Who Will You Serve?

August 31

"My Burden is easy and My yoke is light." Matthew 11:30

There is no disputing the fact that the burdens of life are anything but easy and the yoke of oppression is anything but light. Jesus isn't talking here about the burdens of life or the yoke it imposes. He's talking about the burden assumed when one takes on faith in Him. The person who allows Jesus to become all-in-all in his life is taking to his heart the 'burden' that sets him free.

The Word tells us that we will serve a master, for we are not free spirits as some of us like to think we are. Matthew 6:24 tells us that we cannot serve God and satan, but we will serve one or the other of them. Joshua said in Chapter 24 of his book, verses 14-24, "…Choose you this day whom you will serve... As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord..."

The matter is stated quite clearly, the option set before the people who are newly freed from bondage in Egypt is who they will now serve. It is the same option set before everyone who is ever born. Each of us must determine at whose altar we shall bow, before whom we shall lay our gifts, in whose name we shall live our lives. Shall we serve the one whose mischief against us is dire and continual or shall we serve the One who paid His life to ransom us from the cruel bondage of evil?

We make our choice every day. We may live our lives in compliance with the tenets of faith in Christ without surrendering our hearts to Him, but it is in our hearts that He longs to abide as our Savior and King. When we have given Him the authority to occupy the innermost part of our self-hood, He will live there, He will do a work in us that will last through our lifetimes--a work of making us fit to be the abode of the Lord of Glory.

I pray the Lord in you will today give you the peace and joy and love and power that will equip you for all the tasks of today. I pray you allow Him to repeat that process again tomorrow and for all your tomorrows, knowing that "He is able to keep that which you've committed to Him..." II Timothy 1:12. He will take your cares upon Himself daily (I Peter 5:7), and He will daily give you all you need to grow in the inner heart of who you are.

God bless you always, and help you to hunger so fully for the entirety of Himself that all the things that challenge you will pale in comparison to the great blessing of being His beloved, blood-bought child.