Month: April 2020

“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

            Are you weary? Do the cares of life seem to weigh heavy on your shoulders? Has your situation made you feel as if you can hardly put one foot in front of the other? Oh, maybe not physically. But you just don’t know how you can go on another week, another day, trusting that God will help. After all, He hasn’t seemed to act in your situation yet. How much longer do you have to wait? How long do you need to carry this burden? In those times, these verses can feel like a drink of cool water on a blistering hot day. So let’s take a closer look at them and see what God has promised – and what He hasn’t.

            First, He tells us to come. He never forces us. He’s not telling a wayward child to get over here or else! He’s giving an invitation. Is the sun beating down too hard on your hot head? He’s inviting you into the shade. Are your legs about to buckle from the weight? He’s inviting you to sit. You don’t have to. If you want to keep carrying your burden all alone, He won’t stop you. And He won’t rescind the invitation, either. Anytime you decide to accept His help, He’ll be there, ready and waiting with that drink of cool, clear water.

            He has promised us rest. There are times when I think that His rest must be a mirage in the desert because I’ve been struggling for so long that I can’t hardly believe it’s possible to be relieved of my burden. But that’s what He’s promised. But He didn’t promise that we’ll be burdenless. He doesn’t say to lay down our yokes and He will carry them for us. What He’s offering is to take the yoke the world has laid on us and replace it with His yoke. Why would we want to do that? What’s the point in just trading one burden for another? Let’s look at who’s giving us those yokes. The yoke of the world is actually from Satan, the one who has come to steal and kill and destroy. He’ll keep piling the weight on us until we collapse under the strain. But the other yoke is from the Savior of our souls, the One Who died to save us from the yoke of sin and death. His yoke is easy. It’s light. It’s not something that will crush us. Rather, it will be a joy to carry His yoke.

            I need to ask myself whose yoke I’m carrying. Am I trying to meet the world’s standards? Am I living in fear and worry? Am I concerned about receiving my fair reward for my work? All of these are signs that I’m carrying the world’s burden, a burden that will become too heavy for me. But if I’m living in the peace that can only come from Christ, if I have joy even in the midst of difficult circumstances, if my truest heart’s desire is to grow closer to Christ, then I have exchanged the unbearable yoke for one that promises the true rest that comes only from Christ.

“Simon Peter . . . wrapped his outer garment around him . . . and jumped into the water.” John 21:7

            After Jesus’ resurrection and initial appearance to the disciples, the disciples decided to head back north to the Sea of Galilee and go fishing. I think that’s so interesting! They had devoted three years of their lives to following Jesus. Now Jesus had been crucified. Even though He had risen from the dead, there was no physical, human person to follow. So they went back to what they did before meeting Jesus. They went back to fishing on the Sea of Galilee. I wonder if they thought that the wonderful time of following Jesus was now over so it was time to go back to “normal” life. But Jesus wouldn’t let them get away with that. He showed up on the shore of the lake.

            Let’s picture this scene. The disciples are on a boat out on the lake. They’ve been fishing all night but the fishing trip was a complete failure. At least from a human perspective. They didn’t catch a single thing. Then Jesus supplies them with a miraculously huge catch. But He’s not even in the boat with them. He’s still on the shore. I was once asked where I see myself. Am I on the boat, struggling with the heavy nets full of fish, or am I on the shore sitting at the feet of Jesus? My answer was that I don’t see myself in either place. I’m like Peter. I’ve jumped in the water and I’m swimming towards Jesus. I want desperately to be closer to Him but I don’t feel that I’ve arrived yet.

            Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about when life gets “back to normal.” And maybe it will. Or maybe life will never be quite the same again. There’s no way for any of us to really know for sure what it’s going to be like. But the bigger question is this: after you’ve given your life to Jesus, did your life go back to the old normal? If so, I challenge you to ask God where He wants to make changes in your life. Because if you’re trying to live life like you did before meeting Jesus, your own attempts will fail. You’ll fish all night without catching a single fish. But Jesus isn’t going to leave you there. He’s asking you to come to Him, listen to Him, follow Him. Let Him fill your net with the largest catch you’ve ever had. But it’s not that catch that’s the most important. Jesus is more important than anything. So where are you? Are you on the boat, trying to do the work yourself? Are you sitting at the feet of Jesus, allowing Him to feed you? Or are you somewhere in between, recklessly jumping out of the boat and into the water just to be closer to Him? Whatever our “new normal” looks like after quarantine, allow Jesus to change your spiritual normal to something better and greater than you can imagine. Take the leap. Jump into the water and start swimming to Him!

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

            There is so much packed in this one little verse. What catches my attention is the word “hope.” Maybe because while this verse also mentions joy, peace and trust, hope is the only one mentioned twice. Or maybe because hope is something our world desperately needs right now. But I think that it caught my eye mainly because all Christians should be living a resurrection life. What do I mean by that? Well, put very simply, a life of hope. A life that knows that no matter what’s going on down here on earth, Christ has already won the victory over that! That means that we, too have the victory because we have Christ living in us.

            What does the scripture mean by the word, “hope?” It’s very different than how that word is used in the world. Usually when we use the word, we mean that we would like it if something happened. We don’t know if it will, but it sure would be nice. You know, I hope the Cubs have a good season. I hope I get that raise. I hope it’s nice weather on the day of our special event. All of that is nothing more than wishful thinking that may or may not come true. The Bible isn’t talking about wishful thinking. Rather, the Greek word used here means expectation. When we say we hope in Christ, we mean that we know that we know that we know that He is the only way to God. We hope in His return. We hope in our eternity with Him in heaven. Those things are our expectations, not our wishful thinking. I love how this verse says that God is the God of hope, and that He gives us hope. He doesn’t keep all the hope to Himself. In fact, He gives us so much that we overflow with expectation!

            Before we have the hope, we have joy and we have peace. Those are some pretty amazing words. Have you ever rejoiced in the midst of hard times? I don’t mean that you go into denial about the bad stuff and sing happy little ditties all day. I mean that in the midst of grief or heartache, you also have joy. They co-exist. That’s the joy that Christ offers us. He doesn’t stop there. He also gives us peace. It may be complete turmoil around us but still we can have that deep peace that just can’t be understood. It’s not understood because it doesn’t come from the world. It comes from the Holy Spirit living within us. Because of this deep joy and deep peace, we live our lives in expectation. We know that Jesus has conquered death and the grave. We know He lives within us. We know He’s cleansed us of all our sins. We know He has given us eternal life. And so we wait in expectation of what He’ll do next. And we eagerly await His work in our lives and in our world. That’s what it means to live a resurrection life! Go in hope, my friends!

“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’” John 20:19

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” Acts 2:1, 2

            Quarantining is not something new. Through the years, people have quarantined for various reasons. Usually it’s for health reasons, like we’re experiencing today. In these cases, the quarantine is for two reasons: to keep yourself safe and to keep the sickness from spreading to others. There’s usually a great deal of fear. It’s hard to not be afraid when you can almost have the feeling that if you get too close to another person, you’re going to be attacked by a tiny, microscopic virus. As if that’s not bad enough, you don’t even need to be close to the person. The virus might be on any surface you may touch. All the precautions we hear about on the news may make us want to dig ourselves a hole where we can hide.

            Let’s take a look at when the disciples self-quarantined. I see twice in scripture when they were intentionally isolated. The first time, in the book of John, it specifically says they didn’t just go into a room alone, but they locked themselves in. It’s not wrong to be cautious. But this was a fear of what others, specifically the Jewish leaders, would do to them. It was a real possibility that they would be harmed, considering what had been done to Jesus. So I don’t blame them for being cautious. In fact, I think I probably would have high-tailed it out of the city. But while they were “safe” in their quarantine, what happened? The closed and locked door proved to be no barrier for Jesus! Suddenly, He was with them. What?! First, He was supposed to be dead! Second, how did He get in?! As if it’s not enough to be afraid that the Jewish leaders will take their lives, they’re now confronted with what they thought was a ghost. In the midst of all this fear, Jesus brings them peace. Along with that peace is the joy that comes from knowing that death has no power over Jesus!

            Fifty days later, they’re again alone together. This time it doesn’t say they were afraid. Rather, they were waiting. They didn’t know what they were waiting for, but they were told to wait so that’s what they were doing. As they were once again in isolation, suddenly the Holy Spirit fell on them like tongues of fire and the church was born! Those present began speaking in tongues so that all around could understand their message. Peter, who had denied Jesus out of fear for his life, began preaching to the crowd. That day they baptized about three thousand new believers! As we read further into scripture, we see that the gospel message continued to spread from there to reach out to all corners of the globe.

            What’s God going to do with our time of quarantine? I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty excited to see how He’s going to use this time. The peace we can experience is so wonderful! It truly is a peace that passes all understanding. My prayer is that the rest of the world will see the peace exhibited by those of us who follow Christ and they will want that same peace in the midst of a fearful situation. I’m also anxious to see if God will use this time – and us – to start a revival both within His church and without. Holy Spirit, fall on us as You did on the original disciples! Make us willing to be used for God’s purposes and God’s glory!