Rest

Matthew 11:28 - 30: "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."

There are a couple of meanings I get from this. One of the first things that come to mind is the context of the law of Moses, the law that Israel was under prior to Christ's coming. The law was a burdensome thing, a huge list of do's and don'ts that haunted every single person. Nobody could completely and consistently satisfy all of the requirements of the law. Nobody could say that they were 100% right with God. Jesus came and fulfilled the law; whereas the law showed us our depravity, Jesus showed us the way to sanctification. We are no longer weary under the burden of the law that shows us our sin; we have rest through Jesus' sacrifice.

"Take my yoke upon you..." If we look at Jesus' life, we consistently see him doing two things: staying in relationship with the Father and fulfilling the will of the Father. Jesus accomplished these two things by staying in submission to the will of the Father. I've heard it said that "Jesus is ultimately responsible for your relationship with God." There's nothing we can do on our own to grow closer to God or to justify ourselves in His sight; all we can do is be in relationship with Him and live a life submitted to Him. Through this we allow Him to make the relationship stronger, to direct us where He wants us to go. We take it out of our hands and put it into His, where it belongs. We don't have to worry about fulfilling a law or doing all sorts of works to make God accept us. God has already accepted us through Jesus' sacrifice. We have to accept that there is nothing of our own we can offer that will cause God to accept us other than what was already done for us, outside of our own power.

"I am gentle and humble in heart." God's goal isn't to plow over your will so that His be done. He wants you to be willfully surrendered to Him so that He can accomplish His will. He wants us to participate in what He's doing so that we in our submission to Him can work with Him towards what He is fulfilling.

"You WILL find rest for your souls." We were created to be in relationship with Him, coming along side Him and being in His presence. There is no greater peace than being with Him.

"My yoke is easy and my burden is light." We don't have the responsibility for making our relationship with Him work. We simply obey and He makes the relationship work and come alive. Once we can lay down our pride and our will and accept His, He works to accomplish what He wants through you.