Come to Jesus
Today, Pastor Henry continued to talk about Prayer and started with the invitation of Jesus in 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."
Jesus invites us to come to Him and take His yoke upon us because His yoke is easy. A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of oxen and is attached to heavy equipment that they must pull. Why would Jesus’ yoke be easy? One reason why we know it’s easy is because He has all power and authority in heaven and earth to forgive and restore. In the Bible, we saw where He was able to calm the storms and heal the paralytic man, and we can even point to times in our own lives where He brings us love, healing, and peace.
Pastor Henry then talked about what it means to take Jesus yoke upon us. When we are yoked with God, He pulls us along and teaches us. We allow His voice to come right in to our situation. We need to be connected, or yoked, to Him so we can hear Him and then we can also speak to Him in prayer. Henri Nouwen described prayer as the way to connect the things that trouble us to the gentle and humble heart of Jesus. So prayer, then, is like a bridge where we can transfer our burdens and find rest for our souls. As a real life example, Skip and Gord shared their powerful experience from last week when they shared their burden with Christ’s Body. When we prayed for them, they felt peace as their burden was lifted. Our God is amazing!
1 Comments:
I thought the little drama that Pastor Henry presented as he shared the burden in his own life was so effectitve. You could almost feel the weight of the burden we hold on to as Pastor Henrey became more and more stooped over. When he straightened up and the burden had been shared through prayer and the awesome power of Jesus, I felt relieved for him. And for me. I was reminded to pray for our pastors who are real people with their own burdens. I was reminded to release my own burdens by responding to Jesus' invitation to come.
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