“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.” (Matthew 11:29, NLT)

This verse sits sandwiched between two more familiar ones, thus making it one easy to overlook.

Here we find in Jesus’ own words His bid to let Him teach us. Why? Because He will humbly and gently do so.

He is a teacher with a humble and gentle heart because we learn best from teachers of this sort. Harsh and rigid teachers use force, which raises levels of anxiety inside us.

Jesus knew we would not do well with harsh teachers because He saw the teachers in His day imposing rules and regulations upon the people which became a burden. The burden became to heavy for them to carry.

Jesus delivers to our souls that which we need to learn from Him, in order to grow in Him, thus finding our rest in Him.

But what is this rest and how does it differ from the rest the world offers? There are two rests which Jesus offers:

“The [first] rest that the Lord Jesus gives freely to all who come to Him is rest of conscience in regard to sin. The distressed soul, burdened with a sense of guilt, comes to Him and finds peace when he trusts Him as the great sin-bearer. The second rest is rest of heart. Adverse circumstances may rise up to alarm and fill the heart with fear and anxiety, but he who takes Christ’s yoke and learns of Him is able to be calm in the midst of the storm. He finds perfect rest as he trusts all to Him who rules over the waterfloods and is Lord of all the elements.”

(H.A. Ironside, Ironside Commentary on Matthew, page 85)

Both rest of conscience and rest of soul only come from God, who alone gives us peace as we learn to commit everything to Him.

It’s a promise:

As we learn from Him,
we will find rest for our souls.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash
Today I am joining … Heart Encouragement and Let’s Have Coffee .