Only when you have grasped your co-crucifixion and co-resurrection with Jesus will you ever be able to live on this earth in consistent freedom and victory. Trying to develop a better version of you on a daily basis is not the message of the gospel, but the good news that is plainly declared in Scripture is that you are a whole new you because you are yoked, in union with the resurrected Jesus. Listen to what Jesus said about the life he was inviting people to live, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Jesus didn’t invite us to share a yoke with him as if He would be yoked beside us, and we were together pulling the load. Instead, Jesus said that we were to take His yoke, and when it says in verse 29, “learn from me” that Greek preposition “from” can also be translated “of.” If you go back and read the context of these verses, you will discover that Jesus has been rebuking different cities because of their refusal to embrace Him. At some point, he began to give praise to his Father, thanking Him that even though the wise and intelligent weren’t getting it, the babes (those with humble, childlike hearts) were seeing the truth about who Jesus was. It is at this point Jesus is giving an invitation, not to His disciples, but to anyone who had the heart of a little child and could hear His invitation to a life of joyful internal rest. That is why he says, “Come to me all….” When an individual who is burdened and heavy ladened, by trying to live life on their own without God, comes to Jesus, they take His yoke and begin to learn of Him and the life that He lives. At the Cross, and in the resurrection, Jesus has yoked us to His life. We are in union with the resurrected Jesus and invited to live our lives by His resurrection power. This is the life that lifts all emotional weariness and crushing burdens. The privilege that we have as believers who have, by faith, “taken” that yoke with the resurrected Christ is to learn from Him day by day about the wonders of the life that the risen lion of Judah can live through our unique personalities, which are now yoked to His supernatural life.
