Daily EncouragementSample

False religion is a burden. Isaiah, speaking of the Babylonian gods says, “The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary” (Isa. 46:1). The same is true of perversions of true Christianity. One thinks of Roman Catholic Processions, where men stagger as they carry heavy statues of the virgin, hoping to gain merit thereby. Nominal Protestant orthodoxy is no better - “what a burden!” (Mal. 1:12) was the response of the people in Malachi’s day as they went through the ritual of their faith.

God carries his people. They owe their very existence to him and he sustains them: “I have made you and I will carry you.” Christ offers himself as the great Burden-bearer: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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 will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and by burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-29). The greatest burden is our sin, and “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24).

There is no time limit to this grace of God: “Even to your old age and grey hairs, I am he . . . ”