Can You Take A Yoke?

Everybody has a yoke. It may not be the yoke of the Lord but you have one and you are wearing it. If you are weary Jesus will give you His work.
Matthew 11:28, Then Jesus said, “Come to me all who are weary carrying heavy burdens. Ill give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle and you’ll find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly and the burden I give you is light.”
So what’s killing you? What are you picking up that God didn’t give you? He said my yoke is easy, my burden is light. All day throughout work I notice mostly overstressed people, weary people, and exhausted folks living at an increasing breakneck pace.
Neil Postman said in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death wrote that “Our culture is no longer print oriented but rather image oriented. The overload of all the information we are now getting is called info stress. You are getting so much input it is almost impossible to process it.” 100 years ago the only news we got was from an immediate family in a near a neighborhood. If something big happened in the U.S or a foreign country we wouldn’t know about it for months. What info people we got back then came in small doses. People had time to process it and handle the info. Today with satellites and instant global communication we are constantly bombarded with so much news and so many images from all over the world that as soon as it happens and are about to process it something else occurs.
Jesus says come to me. He says come unto me and I will give you rest, take my yoke and you will find rest. There are 2 kinds of rest. One rest is given and one is found. The one that is given is our salvation. So if you have been saved, you have been given the rest in God. You are forgiven and should not be working for his acceptance. Jesus called this good news. You don’t have to work for anything except a living.
There is another kind of rest. A rest you have to find. It’s a sense of peace and well being and comes when you know God and take his yoke upon you. In Exodus 33:13, Moses said “Lord, if I found grace in your sight show me your way that I may know you” and God said “My presence will go with you Moses and I will give you rest.” Can you take a yoke? Christ offers a yoke but you have to take it. If you receive something you must take it. It’s not passive; you reach out and take it. He said take my yoke, so it requires effort on our part. Jesus is saying, if you are tired, weary, broke, exhausted, come to me and I will give you more work. But it’s not just any work He is giving to you. It’s His work, and He says His work is easy, His burden is light…so what the heck did you pick up that is causing you to burn out, have psychiatric care and emotional due rest or be angry and upset, restless and frustrated? Unsatisfied, giving you Monday morning blues and the desire to shoot someone while driving to work or say thank God it’s Friday and I’m off. I had to learn recently that God loves me and everyone else has a plan for my life. But God’s plan is for my life and that yoke will fit me like a tailor made suit. His yoke requires you to submit to his will. It’s an analogy people. A wooden yoke put over the shoulders of plow animals. The neck in scripture has to do with the will. When God talks about rebellious people He says you’re a stiff necked. A yoke allows the plowman to turn the submitter left or right. It also goes over the shoulders to signify carrying a responsibility. So if you hear the saying he has big shoulders it’s because he carries heavy responsibility.
Now when I got saved I didn’t know Jesus as provider, or comforter, or healer. But when I took on a yoke in that area I got a revelation of Him that I couldn’t get from reading a blog, or listening to a tape or hearing that sermon. God is more than sitting in the chair every Sunday. Now we hear all the time he will provide all you need and it sure sounded nice but I was uncertain and insecure. I wondered if I would have enough. I always worried about if this or that happened. But when I got into the yoke of my provider and honored Him my tithe and generosity, I got to know Him as my provider. Strange and sudden things that make you wonder and go wow. Our tiredness, fatigue and weariness come from wearing our yoke, not His. Here’s an example, John 4…the disciples and Jesus were walking thru Samaria, they are tired and hungry, it is hot. Jesus sends them into the city to get food. When they came back Jesus had already witnessed to a Samarian woman. He led her to Himself as messiah and she ran into town to tell everyone Jesus is sitting on the well. And the disciples tried to get Jesus to eat food but He wouldn’t eat anything. They are baffled! He said I have food to eat that you don’t know anything about. He said my food is to do the will of Him whom sent me. Now Jesus had a secret we could learn from. He knew if He was doing the will of God, wearing that yoke He wasn’t going to lack energy, be hungry or unsatisfied for his life. Sticking to the analogy of food and doing His father’s will, let’s examine food. Food provides 3 values, sustenance, without food you can’t endure, you get weak. Food provides strength and energy; there are low energy foods and high energy foods. Stop living a low carb lifestyle. You need a bigger dream. And finally, it provides satisfaction. Good food well presented gives everybody a great feeling. So spiritually catch what He is saying. Jesus is saying my food meaning my sustenance, my strength and satisfaction is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish that work. So your design is to be self-sustaining, self-sufficient and self-fulfilling. Zoe, my ex’s dog never had blue Mondays, “Well its Monday, I am not chase that bird or run fast in the park. I don’t feel like getting excited when you come home and I certainly don’t want to play with you. Thank God it’s Friday! I am just going to lay here and won’t even scratch a flea.” No matter what time or what day, you just call her name and she’ll go crazy tail wagging nuts. Birds don’t have bad days, worms don’t either. Worms just worm away all the time or do whatever worms do regardless of Monday or not. They just do what they are made to do. Everyday it’s a good day. Only humans come up with this crap. That’s because you aren’t in the yoke God gave you. You’ll be better at it, you’ll be fruitful. Get satisfaction and a sense of esteem and pride. You’ll want to be, you’ll grow in it. Every person has an assignment. Ask yourself if you are pursuing a divine purpose. Your satisfaction depends on it. God yokes us for a work. Make a commitment. Put on the yoke and pull your load. Even in church. Parents want their kids to clean their room, make their beds, wash the dishes, mow the lawn, wash the floors, wash the car and have all kinds of responsibility in the household family but in the spiritual family the parents don’t want to do anything. They just come to church and sit. The issue is this, has God joined you to do his yoke with someone? If God has joined you let not man tear it apart. Now I know you use that in a wedding which gets all twisted and used in understandably applicable ways but if you read it, it reads Paul speaks of a mystery, a personal revelation from Jesus, about Christ and the church. He didn’t even mention a wedding. Again it’s true about marriage, but it’s about the church. If God joins you, don’t let the flesh and don’t let men break it up. My point is that being a Christian alone won’t change the world. Being yoked to the Lord and being yoked to those He calls you to will. Different races, different cultures, different backgrounds, different sex, beliefs and denominations. God says if I am going to use you to do a great work then you have to be bigger than African American or Anglo-Saxon. You’ve got to be bigger than Baptist, Assembly of God or 7th day. God is going to yoke you with different people and if the only thing that attracts you to someone is that you like the same music or hairstyle then it is not going to work. Don’t be so intolerant. Don’t tear so easily. Have a little flexibility and open-mindedness and less judgment. If you only meet with Christians then you won’t go were Jesus went. Truth doesn’t change but styles will. Sometimes you don’t know if God has yoked you together for a while. Don’t judge a person by appearance. Listen to their words and heart to see if there is wisdom you could learn from. Sometimes we just get complacent and dull due to our ignorance and can’t touch people because of our own beliefs, ignorance about cultures, racism and world differences. 1 Corinthians 12:18, God sets every member in the body as it pleases him. Not them…Him. God does the yoking and God does the placement. You get to choose whether or not you take the yoke, He chooses where to place you. Have you ever played sports and been chosen third? Did you choose to be picked third? You don’t get to chose in God. Does the furniture tell you where be placed in the house? No, you choose to put the ashtray next to the bible. Don’t get all worked up all the time because things don’t go your way every single time. Lose some battles. Not everyone is like you. I really believe I can lower my potential if I break the joining God brings to me. So for me, I am glad you read this blog or are in my life if God has joined you to me. We will find out sooner or later when I say something to offend you (which God says will always happen. It is in the bible read it) and then we will find out if God joined you to me or not. He says that he will send storms to wash out which is not meant to be in the body. So if you aren’t joined by God then we will see how long you stay. So point again is that God has a yoke for you and it will be a much better life if you choose to take it. I am done rambling now. Thanks,