Does it ever seem to you that God sort of gives you a scripture verse? Something pops into your head and you immediately know that it was from God. Well, that happens to me from time to time and I'm always so thankful when it does. It happened to me again today and I wanted to share it with you to help others who might need this same verse.
We find this verse in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I'm pretty sure that you've heard that verse before, but it takes on a whole new meaning when you look at each word or word phrase individually.
"Come to me". That just shows us God's gentle nature. It doesn't say, "Hey, you, get over here now!" So many times we do that to our own children. I pray the next time I find myself being tempted to do that, I'll call this scripture to mind.
How about the part that says, .."all you who are weary and burdened?" I love that part, almost as much as Jesus giving us rest. It doesn't say, "all you who are perfect and free from sin." We would never get to come near Jesus if that were the case. He created us to need him, to follow him and to trust him; for everything. This also brought to my mind the verse in Romans 5:8 that says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Proves even more that we don't need to be perfect to approach the throne of God. That we can lay our problems and our struggles at his feet and he will take care of them.
We live in a culture that doesn't always go to God first. It's easy to get caught up in the 'world' and for us to become easy targets for Satan. The devil is really good at planting seeds of doubt in our minds about everything that we should be trusting God for. (I won't list them all because this blog would never end.)
Moving on to the part that says "..I will give you rest." I love His kind of rest, don't you? It doesn't mean sleep or free time to sit on your posterior all day long. No, it means real rest; rest from your burden of sin or whatever you may be wrestling with.
I think we all wrestle with sin from time to time; how about daily? This is a great scripture verse to keep in mind the next time you find yourself struggling; with anything. As a matter of fact, this is our family scripture memory verse for the week. This also may be the perfect scripture for this coming week when most of us find ourselves sending our kids back to school.
