“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, for 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
Dear God, I want to look at this passage through several translations. The one I have above is from the NIV. Here are some different versions of the same verses:
KJV
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heaven laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you , and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
NAS
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
NLT
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
The Message
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me–watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
While I typed out each of these translations, I had “Power in the Blood” playing in the background. I asked myself, what is that power? A lot of us have sung about it through that song all of our lives. What was the power the author discovered that they wanted to share? Well, it feeds into this passage pretty nicely.
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
Would you o’er evil a victory win?
Would you be free from your passion and pride?
Come for a cleaning to Calvary’s tide.
Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
Sin stains are lost in the life-giving flow.
Four questions? The first and the last relate to each other–release from sin. The second had to do with our victory over evil (whether we can see it with our earthly eyes or not). The third is a release from passion and pride.
Father, as I prepare to preach this morning, I feel a burden on this one like no other I’ve felt. And with that burden, I feel like I am pressing too hard. I am trying to much to come up with my own plan. I am trying to think my way through this too much when, in reality, I will be most successful if I simply lay this out through prayer, which I think I successfully did yesterday, and then let your Holy Spirit take over and guide me where it will in the moment. So I offer this to you. I offer my thoughts, my experiences, and my best-laid plans to you. Do with them what you will, but do it for your glory. I don’t care about getting one accolade today. I really don’t. I just want to know that your Holy Spirit did what it wanted to do and planted the seeds it wanted to plant.
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen
Emails to God 