Jesus Christ said in Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV) 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Rest is what so many of us need – rest from hard times, rest from the toils of struggle and strife that are so common in our everyday life. Some of us are walking around with such deep pain and hurt on the inside of us that the thought of living free from it seems almost impossible. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, tells us we don’t ever have to be unhappy, sad or depressed if we would only come to him with all of our stuff. Jesus Christ has assured us that anytime we have fears, worries or tumultuous situations, we can leave them with him. Very often this is the part where many Christians have a difficult time. It’s the surrendering and letting go that trips us up. This is because we’ve grown accustomed to handling things on our terms and in our own time. Sooner or later, we will all come to a place where our way will no longer do the trick.
Hiccups from our past will weigh heavy on our hearts and minds. We don’t always see this or recognize what is going on internally. We forget sometimes that we are spiritual beings with a soul, housed in a body. Many of us prioritize the care of our physical needs, but we don’t take the same approach when it comes to nurturing our souls through the Spirit. For instance, a woman may be dealing with a broken heart because her boyfriend ended their relationship. The same woman catches the stomach flu. Most of us will go to the doctor if our physical body becomes ill, and this is exactly what she did. We have an expectation that the doctor will diagnose the illness and know exactly how to treat it. This woman’s doctor gave her medicine and physically she felt better, but guess what? She was still left with a broken heart. A human physician can fix the physical body, but Jesus Christ is a healer of everything that ails us. He can give us a new heart; one where the pains of yesterday are a distant memory.
It is important for us to understand that spiritual fuel is required so that we can function optimally. A battery will run down if it is not recharged. The same thing happens to our souls. In Matthew 11, Jesus Christ tells us that he will provide rest to our souls. Deductive reasoning prompts us to then understand that if he provides rest for our souls, then it is possible that our souls can become very tired and weary. They can become run down. Our hearts and minds are a part of the soul, so it stands to reason that when our souls are in this run-down state, we might be depleted emotionally and mentally. Our lives are operating on fumes when this happens, and sometimes the end result is that relationships fall apart, jobs are lost, and we sometimes hurt the people we love most.
History teaches us that when we’re in our most vulnerable states, sometimes we are inclined to accept things that we normally would not accept. We compromise our standards, and this is a time when the enemy can sneak in and steal from us or sabotage us. Just as we would when our physical bodies become ill, we need to recognize that there are times when our spiritual fire will need to be ignited. We need to recognize when things in our lives stop moving forward and start going backwards, because this is the time we need to run to Jesus Christ so that he can doctor on our souls and recharge them with fresh revelation. He will show us sides of his love that perhaps we have never realized before, and this will invigorate us in ways that we cannot begin to know.
Jesus Christ not only tells us to come to him for rest, but he also tells us to learn of him. Our precious Savior died on the cross for our sins, but this doesn’t end the work that we need to do in our souls; it begins this work. We will have to keep growing and abounding in God’s love for the rest of our lives. This means that as you receive manna from heaven, you in turn give it out. Then the Lord will continually pour into you. The problem is that sometimes we give of ourselves in the wrong way, and sometimes we give the wrong things to the wrong people. We get stuck. We become depleted, and the only one who can fix what ails us is Doctor Jesus. We must never forget this. His love is our fuel, and it will feed us in exhaustible ways. If we will trust in him wholeheartedly, we will learn from our mistakes and grow even more in His love. So come to Christ with all your burdens as he says in Matthew 11, and do so with an expectation that he will give you what you need to be recharged.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Let the Love of Christ Recharge You!”, written by Kim Times, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2017. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.