Fear No Fear

“Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).
Many of us see yokes as burdensome. As authoritarian. As a negative. But there is something in this verse that is freeing and remarkable. Jesus is asking us to join Him in His yoke (take MY yoke). What’s so remarkable about that? What’s remarkable is that Jesus perfectly kept the Law. And in the Law the Jews were commanded “You shall not plow with an ox and with a donkey yoked together” (Deuteronomy 22:10). You could not yoke two different animals together. Which means in the eyes of Jesus WE’RE THE SAME! More than simply being made in His image (Genesis 1:26), we are (in Jesus) the same as Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). We would be unable to take His yoke with Him if we weren’t the same. This says magnitudes about how Adonai sees us. Jesus never spoke anything that He wasn’t told to say by His Father (John 12:49). That means the Father sees us as the same as Jesus. He CANNOT lie, because it would be a total violation of His character (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). Jesus shares something with us that He recognises, the Father recognises, the Spirit recognises, and even the world recognises (John 15:18). Whenever you see yourself, wherever you end up going, always remember: we’re yoked with Jesus because we are – in Him – made of the same stuff.