Much Needed Rest

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." - Matthew 11:28


We know what it is like to carry a heavy burden. Our arms begin to ache as we strain to hold up the weight. Our back muscles tighten and our legs tire under the weight. We can only carry the load so long and we are forced to put it down and rest. Sometimes the burden we carry is not with our arms and back and legs, but on our hearts. Burdens of sadness, loneliness, discouragement and dismay are very real and cause us to long for rest from their oppressive weight. Our spirits can be crushed if these burdens get too heavy and we carry them too long.

While Jesus understands these kinds of burdens and is present to help us carry them, these burdens aren’t the most oppressive. When our Savior invites us to come to get rest from him, he has in mind a different kind of burden that makes people weary and tired. That is the burden of sin and how sin disrupts our relationship with God. God’s Law requires perfect obedience. It does not allow for one transgression. God's Word tells us, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). The demand which the Law of God makes is impossible for us to keep. We can't fulfill its precepts perfectly. Though we have not murdered anyone, we have hurt other people with spiteful words. Perhaps we have never committed adultery, but God judges the lust in our hearts. We may never have been convicted of stealing, but we are fully aware of the greedy thoughts that are lodged in our minds and the discontent that is harbored in our hearts. Sometimes our worship of God is done with lips only – our minds and hearts are focused somewhere else. We don’t always follow God as faithfully as he asks us. Sometimes we are even defiant against his will.

The Law of God inflicts a heavy burden on each lawbreaker. It is a burden of guilt and fear of God's punishment. Have you felt the burden of your sin, pressed down by the enormous weight as you stand weak-kneed before the almighty, holy God who demands perfection?

We can’t get out from under the burden of sin by our own power. There is only one way for us to have relief. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Jesus came to lift sin’s burden off our hearts. He carried that heavy burden of sin’s guilt for us, and gives us rest. He gives us the assurance that our sins are forgiven, that God doesn’t count us guilty. We have the peace of knowing that our relationship with God is restored. Through Jesus there is now, therefore, no fear of God’s strict judgment of condemnation against us. We are free from sin’s burden. In Jesus we have rest, the forgiveness of sins, so that we are not wearied and burdened by sin’s guilt ever again!

Prayer:

Dear Jesus, I know that I have sinned in many ways and the guilt on my heart is a burden that is too heavy to bear. So I praise you for taking the burden of my guilt and carrying it for me – suffering and dying to free me of its load and giving me the rest of full forgiveness. Amen.