Have you ever felt like you are carrying the weight of the world? Like everyone is placing one task after another on your shoulders? It's almost like someone is adding a 50lb weight one after another, and you can’t move from the amount that is weighing you down. I’m sure that a ton of people have felt this way at some point. I know that I have. However, there is Good news! Even though it seems like the weight you carry will last a lifetime, Jesus Himself has an invitation for us as His children. There is this event in my life that made me think about this feeling, and it was recently when my family was leaving the airport, and as it was time for us to get into the van and I stood up as I watched my three-year-old brother struggling to stand up from sitting on the ground. It was not until about 3 or 4 times of him attempting to stand up for me to realize that he was wearing a backpack that was packed full which was weighing him down from something that he can usually do really quickly. At this point, I walked over to lift him by the handle of his backpack when he was finally able to stand up with my support. When I took the backpack off, it wasn’t very heavy for me, but I knew it was almost unbearable for him to carry it all on his own. In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus shows His desire to lift the weight of our own load by saying, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yolk is easy and my burden is light." (CSB) My brother was ready to go home, but his heavy load stopped him from being able to continue forward in what we were doing, just like that story, Jesus wants to be the one who picks us up and to carry our load so that we can continue with His plans for our lives. As we can see in scripture, Jesus is "gentle and humble in heart" (NIV), and he won’t judge us or be mad at us for surrendering the weight on our shoulders to him. He wants to help us!! Because of Jesus's love for us, he doesn’t expect us to come to Him at our absolute best but exactly where we are. He says come to me, "Weary and burdened,” and gives them rest. Jesus does this freely because he knows that putting on the extra weight from our sins, experiences, grudges, or even our ways of living will 100% slow us down from what he has for us. Now though our weight may be too heavy for us, our load is not too heavy for Jesus. Just like when I finally took off my brother‘s book bag, it wasn’t very heavy for me, but that weight stopped him from doing things that he was already capable to do if he didn’t have that extra weight. So how do we get rid of our weight? Jesus himself says it! Surrender it to Him. What that takes is us saying, "Jesus reveals to me the weight that I am carrying and help me to give it to you.” This is such an important thing to do because God intends for us to live a life of freedom, especially from the weight of our sin, and He shows this when He sent his son to die in the cross. Remember that Jesus turns WEARINESS —> REST and turns the BURDENED—> FREE.
Prayer:
Thank you, Jesus, for carrying all the weight that you never intended me to carry. Thank you for dying on the cross so that I can live in freedom and not in bondage of my sin. I pray even now that you start to reveal to me the areas in my life where I have been trying to carry my own weight. Jesus, I pray that you can help me to lean on you and lay down all the excess weight I’ve been carrying at your feet. I pray that you help me walk in freedom, knowing that you not only want to help me carry the weight but to remove the things that are weighing me down.
Amen
Written by: Gem
Worship Song: