Pastor Heather…
I want to share what the Lord put on my heart today. First, before I share, welcome everybody and everybody watching online. This is our first morning chapel where we also are inviting all the staff on Tuesdays to come. And so this is our combined all-staff chapel and we’re excited about that. I feel that there’s something… As we all come together, there’s a corporate anointing. And as everybody comes and brings their supply, it’s just exciting to watch. He’s going to do something different every time. And we’re thankful for His presence.
The Lord is easy to please…
I wanted to share Matthew 11:28–30, in the Passion translation. It says, “Are you weary carrying a heavy burden? Come to me. I will refresh your life for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways, and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please.” I love that. Just pause there for a second. He’s easy to please. We make things far more complicated than they are. He’s easy to please.
Who needs some easy in their life today?
“You will find refreshment and rest in me for all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.” Again, easy. Who needs some easy in their life today? The Amplified says, “Come to me all you who labor are are heavy laden and overburden, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls. Take my yolk upon you and learn of me for I am gentle, meek, and humble, lowly in heart, and you will find rest, relief, and ease, and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet for your souls. For my yoke is wholesome, useful, good, not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing, but comfortable, gracious, and pleasant. And my burden is light and easy to be borne.”
And then the Message…
“Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion? Come to me, get away with me, and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take real rest, walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly, the unforced rhythms of grace.” I love that. In this day and age, we force a lot of things. We got to push, we got to make it happen, we got to hustle. And He says it’s the unforced rhythms of grace. So that word “come” when He says, “come to me,” it’s come, like with an exclamation point. It gets the force of an interjection. Come! Come now! Come away.
Come to me…
Many times Jesus said, “Come after me” or “Come follow me.” But this one time He says, come to me. It’s not a long, laborious process. Following is a journey and obviously we want to do that too, but when we’re tired, when we’re weary, He doesn’t give us a list of things or hoops we have to jump through. He just says come… With an exclamation point! Come! And His presence changes us. When we come into His presence… when our eyes are fixed on Him, He comes and changes us. He changes situations. He changes our problems, our issues, our things we’re tripping over. He changes that in His presence. If we seek Him first, all those things are added onto us. So instead of seeking resolutions, instead of seeking issues, how to solve problems, seek Him. He’ll bring those answers. And then weary. I love the word for weary: exhausting labor to labor until worn out, depleted or exhausted. Then heavy burden: to load up as a vessel or animal, to overburden with ceremony or spiritual anxiety.
We are to connect and work with Him…
That’ll preach. And then His word for rest: rest. He says, I make rest, give rest to, I rest, take my ease, to keep quiet of calm and patient expectation to refresh. And we all know yolk when you see two oxen in a yoke, it’s that wooden thing that they place on the oxen so that they can work together. So that is what unites… a yoke is what unites or joins two people to move or work together as one. A yoke unites two elements to work as one unit. And so when we take on His yoke and His burden, so to speak, we are connecting with Him and working in union with Him.
Don’t let the enemy distract you…
And so the thing that I wanted to focus on today is I just believe… We had such a beautiful time in the 24-hour prayer, and I hate to keep referencing it, like it’s in the past and like it’s not still happening. It’s still happening. He’s still here. His presence is still here. We’re still pressing into that and I don’t want to refer to it as past tense, but I also know that the enemy knows how to get in when God’s doing something. And he is going to want to distract. He’s going to want to busy us. He’s going to want to load us up with burdens and he is going to want to get us bogged down so that what happened was like, “Oh, that was a sweet little time, but now I have to get back to work. I have to get back to x, y, z, a, b, c. I got to pick up the kids. I got to do this. I got to do that.”
Developing the leader within you…
Okay. But we invite Him into that process. I’m reading a John Maxwell book called “Developing the Leader Within You.” And he was telling this story about why Lion Tamers use a chair. Like of all the things you think you would use to tame a lion, they use a chair, and here’s why.
“Why do lion tamers use chairs? A lion can easily overpower, maul, and kill a person. However, it’s only easy for the lion to do so if it can focus on the singular object of the person. The lion tamer uses a stool as a method of distraction. The lion when faced with the four legs of the stool tries to focus on all four legs at once. Confused and unable to focus, it stands there frozen. The lion tamer remains relatively safe behind the stool. We’re the lions and the enemy knows that we can overpower him. We can overtake him. We have that power, right? But what he wants to do is he wants to get our focus off the one singular thing. Jesus. And so he’s throwing out distractions. He’s throwing out things to make us tired, things to make us busy so that we are paralyzed and we’re frozen and we’re not effective for the kingdom of God. And we’re not taking our place. And so the answer to weariness and heaviness and anxiety? Focus on Jesus. And to come away with Him.
Song of Songs 2:10–13
I’m going to read one more scripture and then if you have something on your heart about coming away with Jesus, my favorite, and I’ve read this a few times through our prayer times: Song of Songs 2:10–13 in the Passion Translation. It says, “The one I love calls to me, arise my dearest. Hurry my darling, come away with me. I’ve come as you’ve asked, to draw you to my heart and lead you out. For now is the time my beautiful one. The season has changed. The bondage of your bear in winter has ended.” In Jesus’ name, we believe that for Minnesota. “And the season of hiding is over and gone. The rains have soaked the earth and left it bright with blossoming flowers. The reason for singing and pruning the vines has arrived. I hear the cooing of doves in our land, filling the air with songs to awaken you and guide you forth. Can you not discern those new day of destiny breaking forth around you? The early signs of my purposes and plans are bursting forth. The budding vines of new life are now blooming everywhere. The fragrance of their flowers whispers. There’s change in the air. Arise my love, my beautiful companion, and run with me to the higher place, for now is the time to arise and come away with me.”
And so we do that, Father, we come away with you. We decide to put down distractions, put down burdens, lay down whatever it is that’s causing our heart to trouble today, or to be distracted or to not be single minded on you, on your plan for us, on what you want to do in the earth in this season. We become focused solely on you, and we come away with you now.
