“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)
Why do we struggle? We struggle because of sin. In the great Christian allegory, “The Pilgrims Progress” by John Bunyan, Christian was carrying a large burden on his back; the burden that Christian carried was sin. Sin is a burden that no man can carry because it will way him down in death.
Life in this world is a struggle because of the burden of sin. We were in the paradise of God but we were kicked out into the world because we ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God promised the woman difficulty in childbirth and the man difficulty in livelihood, followed by death. Life in this world is struggle upon struggle.
What are we struggling for? What is the purpose of our struggling? What are we trying to obtain with all of this struggling? Some are seeking rest in the wrong places and this always brings a person back to weariness.
Jesus Christ promised rest for our souls but you must put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Does this mean that if you put on the Lord Jesus Christ that things in this world will become easy? I am not going to delude you into thinking that it will. In fact, things in this world may become more difficult than they are right now if you follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle paul wrote, 1 Corinthians 15:19. “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” We do, however, have the promise of rest from laboring to meet God’s standard because through faith in Jesus Christ we are promised eternal life in the paradise of God.
