Tag Archives: yoke

YOKED WITH JESUS

Christian Life, ,

Matthew11:28-30 NLT
[28] “Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

For us who live in the age of mechanisation, the idea of ploughing with oxen in a yoke is unfamiliar except, of course, to those who function in simpler cultures.

How does a young ox learn to accept a yoke? He is paired with an older, more experienced ox who patiently teaches him by example how to plough in harmony with his partner in the yoke.

If the young ox resists the discipline of the yoke, he will find that the yoke has chafed him and caused raw spots that hurt as he pulls the plough. Only when he learns to keep in step with his mentor will he find the yoke easy and comfortable. The ploughman does not adjust the yoke to suit the ox. The ox must surrender to the shape of the yoke.

After much patience, trial and error, the young ox eventually learns to buckle down to authority and to pull the plough in step with his partner. Once the yoke has done its work, the young ox is refashioned into a seasoned ox who knows and understands what the ploughman expects of him.

What a marvellous picture of our journey through life yoked to our great mentor, Jesus, the “OLD OX” in the yoke.

Jesus has fashioned a yoke for His followers that is both easy and light, a way of life God intended for us from the beginning. Obedience to His yoke, though contrary to the world’s ways, and difficult to do at times, brings peace of mind, heart, and conscience.

He gave His twelve apostles the authority, through the Holy Spirit, to understand and teach His yoke to all who come after them. God’s prophetic revelation of the nature and work of His Messiah in the Old Testament Scriptures, formed the foundation of those who wrote the New Testament. The apostles perfectly matched Jesus with the Old Testament blueprint. They recognised that He fitted the image and yoke of the one about whom God foretold.

It was specifically His yoke, His character and ways, that matched the God of the Old Testament, and that alerted the apostles to Jesus’ true identity. It was the Father’s love, vividly replicated in Jesus’ love for all people, that revealed the true nature of God, and set Jesus apart from all other people.

How best can we describe Jesus’ yoke? How can we know the nature of that yoke? We gaze at Him. Everything He said and did is a revelation of His yoke, best described in two words, mercy and grace.

The Hebrew word, “chesed”, untranslatable by one word in English, sums up Jesus’ yoke perfectly. The meaning of our English word, “love”, has been so corrupted by sin that it falls far short of its true meaning. However…

“Chesed” is God’s love, in all its dimensions, for His people in a covenant relationship, and expressed in His mercy and grace. Mercy rescued us from a well-deserved eternity in hell and grace provides everything we need to live godly lives in an ungodly world. Jesus lived this yoke in His dealings with all people and He requires that all who would follow Him, do the same.

Jesus intends for us to wear His yoke by believing who He is, submitting to His absolute authority, and treating others as He treats us. Through us, our words and actions, He replaces the yokes of bondage to which people are subject by what they believe, and how they behave, with His yoke of freedom….from every thought and action that produce guilt, fear, and shame.

Belief systems and their practices take many forms. Religious yokes tie their devotees to legalistic bondage by observing rules and rituals of do’s and don’ts in order to please their god or gods. Denominational yokes impose the restrictions of specific interpretations of Scripture on their followers. Then there are cultural yokes, political yokes, and even family tradition yokes which all result in bondage of some kind or another. People are born into or forced under these restrictions that eventually shape conscience and character.

Jesus swept all these false yokes aside by offering a way of life that frees us from the inward bondage these yokes, or failure to observe the requirements of these yokes, incurs.

I think that the yokes humans have invented are many ways to deal with sin, or what we consider to be “sin” in the eyes of whatever authority under which we fall. So, we must observe all the provisions and restrictions of our particular yoke to have inward peace. However, it doesn’t work that way. Whatever we do in the form of behaviour can never change our hearts.

Jesus insisted that sin – everything we are, say, and do contrary to God – comes from the heart and affects our behaviour, not the other way around. Before we can enjoy the inward peace (rest) His yoke provides, we must first embrace His teaching, i.e., exchange whatever we believe for the truth.

John 8:31-32 NLT
[31] “Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. [32] And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Now, that’s a revolutionary statement if it is true! Jesus declared that, if we ditch every other yoke, and believe and live by His teaching, we will enjoy an inward rest no other yoke promises or provides. No guilt, shame, or fear!

Is this true? Ask the millions, down the generations, who have believed and done what Jesus instructed. There is no other “freedom” better than the freedom Jesus offers to those who believe in Him. This freedom includes freedom from worry and anxiety, freedom from the fear of punishment, of the future, and even of death, and the freedom from the tyranny of conscience when we invade other people’s lives with our intrusions.

The reality is that those who choose to wear Jesus’ yoke without altering it in any way, enjoy a life of inward rest despite the chaos of outward circumstances. This yoke includes absolute confidence in the unconditional love of a perfect Father, and a life of unselfish service to others out of love for Jesus. He set the standard by His earthly life and we watch and follow Him through the influence of His Spirit in us.

The New Testament fleshes out His yoke so that we have every provision for living under His authority and enjoying the rest He promised.

It’s up to us to receive by faith and live by grace under the yoke that frees us from all other yokes.

Galatians 5:1 NIV
[1] “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Show Us Your Credentials

Christian Life, , , ,

SHOW US YOUR CREDENTIALS

“One day He was teaching the people in the Temple, proclaiming the Message. The high priests, religion scholars and leaders confronted Him and demanded, ‘Show us your credentials. Who authorised you to speak and act like this?’

“Jesus answered, ‘First let me ask you a question. About the baptism of John — who authorised it, heaven or humans?’

“They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, ‘If we say ‘heaven’, He’ll ask us why we didn’t believe Him; if we say ‘humans’, the people will tear us limb from limb, convinced as they are that John was God’s prophet.’ They agreed to concede that round to Jesus and said they didn’t know.

“Jesus said, ‘Then neither will I answer your question.'” Luke 20:1-8 (The Message).

Jesus was smart. He knew that the religious leaders had no interest in the answer to their question other than to use it against Him. They were building their case against Him and the answer to this question was an important weapon in their arsenal.

Jesus was a rabbi with authority, which meant that He had the right to determine how He would interpret the Torah and how He would apply His interpretation in His own life and teaching. This was called His ‘yoke’ and was binding upon His disciples as well; they were obligated to wear His yoke and to ‘bind’ in on their followers, loosing them from the yoke of any other rabbi. Any deviation or addition meant that they were automatically disqualified from being His disciples.

Since Jesus had the supreme authorisation of His Father and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, (“When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too. And as He was praying, the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, you are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.'” Luke 3:21, 22. NIV), His yoke carried more authority than the yoke of any other rabbi.

The religious leaders were following the yoke of the chief rabbis of their day, which was in conflict with Jesus’ yoke. They strictly and rigidly stuck to the Law of God, and the many additions made by their religious authorities through the years, which distorted the character of God until He was unrecognisable as the God of their fathers. The God who had revealed Himself to Moses as “gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness, forgiving sin…” Exodus 34:6, was buried under a terrible weight of do’s and don’ts which effectively made the people slaves of religion.

Jesus came to reveal the true nature of the Father and to set His people free from the terrible yoke of legalism. No wonder He earnestly extended His invitation to His harassed people, “‘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).

Since Jesus came to reveal the heart of a loving and compassionate Father, it was inevitable that He would clash with the religious leaders because they held the power over the people and would not easily relinquish it to the likes of Jesus who continually humiliated them by the way He applied His yoke of mercy and compassion to suffering people. Like all false religions, they ruled the people by the fear of punishment and hated the exposure of their own wicked hearts.

Jesus was always one step ahead. Instead of answering their question as they wanted Him to, which would have been, for them, an admission of blasphemy, He asked them a question, ‘Who gave John his authority?’ Their response would incriminate them, one way or the other. To admit that John was a prophet of God would expose their guilt because they refused to acknowledge or believe him, and he had come to introduce Jesus as Messiah! To deny his heavenly calling would be to admit their guilt and risk the loss of their power over the people.

The very fact that Jesus lived and acted in harmony with God’s revelation of Himself in the Torah was proof enough that His credentials were impeccable – He was the living embodiment of the Father and the religious leaders could not fault Him. In fact, they had no answer to His challenge, ‘Who of you convinces me of sin?’

They had trapped themselves and they had to concede defeat.

Give God What is His

Christian Life, , , ,

GIVE GOD WHAT IS HIS

“Watching for a chance to get Him, they sent spies who posed as honest enquirers, hoping they could trick Him into saying something that would get Him in trouble with the law. So they asked Him,…’Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’

“He knew they were laying for Him and said, ‘Show me a coin. Now this engraving, who does it look like and what does it say?’

“‘Caesar,’ they said.

“Jesus said, ‘Then give Caesar what is his and give God what is His.’

Try as they might, they couldn’t trap Him into saying anything incriminating. His answer caught them off guard and left them speechless.” Luke 20:20-26 (The Message)

Got them again!

Jesus was no push-over. These so-called ‘spiritual’ men had still not learned not to mess with Him. They always came off second best. This time it was about taxes. The Jewish people chafed at their Roman overlords’ taxation on top of the tithes, offerings and temple taxes they had to pay. It was a heavy burden on them and brought many of them into poverty.

But there was a more sinister issue at stake. Jesus was a rabbi with authority which meant that His disciples were obliged to copy everything He said and did. What He said about paying taxes would reveal His heart attitude to the Roman government which He would pass on to His disciples with possible serious results.

If He showed any antagonism towards Rome, He would be suspected of treason. His opponents were trying to catch him off guard so that He would unwittingly incriminate Himself and open Himself to arrest by the Roman soldiers.

But Jesus was too smart to be caught out. His response was not a spur-of-the-moment reaction. He was not only on guard; He was also well-prepared because of His complete understanding of God’s kingdom and how to live in it in the earthly environment. In every situation He faced as an earthling, He viewed His life from God’s perspective and taught His disciples to do the same.

Unlike us, who easily forget God, He lived His life with His Father in the centre. Everything He thought and did came out of His union with the Father. His answer to their question gives us insight into the way we should live in the kingdom of God so that we best represent Him in an ungodly environment.

In His high-priestly prayer He put in a nutshell what our attitude should be to the world system in which we live. “‘My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.'” John 17:15-16 (NIV).

As long as we live in the world, we are subject to the systems humans have put in place, including submission to earthly government, and God expects us to fulfil our obligations as unto Him. However, we have a different disposition from the people of the world, the nature and presence of God infused into us by the Holy Spirit. Not to be ‘of the world’ implies that we bring the disposition of Jesus into the way we live.

He showed us how by the way He honoured and respected all people, treating them with compassion and generosity and revealing the love of the Father by His loving and caring attitude.

To ‘give to Caesar’ implied civil obedience while to ‘give to God’ meant not only submitting to His supreme authority over everything, but also living in such a way that we make ‘up there’ come ‘down here’. We are, first and foremost, representatives of the way God runs things, and that includes loyally submitting to the government in everything that does not clash with God’s kingdom and His ways.