My Burdens Are Light Matthew 11:30

My yoke is easy and My burden is light.


The world lays a heavy burden upon us all, saved and unsaved alike. No one is exempt from carrying his burdens. A teenager wrote the following to me in an email, "I know that although I have mountains in my life, it is all in God's will. He would not put me this situation if He wasn't preparing me for something greater. One thing I always like to keep in mind is that faith makes it possible, not easy. Many times as Christians, we expectt things to be less difficult in our lives. God never said it would be easy, but He did say that He would always be there for us. Sure, we go through struggles and persecutions, but we are not alone. We have a faithful God who is much bigger than any of our tribulations!"

We all have personal responsibilities that we have to carry. We can however give those responsibilities over to the Lord and let Him help us resolve those responsibilities. Some of the responsibilities that we have to bear are directly related to our own faults and failures. While God can and will forgive and forget our sin, we still have to deal with the ramifications of our sin. Sometimes God takes our burdens and He removes them and sometimes He gives us the grace and the strength to live with them.

As we live our lives, we learn that life is full of burdens and cares. Paul tells us that we are to "help bear one another's burdens." (Galatians 6:2) As God's children, we all will have crosses to bear and trials to endure. However, Christ promises us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

What does this mean? How can His yoke be so easy and our burden be so heavy? That answer is really easy for us to understand. First of all, Christ could have demanded so much more from us. His demand is simple. We are to love God with all our heart and all our soul and all of our strength and we are to love each other as we love ourselves. The demands that Christ has given to us actually become blessings in and of themselves! As we surrender our hearts and our lives to the Lord and we walk in His Word, the journey itself becomes one of blessing and reward. As we follow the Lord's leadership and submit ourselves to His authority, we put ourselves in a position to receive His abundant blessings as well.

God's yoke is indeed easy and His burden is light. Jesus bore the burden for us all on the cross so that we would not have to. Our burdens come in two forms. First of all, because the world hated Jesus, so will it hate us and oppose our testimony and our commitment to walk with Him before the rest of the world. Then as I mentioned earlier, our own failure to walk by faith causes us all kinds of problems.

Our burdens will make us stronger when we let the Lord be our strength. We can know and trust that He will carry us through the storms that we will face in our lives. God's yoke is easy and His burden is light and so rewarding when we let Him be God in our lives with each and every decision that we make.

Tearing Down Temples II Kings 11:18

18And all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal, and tore it down. They thoroughly broke in pieces its altars and images, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.



Strange things happen in our world. It seems that Athaliah, the queen-mother, who, when she heard that her son Ahaziah was slain by Jehu, arose and destroyed all the heirs to the throne. Her husband Jehoram had slain all his brethren the sons of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chr. 21:4. The Arabians had slain all Jehoram's sons except Ahaziah, 2 Chr. 22:1. Jehu had slain all their sons (2 Chr. 22:8) and Ahaziah himself.

God had promised David that his family would remain on the throne in Israel. Here we read that the royal family had almost been completely eliminated. However, because God always keeps His promises, a son is saved! An infant son of Athaliah was hid by her own sister so that an heir to the throne would be preserved!

6 years later, the son was revealed and Athaliah was killed and the people rejoiced that a son of David was back on the throne and a time of cleansing took place in the land.

18And all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal, and tore it down. They thoroughly broke in pieces its altars and images, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars. And the priest appointed officers over the house of the LORD.

It is so easy to let things get out of control in our lives and in our families and in our country and even in our churches. Little by little we allow compromises and we allow people to do things that we know are wrong but we do very little to put a stop to them.

The people in this time frame took on new leadership and they cleansed the land of the sinful influences that Athaliah set up in the worship of Baal. The people knew that God's hand had been in the preservation of this son of the lineage of David and they rejoiced in his salvation and they destroyed the temple to this foreign god in their land.

You and I need to make sure that we do not have any "foreign gods" in our lives as well. We need to make sure that we tear down anything that exists in our lives that stands between us and the God who loves us so much. We need to make sure that nothing stands between God and us. We need to make sure that we are His and He is ours. We need what God wants to do for us. He wants to be our God every moment of every day and sometimes that requires that we tear down temples through persistent prayer that we have let build up and come before Him in our lives.

Lord I Surrender All Ezra 10:5

Ezra arose and He made the chief priests and the Levites and all of Israel sware that they would do what Shechaniah said and they all swore.



Ezra is praying and asking the Lord to forgive the people of Israel for their sin. He acknowledges in the 9th chapter that God had warned the people not to let their daughters marry foreign sons and not to allow Israelite sons to marry foreign daughters because they would corrupt the children of Israel. The people did not listen to the warning from God and they married who they wanted to marry and their families suffered as the foreign customs rubbed off on them and they moved away from God to worship the gods of their foreign spouses.

As Ezra was praying and weeping face down on the ground, a group of people gathered around him on one of the men spoke up and said, "We will put away our foreign wives and the children by them and we will look to the Lord for His guidance and His direction and for His forgiveness." He went on to say that they would then follow the commandments that God had given to them.

So, Ezra calls all of the people together and let them hear Shechaniah's proposal and he asked the people if they would agree to do as he had suggested. So the people made a solemn promise to the Lord to turn from their sin and to turn to God and His will and way for their lives.

I wonder what there is in our lives that is keeping God from doing a mighty work in us and through us as His children? Unconfessed sin has to be dealt with in order for us to experience victory in our lives. We need to be wiling to come to God in honesty and sincerity and be willing to give to Him our sin and to then turn from that sin and turn to God.

Look at your life today. Are there things that you have done that you know God could not be pleased with? Is it possible that this sin is the very reason that God is not able to do for you as He so much wants to do? Is it possible that if you would do as Ezra did and get down on your knees or fall on your face before the Lord and confess your weaknesses and your sin to the Lord and make the decision to get up and walk with God no matter what, that He might then be able to turn your life around and bless you exceedingly abundantly more than you could ask or hope for?

One Thing I Lack Mark 10:21

"One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me."



Luke identifies this man as a "young ruler" who came to Jesus asking Him what he needed to do to inherit eternal life.

Jesus answered him saying, 19"You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Do not defraud,' 'Honor your father and your mother.' " 20And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth." 21Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me." 22But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

The question that I want us to think about today is, "What is it that I lack?" We all come to God with a variety of needs and wants and understand this; God hears every request we make to Him. Not only does God hear our prayers and every request we make to Him, He wants to bless us even more than we want to be blessed! He wants to meet our need and our needs, but there are circumstances and conditions that must be considered before God will act on our behalf.

This young ruler lived a good life. I believe he did a great job keeping the commandments. He lacked one thing, Jesus said. He loved what he had and who he was more than He loved Jesus and even eternal life. His daily life was more important to him than eternal life was.

What is it that you and I lack in our devotion to the Lord? What priorities do we put in front of the Lord and His perfect will for our lives? What is it that you and I lack in our obedience to the Lord? What habits or secret sins do we harbor in our hearts that no one else knows about?

"One thing you lack: Go your way and get that sin out of your heart; get that desire out of your heart; let go of whatever it is that is keeping you from following Me and THEN come and take up your cross and follow Me."

Prayer and Presence Matthew 26:31

31Then Jesus said to them, "All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written: 'I will strike the Shepherd, And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'


Jesus is about to go to the cross. He tells the disciples that they will stumble and be scattered when He is arrested and taken to be crucified. This is when Simon Peter stands up and says, "even if everyone else leave You, I will never leave You." Jesus tells Peter, "Before the rooster crows, you will have denied Me three times."

The thing that caught my eye in this prophesy, which came from the Old Testament, Zechariah 13:7, was the scattering of the flock or the disciples. If the disciples would indeed scatter and leave the Lord when He was arrested and then Simon Peter would deny the Lord, we need to make sure that we are not guilty of the same mistake.

The best way to make sure that we are not subject to stumbling is to stand on prayer. Jesus told the disciples when they got to the Garden of Gethsemane, 41"Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Jesus knew what the disciples would face. He had even warned them and He gave them instructions on how to avoid the temptation that would cause them to stumble and then scatter. When we come to God in prayer, we draw near to the Lord. When we come near to Him, He comes near to us and His strength becomes our strength.

Peter drew His sword and struck one of the soldiers who came to arrest Jesus. He was wiling to defend Jesus with His life. Just hours later, he denied that he even knew Jesus to a little girl of all people. Why?

When Jesus is near, there is strength. When we are not in His presence, we are subject to failing and falling. Prayer brings His presence and His strength and His guidance and His blessing. Prayer keeps us from being scattered.

Bearing Fruit Matthew 21:19

19And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, "Let no fruit grow on you ever again." Immediately the fig tree withered away.



Jesus is on His way into Jerusalem. It is early in the morning and He has not eaten breakfast and so He is hungry. He sees a fig tree that should have had figs but when He got to the tree, there were no figs on it. Jesus made the following statement, "Let no fruit grow on you ever again."

The tree was on Jesus' way to Jerusalem. This is a direct reference to Jerusalem and their failure to be bearing fruit as Jesus has come. The tree had leaves and looked like a tree that would have been filled with fruit. It was in season and should have had fruit. The primary purpose of life is to bear fruit. Jesus cursed the fig tree and said, "be no more fruitful." We need to be careful that we do not make the same mistake as Christians and as a church.

The tree was on Jesus' way to Jerusalem. We have churches all along our way today almost everywhere we go. We are fig trees on people's way somewhere. What kind of fruit are you and I bearing for those who pass by us? The Jews failed miserably. Jesus was not pleased at the fig tree's lack of fruit. He was not pleased at Judaism's lack of fruit. He is no more pleased with our lack of fruit either.

We need to make sure that we bear fruit for those around us. The fruit that we need to bear is not for our benefit but for the benefit of those who pass by us. We need to make prayer a priority in our lives because prayer is the key to the fruit bearing process. It is God's will that we bear fruit and prayer is the lifeline that rings that fruit to maturity in our lives.

In Your Hand Psalm 31:15

14 But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord; I say, "You are my God." 15 My times are in Your hand;



We all face difficulties in one form or another. Sometimes we face difficulties because we have made poor decisions in the past. Sometimes we face difficulties because of the bad decisions of those who are close to us. There are times when we face difficulties for which there is no apparent reason.

David understood all of those circumstances. He had experienced them all and then some. David knew the comfort and strength of the Lord. He knew the benefits of walking with the Lord no matter where he found himself. This is what he is saying in our scripture verse for today.

But as for me, I trust in You, Lord. There is a difference in trusting God and trusting "in God." There are a lot of people who "trust God." However, to trust "in God" is to place our faith and our confidence in His Word and then walk according to His Word "no matter what." To "trust in You Lord" is to walk in obedience with no reservations and no compromises.

David knew the power of God's presence. He knew the gentleness of His touch. He knew that he belonged to God and that God belonged to him. David trusted God with all his heart. He wasn't perfect but he was forgiven and he loved God with all of his being.

David said, "My times are in Your hand." There is no better place for us to be than in God's hands. God is indeed the "Best Hands God." We are in great hands when we are in His hands.

Who has complete control of your life today? Where are your priorities? In whom are you trusting today as you read this? You can trust God today. You can walk with Him. You can leave your times in His hands.