The Pathway to Light-Heartedness by Bryan Craig

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30

This verse keeps coming up to me in various places and forms again and again and again.  Going back to our Summit 2024, this was our theme, “Come to Me”.  But here we are, two years later and even another Summit under our belts and this verse still keeps coming up.  God has my full attention, and I’m leaning in, pressing in to try to discover the gold nugget of wisdom and spiritual insight the Lord is trying to reveal to me.  

I’ve come to determine that this is a VERY significant verse, even more so than I’ve ever considered.  As I chew on it, my mind goes back to 2007 when I took a trip with Rocky and Larry Trice and Maxi Carpenter to Egypt to bring The Journey to some Christian Egyptians.  It was an amazing trip in many ways, and many lessons were learned.  But on one of our free days,we toured a museum which had fossils and antiquities from King Tut and dating back 10,000 years.  One thing in the museum really stuck out to me.  There were inscriptions of a scale, and I learned about the Egyptians view of life and afterlife at that time.

They believed that once you die, your heart is weighed on a scale against The Feather of Truth.  The Feather of Truth represented truth, order, justice, while the Heart represented life’s actions and the place which measured our amount of sinfulness.  Heavy hearts were indicative of a life of sin and failed the test, whereas light hearts were free to enter eternity as they passed the test.  It helped me see where the phrase “heavy heart” came from.

Isn’t this the lie that the Enemy wants us to believe?  He wants us to feel the weight of our sinfulness and live in constant anxiety over whether or not we will go to Heaven.  We easily buy into the Scale lie that it’s all about doing more good than bad and that hopefully, when we stand at the Judgment seat, the scale will fall favorably toward the good we have done.  I even heard President Trump utter this at the National Prayer Breakfast.  He said, “I hope I’ve done enough to get into Heaven, but I’m not sure.  At least I’ve done a lot of good for you people (meaning the Christians).”

Now, that’s not to say there’s no reconciling or accountability for the way we live our life on this earth.  2 Corinthians 5 talks about this:  

“So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 ESV

We are to live our lives as Christians to please Him.  But this is not to be burdensome.  And this is NOT the key to salvation.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”  Acts 16:31 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16 ESV

Faith in Jesus is the key to salvation!

And Abiding in Jesus is the key to Peace!

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  John 15:3-4 ESV

We are clean.  We are saved by Jesus’ works and His Word.  As we believe this and submit to this truth and abide in it, He gives us peace and assurance and then, He uses us to help others see the truth.  

Most of the burdens we carry are unnecessary.  We beat ourselves up over our past.  We hate it that we still feel the weight of our sin nature and even fall into temptation.  We are so disappointed in the sin nature of others.  We want to control everything or fix everything.  No! No! No!

He wants us to walk with Him, to trust in Him, to let Him do His amazing work.  

I am reading a great book about the life of Joshua, “Called to be God’s Leader” by Henry and Richard Blackaby.  The book analyzes Joshua’s leadership and what made him the man he was, and they compare him to other great leaders in history.  One chapter talked about Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China.  It says:

Hudson Taylor spent much of his missionary life in China facing innumerable hardships. He lived through violent times.  He was responsible for the well-being of many missionaries and their families.  He had to care for his own family.  But throughout it all, he enjoyed a profound sense of peace and rest.  He confessed: “The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings.  I am no longer anxious about anything.”  Such rest comes only by trusting God.  God is willing for every person to know this deep abiding, rest that both Joshua and Hudson Taylor experienced.

Deep, abiding rest.  Does this resonate and stir your heart like it does mine?  That’s what the Lord wants to give us, in the midst of trials and temptations and burdens.

Back to my 2007 trip to Egypt.  I also discovered something very interesting.  The Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for eternity is the Ankh.  It means “breath of life” and symbolizes eternal life.  This 5000 year old symbol was created by people who did not know Christ nor the God of the Israelites, and it is a Cross.  God has been making Jesus known thousands of years before the Cross, and I wear this ring as a reminder of Who holds my eternity.

So, if you are reading this with a heavy heart, I encourage you to take heart and come to Jesus.  Let him give you rest and peace and hope.  It is real and it is true and it is the abundant life Jesus wants to give you.