Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Take my yoke upon you...


28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

This scripture has so many deeper messages. Let’s break it down:
1)     Come unto me. Requires action. Requires us to be humble and to live our lives in accordance with His will and teachings so that we are worthy of His Spirit.
2)     All ye that labour. The first line sets it up for all people who are working/laboring in the Lord’s Kingdom or simply life, to the best of our ability, doing what we can to keep His commandments and do His will.
3)     And are heavy laden. This is the same group of people as group 2, but more specifically those people who are having a hard time dealing with the stresses of laboring. Those who are tired of working, which happens to all of us because we are human. We just need to take a step back and remember the Lord so that…
4)     [He] will give you rest. This also requires a little action on our part. He will give us rest, but we have to allow it and accept it. It goes back to #1, we have to come unto Him. Not just pray and seek Him, but give Him our labours and burdens. Offer them up to Him. Allow the enabling and strengthening power of the atonement to work in us.
5)     Take my yoke upon you. A yoke is equally set so that two oxen have an equal share of the load. Carrying the Lord’s burden implies that we will give Him our load. Basically we will switch places, if you will. We will carry His and He will carry ours.
6)     And learn of me. As we learn of the Lord, we will learn how to be like Him. We will gain a greater relationship with Him. It will be easier for us to give Him our burdens/yoke. We will also learn how He served and how we must serve (see #9).
7)     For I am meek and lowly in heart. As we learn of Him, we will learn how to be meek and lowly in heart. These are gifts that will help us and are essential for us to serve His children. To forget ourselves and go to work.
8)     And ye shall find rest in me. Again, he tells us the previous facts as how-to’s to find rest. By being meek and lowly of heart (broken heart and contrite spirit), we become more like Heavenly Father, we turn to Him more, we rely on Him more fully and forget ourselves, we have a greater perspective of His plan and it will help us to accept the rest we so desperately want and that He is so willing to give us.
9)     For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Basically, as we do His work, serve His children, focus on the needs and desires of others, our own burden’s will not be felt. We will not realize they are there. (see Mosiah 24:15) The Lord will help us in whatever it is we are struggling with and we will be stronger to withstand the temptations of Satan and our own weaknesses.

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