Jesus Wants to Bear Your Burden with You

By Rick Warren

“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 RSV).

I don’t know what burden you’re carrying. I don’t know what’s weighing you down. But I do know the answer to your trouble.

Jesus says, “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 RSV).

For many years I never understood that Scripture, because I didn’t know what a yoke was. When Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you,” it sounded to me like he was going to give me something else to deal with. My burden is heavy enough already, Lord! I don’t need to take your problems on me!

Then I learned that a yoke is actually a board with two arches in it that you put over two cattle so they can pull a cart.

The value of a yoke is that it halves the load. Without a yoke, one cow’s got to pull that entire load by itself. But if you yoke up the cow with another cow, then the two animals pull the load together, and the load is half as heavy.

When Jesus says to take his yoke upon you, he’s not saying he’s going to give you his problems. Jesus doesn’t have any problems! He’s saying he’s going to share your problems. He’s going to share your load. He’s going to take your stress on himself and bear it with you.

Wow!

He uses three notable verbs in this Scripture: come, learn, and take. Jesus says, “Come to me. Team up with me. Then, learn how I do it. Take on a lighter load. This is going to reduce your stress. This is going to make it easier for you to navigate.”

When you’re yoked with Christ, you move together with him. You move in the same direction and at the same speed. And you move in the right direction and at the right speed.

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Transformed Study Kit

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Is there a positive change you want to see in your life in 2019? If so, we want to send you a study kit Pastor Rick Warren has put together called Transformed to help make it happen!

Pastor Rick teaches seven biblically based lessons in Transformed that will help you experience a real transformation from the inside out this year, as you learn from the Bible how to . . .

• Walk more closely with God
• Experience less stress in your life
• Reconcile a ruined relationship
• Handle your money better
• Become more confident at work

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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

You can listen to Rick Warren on OnePlace.com.