Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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 NASB
Jesus always knows what we need, and no one can meet our needs better. Jesus will meet us at the point of our need and do what is best for us in that moment according to what we are dealing with at the time. There are many different ways God provides us rest, and it may not always be the way we think He will or should.
Sometimes He Will Remove Your Burden - There are times when the Lord changes your situation in an instant, removing your burden. I don’t know about you, but this is normally the prayer I pray. I just want God to take it away, to fix it. I know in His sovereign power He can do anything right? He has all power, but He also knows all things. He in His omniscience knows what is best for me. I can find rest and peace by trusting Him when He doesn’t just take the hard things away instantly.
Sometimes He Will Relieve Your Burden - There are times when the Lord will leave the burden on your shoulders, but He will lighten the burden a little bit. He might not take the burden away completely but there will be some relief in some way. Again, if I trust in His infinite wisdom and love for me, I can find peace and rest in Him.
Sometimes He Will Rest You In Your Burden - This is the most common aid we receive from Him. He gives us grace to carry the load we have been assigned. He changes us in our situation instead of just changing our situation. - And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Corinthians 12:9
As we serve God, our relationship with Christ provides us the necessary rest required to continue our service. It is critical to find rest in Him and in our relationship with Him when we are carrying a heavy load.
Grace brings rest!
When Jesus said the words in the scripture passage above, He was speaking to Jews. He knew these groaned under the weight of their ceremonial laws and the traditions of the elders. He tells them that by coming to Him they would be freed from these burdensome rituals and ceremonies. Christ tells them to come to him, to believe in him, and to trust him, and him only, for salvation. Doing this, He will give them rest - rest from their sins, from the alarms of conscience, from the terrors of the law, and from the fears of eternal death. These Jews had sought to find favor with God through the Law.
With grace we can rest in the arms of acceptance and sufficiency through the blood of Jesus Christ. When we know the grace of our God we can rest. When we have God’s grace, we are accepted, forgiven, loved, and redeemed. The penalty of the Law is cancelled by the payment of our Lord. We receive healing, prosperity and eternal relationships through the grace of God. The first time grace is mentioned is in Genesis. Here is an interesting scriptural insight from the Genesis statement Noah found grace (favor) in the eyes of the Lord. The name Noah in the Hebrew means Rest. Rest found grace. The key to finding the grace of God is to rest in the work of Christ, and that takes trust. We must trust in Him to find real rest.
