TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:30
Read: Matthew 11:30
Listen: Matthew 11
TODAY’S MESSAGE
Describing a team of oxen plowing a field in 1st-century Israel would have certainly included words like “difficult, monotonous, tedious and slow.” An observer of this scene would never have used words like “easy and light” to describe two oxen in a yoke. Those words and that device were never in the same sentence. That’s why it got the attention of his listeners when Jesus described his yoke that way. “Yoke” and “easy” never went together.
Watch this video clip below as Pastor Jeff Manion tells why Jesus describes his yoke as “easy and light.” The reason is that we are with him. We are yoked with the One who gave himself for us. By being yoked with him, we work in concert with him as he makes us like himself.
When Jesus left the earth and returned to heaven, he promised his followers that the Holy Spirit would be with them (John 15:15-17) and would actually live inside them (1 Corinthians 3:16). It is through the Spirit that we have the power to be who we’re supposed to be. Jesus’ yoke is “easy and light” because it allows us to work in concert with God in humility of spirit. It doesn’t bring the heaviness like other yokes.
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
The Apostle Paul tells us to “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). This means that we are wholly yielded to him and the work God wants to do in our lives. As you begin your day, open your hands and offer this prayer to God, “Father, I thank you for your Spirit who lives in me. I desire to be filled with the Spirit today. I want what you have for me. Help me to experience your yoke as easy and light today. Amen.”
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