Does God really say His way is easy? (final comments)
So why did I go down this rabbit hole? I guess God placed it on my heart the second I saw that diagram at the conference. I wasn’t hearing the truth – I was hearing a watered-down version I couldn’t compare with my own experience in life. If you’ll recall, the verse the speaker pointed to for briefly backing up his statement was in Matthew.
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
(Matthew 11:28-30)
Jesus says His yoke is easy, not ours, so was this speaker right about God saying His way was easy? As I’ve demonstrated over the past ten posts, obviously things won’t be easy in this life, especially the more we walk in His ways as a disciple. However, He promises here to give us rest. Is it rest from the world? Is it rest from the pain? Look at who Jesus was really talking about…
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, 3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
(Matthew 23:1-4)
…it was the Pharisees, laying all these heavy burdens on the people through their rules. They weren’t helping the people obey God – they were beating them down, while not following their own demands. Remember how Jesus rebuked them earlier in Matthew.
1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 8 “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”
(Matthew 15:1-9)
This is what Jesus meant by His yoke being easy. Not that we’d have no struggles in life, but that He would free us from the strangling rules of the Pharisees, from the strangling rules you find in whatever place you are. Yes, even from the strangling rules those in the church today inevitably set up. Peter was already witness to this during the first days of the church.
10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
(Acts 15:1-11)
Think we’re immune to those things occurring today? I don’t believe that. So how does Jesus give us rest from all this? We are aware of our sins, and when we repent of them, Jesus clears our conscience and we have rest. John sums this up in his letter.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
(1 John 5:3-5)
The Bible says we will suffer, but we have hope…
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.
(2 Corinthians 4:8-9)
…and our hope is in God.
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:28-31)
John also says we will overcome the world. We will one day have that rest forever – it won’t be a temporary thing.
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.(Revelation 21:4-7)
One of my favorite songs these days flows from this passage (There Will Be a Day by Jeremy Camp). I, for one, look forward to that day with no pain.
Before I leave you today, I’d like to return to the beginning of this post… that I went down this rabbit hole because I felt God’s message was being misstated. Peter knew that many would try to distort God’s message, by the way.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
(2 Peter 3:14-18)
Let us not fall into the traps of this world. You see, I think this conference speaker fell into one of these traps when simplifying God’s view of His way. Perhaps he thought it would make the path of discipleship sound more palatable to us. But it wasn’t the truth of God’s Word. As the Bereans did with Paul and Silas…
10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
(Acts 17:10-11)
…and as Paul directed us in his first letter to the Thessalonians…
21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.
(1 Thessalonians 5:21)
…I’ve attempted to test one of the speaker’s statements, holding on to what was good from the rest of the conference, yet throwing out what God’s Word tells me is false. Of course, you’ve got to do the same for anything I’ve written as well. But, that’s your rabbit hole to go down now, not mine. ;)
Share on Facebook