Jesus invites all burdened individuals to come to Him for rest, yet so often we misunderstand what He is offering. When stresses and problems weigh us down, the most natural response is to ask God for relief: “Lord, I can’t carry this anymore. I’m going to leave it here with you.” Having dumped the burden like a bag of garbage, we walk away but remained unchanged inside.

God doesn’t operate that way. Christ’s invitation is to join Him in the yoke so you can walk and work together. He doesn’t want just your burden; He wants you! The yoke of Christ is a symbol of discipleship, characterized by submission and obedience to Him. God’s goal isn’t simply to give relief by removing a weighty trial or affliction; He longs to draw you to Himself in a close and trusting relationship. Those who take Him up on His offer will be transformed and won’t ever return to their old ways.

The process of lightening the load begins with learning to know and understand the Lord. The burden is not necessarily removed, but our thoughts and responses are changed as we begin to love Him, trust Him, believe His promises, and rely on His power. Then, as the weight of the affliction shifts from our shoulders to His, we will discover relief, although the situation may remain unchanged.

Being yoked with Christ results in rest for your soul. Life’s pressures may not lessen, but if you are intimately linked with Jesus, your soul is free from churning anxiety, and His peace is ruling in your heart. Jump into His yoke. You have nothing to lose—except your weariness—and much to gain.

Are you trying to bear your life burdens by yourself?

When was the last time you explicitly turned to Jesus in prayer and said something like this: “I am weary and have many burdens. My soul needs rest. I trust in You. Help me Jesus.” (CHARLES STANLEY)

Our faith, the Christian faith is not dependent on whether things are going well for us or hard. My faith doesn’t depend on whether crazy, amazing, powerful things are happening in my life or whether crazy, horrendous, awful things are happening. My faith should not be rocked if God doesn’t come through how and when I want. We need to learn stop looking at our circumstances to see if God loves us, to see if He’s good, to see if He’s true.

Faith looks not at visible circumstances but at the invisible God revealed in His Word – His character, His actions in history, His promises. Character: God is all-good and all-powerful and all-wise. We trust Him. Actions: God has orchestrated a big picture plan with twists and turns, and ups and downs, but moving to a good ending. Look at Hebrews 11: 39-40 – “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” He has a bigger plan. Promises: God has promised that this world is not all there is. There is an eternity ahead. “Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

If God is working in your life through success – thank Him, enjoy it, and give Him all the glory. If God is working in your life through suffering – you can still thank Him, endure it, and give Him all the glory. I’m not saying you can’t lament or feel. In fact, it’s good to feel; we need to feel the sorrows of sin, the deeper we feel the sadness the higher we can feel the joy when it comes. “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Faith is not erased by those feelings of sadness. Real faith is not lost when disappointments come. Faith looks not at circumstances but at God’s character, actions, and promises.

Faith also doesn’t look at others. We can’t focus on our current situation or compare ourselves with other people’s stories. Here’s the thing: everybody, even if their lives look successful in some ways, will experience severe disappointments and suffering. Often the success is coupled with suffering. Think back to Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel. Though they had great victories, if you read their stories carefully they also suffered great defeats and had heartache of varying degrees. I often tell people to be careful not to judge other people’s suffering or think that your suffering is unique and unmatched. We all will experience deep sorrow in this world, even if we also see great success.

The question is: what is your faith in? Is your faith dependent on present circumstance? If so, your faith will not last. Or is your faith in God’s Word? That is real faith. (NATHAN CARTER)

After surveying nearly 100 women, I found several common areas in which women, myself included, need the touch of God to be whole and complete. Ladies, see if you can relate to
needing God’s healing touch in these areas of your life, as well:

1. Our Hearts – So They Can Be “Set On Things Above”: Women often stress over the temporal – bills that must be paid, whether or not a man will come into our lives, if we’ll be able to have a child, what someone is saying about us, how our body looks, and so on. It takes God’s touch to clear our hearts of what this world says is important and focus it on the things above.

2. Our Minds – So They Are Transformed and Renewed: It’s amazing how many women profess to know God and follow Him, yet their thinking patterns are just like those of anyone else in the world. Scripture commands us: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is” (Romans 12:2). What mental anguish we would spare ourselves from if we would let God transform our mind and renew our thoughts to think as He would.

3. Our Mouths – To Be Wholesome and Pleasing to God: Because women tend to be communicators, we can cause much damage with our mouths if we do not bring them under God’s control. Whether it is gossip, criticism or unkind remarks, our mouths can be instruments of righteousness or unrighteousness. God’s touch on our lives can make us women whose words heal and encourage, rather than distract and destroy.

4. Our Bodies – To Be Pure and Holy for Him: Are you one to worry and stress about what the scale says, how many calories you took in, and whether or not you can still fit into a certain size? It is important that we keep our bodies healthy and in good shape (as we are His temple), but God says our most prevalent concern should be that we keep our bodies holy. In fact, God calls keeping our bodies holy our “spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1). One of the ways we can keep our bodies holy is by how we choose to dress. If the way we dress says “Look at me!” we may want to rethink how we dress so that others can see Christ through us.

5. Our Emotions – To Be Calmed with the Peace of God: There are days when, hormonally or just circumstantially, we need God’s touch to calm our frazzled emotions and level out our lives. Philippians 4:6-7 says “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and request to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel”. A woman who is controlled by God’s peace is not on the edge, but in the spacious place of His embrace.

I believe if we seek God’s touch in those five areas of our lives we would rarely have reason to feel we are going over the edge. (CINDI MCMENAMIN)

Philippians 2:3–8 stresses becoming a kind of person who is oriented on what others need, not just on our private desires. This is the great issue of life. Would we be selfish or would we be servants? The beautiful life, the Christ-honoring, Christlike life, is the life of serving others — not ignoring others or using others while we just go about our self-satisfied way. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others” — Now, that would include parents — “more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3–4). That includes aging parents.

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:5–7). He stoops from being the King of the universe to being a Servant, being born in the likeness of men, being found in human form. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

That is one of the most convicting, one of the most beautiful, one of the most transforming texts in the Bible. The great mark of the Christian, Paul says to the adult Christian child, is that they look not just to their interests in midlife as their careers reach their capstone. They look towards the interests of others, including aging parents. They count others, like their parents, as more significant than themselves. They don’t sit atop some pinnacle of privilege, but like Jesus, they come down to where the need is and serve even on to death. There’s a basic principle and a call in it.

Now, Jesus linked that love command with parents by putting them side by side in Matthew 19:19. He said, “Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” One way of honoring your parents is to love them as you love yourself.

One of the most beautiful examples of this is John 19:26. Despite Jesus’s unspeakable sufferings on the cross, He did exactly what Paul said; namely, He looked not to His own interests or His own pain. He looked to His mother’s. He was the eldest son of Mary. Joseph, evidently, was gone now. Custom would dictate that the firstborn takes special responsibility for his mom in her old age. He looks down from the cross and says to His mother, “Woman, behold your son,” and then He said to His disciple, “Behold your mother.” And “from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26–27).

Are we ready to make sacrifices for our parents? Or are we resentful that they are becoming a burden? That’s the real test. All of this may or may not mean that the parents come to live with us or near us. There are innumerable variables that make one situation right for one family and another situation right for another. The main issue for the Christian child of aging parents is not the precise circumstances. The main issue is, are we servants or are we selfish? Are we ready to sacrifice and trust God with the joy to meet every need? (JOHN PIPER)

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…
Matthew 28:19

Jesus Christ did not say, “Go and save souls” (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but He said, “Go…make disciples of all the nations….” Yet you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples returned from their first mission, they were filled with joy because even the demons were subject to them. But Jesus said, in effect, “Don’t rejoice in successful service— the great secret of joy is that you have the right relationship with Me” (see Luke 10:17-20). The missionary’s great essential is remaining true to the call of God, and realizing that his one and only purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. Remember that there is a passion for souls that does not come from God, but from our desire to make converts to our point of view.

The challenge to the missionary does not come from the fact that people are difficult to bring to salvation, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, or that there is a barrier of callous indifference. No, the challenge comes from the perspective of the missionary’s own personal relationship with Jesus Christ— “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (Matthew 9:28). Our Lord unwaveringly asks us that question, and it confronts us in every individual situation we encounter. The one great challenge to us is— do I know my risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit? Am I wise enough in God’s sight, but foolish enough according to the wisdom of the world, to trust in what Jesus Christ has said? Or am I abandoning the great supernatural position of limitless confidence in Christ Jesus, which is really God’s only call for a missionary? If I follow any other method, I depart altogether from the methods prescribed by our Lord— “All authority has been given to Me….Go therefore…” (Matthew 28:18-19).
(OSWALD CHAMBERS: MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST)

Not only is the practice of setting out fleeces an indication of an immature faith, but it has some built-in problems associated with it. One
problem is that you can never be really sure with a fleece! Suppose you ask God for a sign from heaven in order to know if you should go on a certain trip or continue a certain relationship, and 3 days later you see a shooting star! “Wow!” you say. But then you begin to wonder, “Was that a sign from God or just a coincidence?” So what do you do next? Chances are that you’ll do exactly what Gideon did–you’ll “tighten the boundaries” on the sign to be really sure. “Lord, may I see 3 shooting stars in the northern sky in the next 48 hours, if my decision is Your will!” But can you ever put out enough fleeces to be 100% sure? And where does faith end and manipulation of God begin?

Tightening the boundaries leads to another built-in problem. Fleece-setting may not be wrong but it comes dangerously close to testing the Lord, which definitely is wrong. When the Pharisees and Sadducees asked Christ for a sign, the Scriptures says that they tested Him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven (Matthew 16:1). The Bible explicitly teaches that putting God to the test is a sin. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” (Deuteronomy 6:16). If you walk across an Interstate highway and expect not to get hit by a truck because God promises to protect us, that’s testing God!

A Christian who puts out a fleece and asks God for a sign isn’t exactly putting God to the test, but when we begin to tighten the boundaries on the signs we request we’re moving in that direction. If we ask the Lord to, “Make the phone ring by noon tomorrow if You want me to take that new job (or move to that new location),” we’ve really boxed God in–into a box of our making! We have set the conditions and we are forcing God to confirm His will for us on our terms! Doesn’t this come perilously close to testing God? The more we tighten the boundaries to force God’s hand, the closer we come to the “Interstate” illustration. How much better to use the normal means that God has given us to make decisions (primarily the guidelines of Scripture–including sanctified common sense!), and then ask God to confirm our decisions or guide us to different decisions in ways of His own choosing.

Asking God to confirm our decisions without restricting Him to doing it our way is not the same as setting out a fleece. To request that the Lord show us in some clear way if we’ve made or are about to make a decision that is not in accordance with His will is not the same as demanding a particular sign from God. The Lord does not play games with us. He desires that we make right decisions, and He delights to confirm us in these decisions! We do not have to put out fleeces to remind our heavenly Father that His well-loved and intimately known children need His perfect confirmation in their walk of faith. We really can trust His promise: “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:6).
(RON REID)

“Spring cleaning” … that ritual of scrubbing our homes from top to bottom. The goal is a house that is fresh and clean.

Well, for many of us … our marriages may need a little “spring cleaning”! Because they get cluttered with hurt feelings and unresolved issues that can make them unbearable. Here are four activities that will help us spring clean our marriages:

Clearing the Clutter
Odds are we’ve hurt our spouses. We need to take responsibility for our words and actions … even if our intentions were not to hurt … and apologize. “Sweeping stuff under the rug” piles clutter up and will ultimately produce a trip hazard … so swallow your pride and say: “I’m sorry, will you please forgive me?”

When our spouses come seeking forgiveness … we’re commanded to pardon (Matthew 18). Forgiveness “takes out the trash” that clutters relationships. Unforgiveness keeps that trash piled up to stink! Who likes living in a smelly pile of trash?!

Fixing and Finishing
We usually discover some uncompleted “projects” that need to be “fixed or finished.” Unresolved issues about money, kids, work … etc. all need to be nailed down through open and honest conversations.

Dusting
We get so comfortable that we neglect to show our spouses how much we really love them; and begin to mutually co-exist. It’s time to “dust off” the romance so you can see the luster of loving date nights, notes, flowers, favorite meals, massages, kind words, holding hands … once you get started it’ll come back to you!!

Scrubbing the Spots
We’ll probably uncover some “selfish spots” that need to be removed. Marriages thrive on both spouses being selfless. Putting ourselves second is not easy … it requires some “scrubbing” by the Holy Spirit to help us surrender to God and our spouses.

Spring cleaning our homes requires hard work, intentional behavior and an action plan. So does “spring cleaning” our marriages. But the results of a clean, fresh home and a loving, fulfilling marriage are worth the effort.

Does your marriage need some spring cleaning? Where are you going to start today? (HOUSE ON THE ROCK FAMILY MINISTRIES)