He says “forgive” and you won’t.  He says “give” and you don’t.  He commands you to love and you say you can’t.  You are missing out on God’s gloriously good gifts.  True fulfillment means casting off being worried about what the world (and your family and friends) thinks of you. We put on Jesus’ yoke of obedience and submission. 

Come to Eternal Happiness

I may not yet know how to make the perfect buttermilk biscuit.  But I do know the recipe for eternal happiness.  It’s written out in 66 God-breathed books.  Ask yourself today what you are refusing to do for God?  He has a great recipe for your life.  But He needs you to put on your apprentice apron and get to the work He has laid out for you.

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him. Psalm 34:8

This week’s question: What is the one thing you continually refuse to be obedient or submissive to God about?

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Day 13 Blessings Everywhere

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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
From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised! Psalms 113:3

I’ve given this assignment to women I’ve discipled in the past.  For a week keep a small notebook with you.  As you go through your day make note of all the good things around you or that have been given you.  It might be you found a deal while shopping, a nice text was sent you, or even just that you had a good night sleep.  If nothing seems obvious that day there’s always the fact that you had a place to sleep, food in your refrigerator, the sun rose again and you received one more day to serve the Lord.

I’ll admit this assignment was born out of the fact that I’ve lived most of my life as a pessimistic person.  When I started my day what first was on my mind were the problems I faced or imagined.  Nothing was going to work out the way I’d hoped.  If it did, I’m sure something else bad would happen to ruin it.  What an exhausting, burdensome way to live.  But my friend, I know for certain I’m not the only one to suffer this way of existence.  

I thought positive people, especially Christians, were just blind to reality.  And I was sure I’d be the one cleaning up the mess they never imagined.  Not only was this prideful it’s not the reality of God.  There may be some truth to this way of thinking because this world is full of evil, riddled with tragedy and pain.  But when we seek to live for Christ and become yoked with Him, He opens our eyes to the new sunrise each day.  He removes the scales and a whole new world is open to us.  

Our new reality, which can only be achieved through the belief in our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit’s power, leads us down a path that sees our breath each day as a blessing.  That acknowledges so much beauty and good around us, especially in times of trouble. Sometimes we just need God to help us see it.  There truly are blessings wherever we go or wherever we stay.  Thank you Lord.

Click here to listen to today’s song: Blessings Everywhere

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Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness

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Charles Spurgeon once wrote that if God took full license of His greatness and majesty we would surely be trampled under His feet.  Instead, God, Himself, displays the most magnificent teaching of gentleness for us all to experience.  He holds back in His anger, judgment, and frustration.  He is long suffering and meek in His dealing with us humans.  

King David, with all his power and authority, mirrored this meekness and humility often when he wrote of God in the psalms.

"You have given me the shield of your salvation,
    and your right hand supported me,
    and your gentleness made me great." Psalm 18:35

God’s gentleness made King David great.  It seems like an odd statement to make.  You would think he would say “your strength” or “your authority” is what bolstered the king.  No, instead he sought to point out the gentleness of God.  And I wonder, how often do we realize how gentle God has been with us?

The unbeliever or borderline Christian may never fully appreciate this character trait of God.  An unrepentant sinner doesn’t see the need to apologize to anyone for doing life as they see fit.  They consider there to be no authority which will one day sit in judgment of them.  Therefore, they don’t have the viewpoint that God is being so, so patient with them.  Each day on this place we call Earth that the non-believer merrily lives a life in direct conflict with the fruit of the spirit (ie: hatred, discord, jealousy, selfishness, idolatry, rage, sexual immorality) is another day in which God is showing His gentleness.  A day that God has given them to hear His voice before the final judgment.

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Matthew 11:29

Imagine hearing a man say He is God, a man of flesh and blood, yet tell you He is gentle and humble.  You can’t point to any other person in history, besides Jesus, that would say that and be believable.  The pharisees expected the Messiah to come in on a mighty steed to the sounds of trumpets.  He was to slay all of Israel’s enemies and lay claim to all land and treasure.  He was to pronounce all those suffering without fair trial in jail free to leave the prisons.  He was to place the Jews at the top of all humanity.  

Instead, as He rose from the waters of baptism by John, a dove appeared over His head.  A symbol of peace and gentleness.  There was no lightning.  There were no earthshattering sounds.  Just the sound of water dripping from His body and a cooing dove.  And yet, a revolutionary was set on His designated path.

So often I hear Christians and non-Christians talk about meeting God face to face.  At the pearly gates of heaven, they imagine a conversation about whether their “nice list” is greater than their “naughty list.”  But let’s back up.  Moses, himself, could not look directly at God or he would have certainly died on the spot.  God’s power was so great He had to put some of it into a burning bush for a visual of sorts.  And even then, Moses was admonished to not come too close and to clean his feet in reverence.

We humans while we are alive on earth can only see God as a shadow or a lesser representation because we would be so overwhelmed by His presence.  So now understand the meekness He had to undertake to become flesh and blood. 

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. 

C.S. Lewis

Jesus said He was God.  Jesus performed miracles as God.  Jesus warned of judgment as God.  So, either we believe He is God or we must throw away everything He said as a crazy person.  And if we believe He is God then we should be amazed at how gentle and humble He truly was while here on earth.  He didn’t once look at a Pharisee and afflict him with a terrible illness.  He didn’t lay waste to the soldiers who came to arrest Him.  No, He was patient with everyone.  Teaching, showing, loving us into His coming kingdom.

No destroying angel smote the men who spat in his face, no devouring flame burned up those who scourged him. The force of his life was the omnipotence of gentle goodness. He did not lay the weight of his little finger upon the minds of men to compel them to involuntary subjection; his conquests were such as led men in willing captivity.”

Charles Spurgeon

As we look at the fruit of the Spirit, gentleness, this week let’s keep it constantly on our mind that our Lord God has infinite power and authority that He could use at any time against us.  Instead, He holds us gently in His loving hands and waits for the day we call Him Abba.

Coming up: Gentleness Misunderstood