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Burned Out?

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During an experimental gathering for South Bend City Church, a new church plant in my area, we read the following passage of Scripture many different times. Each time we read it, each time we had a few minutes of silence to ponder the words in the passage. So read the passage below, and I will tell you what I found in those moments of silence.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

During those few moments of silence this is what I kept repeating; Come, get away with Me, rest with Me, walk with Me, work with Me and keep company with Me. So I wanted to briefly look at each of those in this post.

Come and Get away with Me
This is an invitation that Jesus offers to everyone. In the NIV translation of these verses, we see the word "all" used. Jesus wants all people who are tired, worn out, worried, broken, confused, lost and burdened to come to Him. If life makes you weary and comes with burdens, Jesus wants you to come to Him and get away for a moment with Him.

Rest with Me
When we get away with Jesus and give things over to Him, we can find some rest in the situations that are weighing us down. Jesus provides rest for us when we come to Him.

Walk and Work with Me
Jesus also invites us to walk and work with Him. He wants us to look at His life and how He did things. He wants us to act like Him and live like Him the best that we can. But in order to do so we have to know and see how He does life.

Keep company with Me
This is the one that makes me smile. Jesus wants our presence with Him. He wants our company. Jesus loves us, and He wants us to be close to Him and have company with Him. One of the last things that He said to His disciples was to "abide in Me" (John 15:4, NKJV).

Why does Jesus want us to come, rest, walk, work, and have company with Him? The answer is at the end of the verses; so we can live freely and lightly. Jesus wants us to live a free life. A life free of worries, stresses, troubles and burdens that keep us up at night. If we come to Jesus like He urges us here, we can see how He did life.

Jesus was never worried or stressed about the people and situations that He faced. In fact, one of the only times we see Jesus show any kind of stress or anxiety about a situation was in the Garden of Gethsemane when He sweat drops of blood because He was under so much pressure (see Luke 22:44, NIV).

So since we cannot physically come to Jesus and walk with Him, we must go to the Bible and see how Jesus did things. In our passage Jesus is urging us to see how He did life and follow that example. When we know how Jesus did things and how He walked through different situations, we can then see how to live a life that is free.

Edited by Kay Beam

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