Living in Rest: Step into the Yoke

Pslam 91:1 "Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty."

It's really easy to fill a life. This world has a lot to offer us, both good and bad. We can fill our lives with productivity, work, education, family, friends, entertainment, and much more, which can all be good things and I do believe everything I mentioned is good to have in your life. But with so many things going on in life, one thing we often forget to do is rest. And I'm finding that "Rest" is not always the same thing as relaxing.

I've been hearing the word Rest come up a lot these past few years and I've always been telling myself "oh I don't have a problem there. I probably spend too much time on 'rest'". I tend to watch a lot of entertainment. Not a whole lot of TV, but I do watch a lot of youtube every day. And then I'll usually play a few hours of video games in the week too. And although I would consider that relaxing and my time to "wind down". I'm starting to wonder if that actually isn't the rest that the Bible talks about so much

There are several uses of the word rest in the bible and sometimes I do think they mean to "relax". But there is another type of rest that is much more than that.

Matthew 11:28-29 "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."

The Word rest here is the Greek Word "anapauo" which means:

• To cause or permit one to cease from any movement or labour in order to recover and collect his strength

• To keep quiet, of calm and patient expectation

I've had many weeks where I have been weary or heavy burdened. And chilling on the couch doesn't help me recover from those feelings, it just helps me forget about them and push them down to deal with later.

In Matthew Jesus is talking about coming to him to receive rest. To come and have a calm and patient expectation, that He will carry the weight of what we're going through. And by taking the time to learn from him, walk with him, be with Him, we will begin to collect our strength and recover.

He invites us to take His Yoke upon ourselves. Now what's a Yoke? A yoke is an old piece of work equipment that farmers used to attach two oxen together to work the farm. Instead of one Oxen carrying the full load on their own, they should now combine their strength to pull the weight. What's really cool is it didn't matter as much if one oxen was much weaker than the other. The weight would always be pulled by the combined strength of both oxen when you used a yoke.

So when Jesus invites us to take on his yoke, he's asking you to work with him in order to carry the weight of life's burdens. Jesus's Yoke is easy, he'll do the heavy lifting, we don't have to strive to pull the weight ourselves. Taking a yoke on does mean walking with Him though. We just have to take the steps and learn from him as we regen our own strength by doing so.

But what I think Jesus is really talking about here, is that He wants us to Keep Him next to us. Keep Jesus as our main priority. Walking with Jesus in this Yoke is what our life should be.

We're going to watch a quick video in a second that really explains this well, but Living a Life of rest requires our walk with Jesus to be the main priority. If walking with Jesus is the most important thing, it becomes prett easy to add on everything else we care about in life on top of that. ?But If we try to focus on our career, our friends, our family, our hobbies first and then try to shove Jesus in all the cracks, that's a really hard way to live. ?Life is full of much more rest and fulfillment when we add those things on top of our journey with God, because when we do that, He's now yoked with us, and now He can help us pull the weight that all those good things bring.

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So what does this practically look like? What does it mean to Abide in God? If we are feeling weary or burdened, what can we practically do to let Jesus take the weight with us so we can renew our strength? How can we alter our way of living and put on that Yoke with Jesus so that Life is easier, and we're not doing it all on our own?

Here are some ideas I wrote down:

• Acknowledge God in everything we do, as if He's our life-business partner.
• Have a few strength finding verses that you put at your desk or somewhere you see often that will remind you of Who you are in Christ
• Instead of listening to music for your whole commute, maybe start your commute by praying for your day first
• Actively remind yourself of where God is in the room
• Regularly ask God about the small stuff in life
• Thank Him for everything always

Let's take 5-10 minutes and find and write down some verses that are empowering, life giving, good reminders of God's faithfulness. And then pray about someone you should give that paper to

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