The Lighter Yoke

UV 2736/10000 The Lighter Yoke
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.
Matthew 11 v 29
A heavy yoke is used for ploughing hard and dry ground. But when we give our hearts to Jesus, a light yoke is enough to plant the good seed in the smaller moist furrows of our hearts, minds and souls. The lighter yoke that Jesus offers us is the yoke of the fear of God. It is much lighter and burdensome than the yoke of the fear of man, fear of evil, fear of death, fear of judgment, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, fear of the future. The yoke of Jesus is the yoke of love or a deep and personal relationship with the Lord God Himself. All our earthly burdens will feel lighter as the Lord Himself lifts our burdens from our shoulders and off our minds. The yoke that is heavy and burdensome is to try to obtain our own salvation by our own efforts. The heavy yoke of this world are the sorrows and stress of a life without the help of the Creator-Redeemer. The lighter yoke is that Jesus Himself took the heavy burden or responsibility for bearing the consequences of sin upon Himself. We need not struggle with God and ourselves hereafter. The yoke that Jesus offers His followers is the yoke of wisdom. Wisdom is supernatural decisional intelligence that enables us to avoid the wrong choices that we are prone to as the physical descendants of Adam and Eve and to make the right choices as the spiritual descendants of Jesus. The yoke that Jesus gives us is the anointing of the Holy Spirit who inspires, guides, goads, informs, corrects, encourages, comforts, gifts us, builds us, empowers and enables us. The yoke of Jesus are the godly principles He taught us for in remembering, observing and keeping these we build our lives on an unshakeable rock foundation. If the foundation is rock , the load factor or the burden of the building of our lives will never come crashing down on account of overloading. The yoke that He gives us is the fellowship we have with Him and the fellowship of fellow believers in His name.

The yoke that Jesus offers us is that of learning from a real, living and perfect person- He Himself. We do not have the wearisome task of learning from books, from theories or through trial and error that often turns out to be ‘trial and terror’. The yoke that Jesus offers us is to be fruitful or productive in terms of our character and our qualities and not in terms of external or extraneous goals like worldly goods and wealth. The primary qualities of Jesus that we need to model on and emulate are His meekness and gentleness despite having all the armies of heaven, the chariots of fire at His beck and call any time. He did not rely on power but on love and meekness to touch and transform human lives.

The rest, relief, release, healing and renewal we receive by accepting the yoke of Jesus is not just for our bodies or minds but for our souls and spirits. We experience inner strength, vision, healing, deliverance, restoration, revival, transformation of both our character, our perspectives and our destiny. We will run and not get tired as the more we run for the Lord, the more energy and strength we derive from Him. We will rise on the wings of prayer and the Word to the very throne room of heaven. We will begin to realize that no task is too difficult, no difficulty will be too unbearable, no barrier will be insurmountable.
Prateep V Philip