Believing that Jesus is Lord and Savior, and following His example and keeping His laws....that’s His YOKE because the World will HATE you for it. Rejoice, God has Blessed you!
It means you are Submitting yourself to Christ and his ways.
Slipping into your “bad habits”. Before, you would not have recognized as bad. Now, you have the Holy Spirit in you, he will convict you when you sin.
As we strive to be ever more holy, we will stumble. We are to continually turn away from the sinful things we once entertained.
We should generally find our hearts no longer desire our ways of old. Jesus takes our burdens, which includes our inadequacy in our own endeavors to be more like Him, and loves us through them.
Pursue holiness, and you will find less opportunity for sin as a byproduct.
Old ‘habits’ or ‘sins’ sometimes die hard. Often habits or sins of a sexual nature can tempt even committed Christians their whole life.
Part of the strength in taking Christ’s yoke upon you is the deeper commitment you have to him to live as he has asked you to.
In seeking his spirit and help learn to rely on him and your commitment/relationship with him, and your desire to not offend him will help you overcome your old habits or sins.
When you fall or fail it is necessary to ask his forgiveness and at the same time forgive yourself. Your knowledge of your sins tend to make you feel separated from God.
It is very important to realize that it is not God that has withdrawn from you as a result of your sins, but you that has withdrawn from God.
pray to Jesus.
Think of yourself as an ox yoked to a wagon. Before, Satan and sin were your driver. Sin was driving you to your death, beating you the whole way. He was your master and life was miserable.
Now you’ve switched masters. You’re yoked to Jesus’ wagon. You’re obeying his commands. He’s leading you to eternal life. He feeds you and let’s you rest along the way. You now have a master leading you who loves you. Happiness is yours.
Your conviction when you sin is Jesus gentle tug on the reins.
I highly encourage you to explore www.BibleOptics.com. Our bible is a highly complex series of 66 books written hundreds of years apart to various audiences in multiple cultures and contextual settings. I’ve never been exposed to such depth of understanding until finding this ministry. May I suggest you submit your questions to Hassan online, and compare his answers along side the others you receive? Godspeed.
Allow me to post the scripture.
Matthew 11
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
A yoke is not just for oxen, as it also refers to a garment worn over a person’s shoulders where outer protective garments are attached.
When the Holy Spirit moves into you, you will physically feel it as a yoke on your shoulders and around your head. It becomes protective clothing for your soul. It is the light shown around the heads of saints in paintings.
When wearing this yoke, the burdens are lifted from you. People exclaim that they suddenly feel much lighter. I have observed obese people lose much weight with little effort. People’s eyes open wide and the light of their soul becomes visible. This is the same sparkle you see in the eyes of a young child.
The Holy Spirit has the ability to cleanse the sins from your soul causing you to feel much lighter. However, remember what Jesus said after He healed, “Go and sin no more.”
But we will sin and we will keep asking forgiveness and invite the Holy Spirit into us again.
When facing temptation to sin, I repeat the following words three times as a reminder and for strength..” I am the strength of the Holy Spirit in me now.”
There is NOTHING you can do to make yourself holy before the Lord Jesus. That is why you must take HIS yoke upon you and why His yoke is a light burden. He has done it all. We rest in Him.
If you truly want to be more like Him, then diligently study the Word to get to know God. The only way to know and be like someone, is to spend time with them. A question you might ask yourself is how much time do you want to give God from your schedule?
I know many would criticize me but I would also suggest reading John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion which discusses the character of God and of man. This provides a healthy perspective.
The key is "learn from me"; that is, this is not an invitation to salvation, as many suppose.
It cannot be about salvation, because being free from sin by faith in the shed blood of Jesus is NOT a burden, and it is not a yoke. A disciple is a "mathaytays" (Strong's Number G3101 in the Greek dictionary of his Exhaustive Concordance) from the Greek verbs "math-eh-oh" or "man-than-oh" mean "to learn" in English. A disciple is a learner.
The twelve disciples were chosen by Jesus to be His special group of students of godly living and thinking. They were inaugurated by the induction rite of water baptism, to be lifelong students with Him as the "rabbi" or master teacher.
So the yoke is a light one of enlisting as disciples becoming His regular student, and the burden is to learn of the Christian life with a view toward they themselves making and teaching more student disciples.
In the process, they would learn enough that after His death, resurrection, and ascension, they would be the ones upon which the Christian church assemblies of recruited disciples and learners, whose profession of believing on Jesus as their Savior and Master would admit them to be regular members of the assembly.
But the invitation is to a life of discipleship, not particularly to salvation.
You should count the beginning of the related material to start at verse 25, and in verse 27, in His prayer to the Fatherm He said:
"All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." (Mat 11:27 AV).
That is, He meant to reveal Who The Father was by teaching the disciples about God, about His ways, His will, and His work.
So, that is a brief summary about the meaning of this passage, Matthew 11:25-30.
Of course, one can become a learner, a disciple, by engaging with a discipler with enough spiritual maturity to be an acknowledged teacher with the delegated delegated authority to do so. And that could be any sincere Bible student whose practical application of Biblical principles in his/her life is well-accepted by other fellow Christians.
Just read over that passage with the above in mind, and you will see that it makes very clear sense, no argumentation desired or required. Jesus was showing how to learn a better life for those who live it.
People of various religious faiths, and of secular philosophies, will put huge burdens on themselves and others, with lots of restrictions on a person’s behavior and with associated guilt because you can’t perfectly follow all of the guidelines.
Jesus does not have a list of hundreds of things you must do, and He does not want you to go around with a continual burden of guilt. His burden is light. When asked what is the most important law,
37 Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV))
The apostle John wrote:
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9 (NIV))
Being a Christian is a matter of relationship with the living Son of God. It is not a stale set of rules.
Read Romans chapter 8. Here is an excerpt.
Romans 8:1-5 (NIV)
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
3 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,
4 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.
5 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.
Go to the local Roman Catholic parish church and inquire about Roman Catholic Initiation of Adults or RCIA. Visit that parish’s website. Your parish is also within a diocese or archdiocese. Visit the diocesan website
“Catholic” means “universal”. The Catholic faith is the one true faith, ordained by God himself, not by man. Other Christian denominations will clamor for your attention.
Catholicism is the true “destination” faith. Accept no substitute.
Once you get rolling you’ll need to make sure you are not led astray by post-conciliar innovations. Check back with me if you have questions. God bless you!
I asked the same question, and for me, the answer was in the words of Jesus in the rest of the verses:
29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
The empty promises of this world, the seeking of earthly pleasures that quickly fade, the burdens of sin, the lies of Satan, the brokenness of humanity, and the hopelessness that comes from living this life and facing death without God, it is a heavy, heavy burden.
But in Christ, we have hope. We have His peace with the world can never give. He is there every second of our lives, to help us face any circumstance, great or small. He ministers to us, and we find we are never alone. In Him, we have hope that even if we were to die today, we would be with the Lord. Jesus is so kind, so loving to me. In my mind, I can sometimes hear his "voice" in my soul. It is the most gentle, but powerful, "voice" I have ever heard.
I am not sure if I said it very eloquently, but that's what comes through to me.
Have a great day!
There have been some good answers to your question. I think that most of them are assuming that you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I want to make sure you know what that means. .. To be in Heaven for eternity, you must know Jesus as your Lord and Savior — meaning that you believe He died on the cross to pay for your sins, and that you believe He rose from the dead so you can have eternal life with Him and all believers in Heaven. .. So if you haven’t yet, I pray that you ask Jesus Christ into your heart, for Him to be your Lord and Savior. The only way that your sins can be forgiven is to believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. .. That’s how it is for any of us. We remain sinners, but the Holy Spirit that lives within we believers lets us know when we sin, and we try more and more to stop our sins, because we love Jesus and are thankful for what He did for us. We continue to sin, but we ask God for forgiveness, and He continues to lovingly work with us to bring us closer to Him. He makes the yoke light, when we try with our heart to please Him. It is the best life here, and even more important, it guarantees us an eternal life in which we feel perfect joy and peace.
ping for later
Others have already addressed parts of your question, so I'll tackle this part.
Slipping back into our old habits that are (spiritually) unhealthy is something we all do sooner or later, it's part of spiritual warfare. Satan attacks us where we are the most vulnerable constantly and yes, that means we slip and fall.
It's important to remember we're all sinners and no matter how hard we try, we will always sin in one way or another. What matters most is that we recognize it, seek forgiveness and try again. And again, and again, and again. As many times as we have to. Recognizing our sins and seeking forgiveness from them along with help from the Holy Spirit is key. That is what we are asked to do.
Now I'll tell you I certainly have my own problems not disappointing our Father in Heaven and as often as I pray and try not cursing someone through the windshield as I drive, I often fail. I count my victories where I find them and use that as encouragement to keep going. Don't just count the number of times you "slip and fall" into past behavior, you count the times you DO NOT. Acknowledge those victories, thank Jesus for them and keep going!!
Above all else, do not keep kicking yourself when you fall into a past behavior. Acknowledge it, pray about it and let it go. Try again. If you keep kicking yourself, Satan wins. Don't let him. That's not what our Father in Heaven wants from you. He wants you to keep trying and count the small victories where you find them. Give Him the glory for them and keep going.
Hang in there, it's a struggle and it's lifelong. It's worth it.
When the Bible talks about the poor in spirit having the kingdom of Heaven to look forward to, it’s because once you have given yourself to Christ, you recognize your sinful nature and the helplessness of trying to “be good” - and it bothers you which makes realization of His gift all the more amazing....He has made you worthy - warts and all.
Check out Dennis Prager’s Rational Bible, Genesis, and Exodus at Amazon. Being sold at cost now (approx. $18). You’ll learn a lot.
Lots of great posts.
For a long time I had seen it as a yoke of burden - like an oxen yoke. I’ll look into another’s comment regarding new clothing - that is interesting. But even as an oxen yoke, I have learned and now view it as being yoked with Jesus. He is powerful, and will do most of the pulling. He is Lord, and I need to follow Him - so I need to give up control and trust in Him.