Resurrection Life: In His Yoke, In His Arms

If you really want to have the inside of God's heart and mind, His power, His compassion, His love, His sensitivity, His discernment, His wisdom, His thoughts--if that is your primary goal in life--then open up your arms and say, 'Bring me suffering.' Save me from this hour? NO. . . . His strength is perfected in weakness. Those who embrace suffering and are trained in it will yield abundant fruit.

6/2/1996

(Excerpt from an impromptu outburst—1Cor.14:30—amongst a couple or three hundred saints. This evening, in its entirety, was later referred to as, “Resurrection Life to bless the Nations!”)

Normally when you think about getting rest you think about taking a break, a vacation, not having any pressure, not having any responsibility. JESUS said that’s not how you get TRUE rest. “Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you my rest. 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 for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” You get rest by yoking yourself to Me and doing exactly what I want you to do. Do the work. A yoke is for the purpose of doing work. And that yoke is very confining and very constraining. There’s no way you can get into that yoke and go a different way. So you are choosing to yoke yourself to a path that you don’t have any more choice about. Remember what Jesus said to Peter, “If you finally are ever going to be mature you’re going to be at a place where you get dressed in clothes you don’t want to wear and get led off in a direction you don’t want to go but that’s ok.” That’s the same kind of death that Jesus suffered. That’s how we die to self. And, that’s the death Peter suffered. And Peter’s ability to serve God faithfully required that he be in that yoke to go where Jesus wanted him to go. So He said if you want rest don’t look for some way out, look for a yoke of confinement with Jesus. He said it’s not going to be a bad deal. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. But it is a yoke. You’re not going to get to make your own choices anymore. You’re likely to be led off in a direction that you don’t want to go. (Jn.21:18; Lk.9:57-62) But that is all right because when you’re with Him it’s ok. His burden is easy and His burden is light. And, in the meantime, make sure that you’re like Him as gentle and humble. When you’re suffering or you’re being led in a direction that you don’t want to go, you’re being yoked voluntarily to Him. It’s a choice that you make. He said, “Make sure that you’re gentle and humble. You learn from Me. Your character, when like Mine, brings you closer to me and joy in the Journey. You don’t really want the raw and painful skin from fussing under My yoke, and the certain broken fellowship with Me, and My House. You’re listening to Me. You’re learning from and in Me in My yoke.”

•  Resurrected Life to Bless the Nations