“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.”** Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)**
The Lord Jesus here issues a call to all who will trust in Him for salvation – the ordinary, the sinner, the burdened, the weary and tired, those laden with the consequences of their own poor choices – indeed, all who will trust in Him are accepted as He turns no one away. And who doesn’t that include? No one leads a perfect life. We are all big fat sinners in need of a Savior. Further, as we yoke ourselves to the only One who can save us from ourselves, as we yoke ourselves to Him and learn from Him, our soul’s find rest in God alone. Rest from our burdens, rest from our guilty consciences, rest from our “works” orientation, indeed, rest from our stinking selves. With Jesus our yoke’s become easy and our burdens light. He is God with us.
We do not have to dress ourselves up in a pretense of piety or climb the ladder of success and amass great fortunes. Neither do we have to be high on the social strata wearing all the “right” clothes, having all the “right” friends, living in all the “right” neighborhoods with all the “right” chattel. God does not look at the outside but the inside. A gentle and quiet spirit is precious in His sight and so is a broken and contrite heart. If we strip away all the outward props that we seek to lean into to make ourselves feel better about ourselves and realize what Jesus did to save our very ordinary lives, we rightly become filled with love and appreciation for all that the Lord has done and continues to do for us. He died to save us. He is God in us, God with us, and God for us. This is why the Apostle Paul proclaimed so eloquently in Romans 8:1-9 (NIV): “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”
Paul tells us also Jesus is the image of the invisible God and He is the sweetest, clearest, most comfortable manifestation of God. Indeed, He calls us His friend. Also, Jesus claimed in John 14:9 (NIV): “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” For those who trust in Him, Jesus is God in us, God with us, and God for us.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.** Colossians 1:15-20 (NIV)**