His Yoke, Our Life
“He humbled Himself…”
Philippians 2:8
The extraordinary thing about this God-Man is that He bore in His flesh the nature and very substance of God the Father.
“Who being the brightness of His glory,
and the express image of His Person…”
Hebrews 1:3
Or, as the (LITV) version more correctly expresses:
“Who being the shining splendor of His glory,
and the express image of His essence…”
Hebrews 1:3 (LITV)
He who is the very essence of God, wrapped in the fabric of human flesh, “humbled Himself”. His humility was not a momentary expression in special moments; it was the very Spirit of Him revealed in the unconscious flow of His earthly walk.
“Take My yoke upon you,
and learn of Me…”
Matthew 11:29
His Yoke Our Life
Jesus Christ IS (an ever-present truth) the Mystery of God. To know the secret of Him, the essence of Him, and the infinite unveiling of His wonder requires our participation in His Yoke. All the teaching, preaching and study, though good and necessary, will never bring us to the true “knowing” of Him.
The Greek word translated as “learn” in Matthew 11:29 (see definition below) is related to the Greek word translated as “disciple”. The Greek language was the outflow of those who sought knowledge and wisdom. They understood that true knowledge required experience and personal involvement. There can be no true learning of the mystery of Christ apart from our participation in the present thing HE is doing.
“If any man serve Me, let him follow Me;
and where I am, there shall also My servant be…”
John 12:26
The true servants of Christ serve Him. They follow Him to such an extent that where He is, they are. They do not serve men, organizations or agendas. Their interactions with others are free from personal gain and popularity seeking. He is the singular purpose in life. Paul confronted Peter in front of others. The subsequent humbling of Peter to Paul’s rebuke revealed the character of Christ in both instances.
The yoke of Christ is simply a recurring truth of our abiding in Him who is the Vine. Fruit flows from our relationship with Him. Knowledge apart from relationship will inevitably culminate in idleness, lacking vision and the impetus of a living faith. A life devoid of purpose is a life lived apart from a living and present-tense relationship with Christ.
The Living Christ is ever active in glorifying the Father.
“By this My Father is glorified,
that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.”
John 15:8 (ESV)
To be yoked with Christ is evidenced by our bearing fruit. It is disingenuous to claim that we know Him if our faith is devoid of the “works” of Him moving in us. Jesus declared concerning His purpose in life:
“For I do always those things that please Him.”
The life yoked with Him will feel that same unction and dynamic within. Through our involvement in the Mystery, we carry the living hope of Christ and a life that glorifies the Father.
Paul, in his epistle to the church at Ephesus, revealed the singular press of his purpose in ministry:
“to make all see what is the (their) fellowship (their participation, involvement in) of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 3:9 (NKJV) (italicized portion is my addition to render the Greek meaning)
To be alive in Him will create a passion to cause others to pursue their own involvement in the great adventure of the Mystery of God in Christ.
“Pray also for me, that to me may be given speech in the opening of my mouth with boldness to make known the mystery of the gospel…”
Ephesians 6:19
Those who live in the Mystery will seek by every means to make it known to the sons of men. Every individual born of God has within them a Call, a purpose and a responsibility unto Him who is the Author and the Perfector of it. It is carelessness to rest in the words of the Call while refusing to walk in its power.
The message of the Parable of the Sower is that it is the SOIL which determines the fruitfulness of the seed, not the seed sown. The SAME seed fell on the hard ground, the SAME seed fell in the thistle-infested soil, and the SAME seed fell into good and honest hearts, bearing thirtyfold, sixtyfold and one-hundredfold.
“But you be clear-minded in all, suffer hardship,
DO the work of an evangelist, fully carry out your ministry.”
2 Timothy 4:5
Only by doing is the ministration of Him perfected in each life. Doing is the path to becoming.
Related Article: Freedom’s Yoke
Note: “manthano (G3129) denotes (a) “to learn” (akin to mathetes, “a disciple”), “to increase one’s knowledge,” or “be increased in knowledge,” frequently “to learn by inquiry, or observation…”
– Vine’s New Testament Dictionary
His Yoke, Our Life
“The Christian life is not knowing or hearing,
but doing.”
F. W. Robertson
Brian Troxel
False Cross, False Christ, False Gospel, False Hope
I had a dream 12/25/2013. In this dream I saw a familiar painting of the cross of Christ bridging the gap between 2 cliffs with hell being underneath. However, that’s where the familiar ends. What I see next was people walking on this cross to the other side, I.e., heaven. They did not make it to the other side because as they would walk on this cross the cross would tip and the people walking on it were falling into hell.
This is the result of a false gospel, a false Christ, a gospel without the cross which is no gospel.
The Old Cross and the Newcrosssingover
“The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, ‘Come and assert yourself for Christ.’ To the egotist it says, ‘Come and do your boasting in the Lord.’ To the thrill seeker it says, ‘Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship.’ The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public.”
“The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more.”
–A.W. Tozer
Tony,
Just recently I was reading the following writing by John G. Lake and feel that the following portion fit with your dream and your quote from A.W. Tozer. I have edited it by deleting parts of the message just to keep the length down.
A TRUMPET CALL (By John G.Lake Approx. 1920)
When Paul started out in the ministry he was definitely called of God and was assured of God through Ananias that it would not be an easy service but a terrific one. He was not going to live in a holy ecstasy and wear a beautiful halo and have a heavenly time and ride in a limousine. He was going to have a drastic time, a desperate struggle, a terrific experience. And no man in biblical history ever had more dreadful things to endure than the Apostle Paul. He gives a list in his letter to the Corinthians of the things he had endured.
“Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethern; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:24-27).
That was the price of apostleship. That was the price of the call of God and His service. But God said, ”bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). HE QUALIFIED AS GOD’S MESSENGER.
Do you want to know why God poured out His Spirit in South Africa like He did nowhere else in the world? This example will illustrate. We had one hundred and twenty-five men out on the field at one time. Our finances got so low under the awful assault we were compelled to endure, that there came a time I could not even mail to these workers $2.00 at the end of the month. The situation was desperate. Under these circumstances I did not want to take the responsibility of leaving men and their families on the frontier without real knowledge of what the conditions were. We sold whatever we could of our possessions to bring them in from the field for a conference. One night in the progress of a conference I was invited by a committee to leave the room for a minute or two. The conference wanted to have a word by themselves. So I stepped out to a restaurant for a cup of coffee, and came back. When I came in I found they had rearranged the chairs in an oval, with a little table at one end, and on the table was the bread and the wine. Old Father Van de Wall, speaking for the company said, “Brother Lake, during your absence we have come to a conclusion; we have made our decision. We want you to serve the Lord’s Supper. We are going back if we die ourselves. We have but one request. If we die, we want you to come and bury us. The next year I buried twelve men, 16 wives, and 9 children. In my judgment not one of the twelve, if they had a few of the things a white man needs to eat, but what might have lived. Friends, when you want to find out why the power of God came down from heaven in South Africa like it never came down before since the times of the apostles, there is your answer. Jesus Christ put the spirit of martyrdom in the ministry. Jesus instituted His ministry with a pledge unto death. When He was with the disciples on the last night He took the cup, “when He had supped, saying” (1 Corinthians 11:25). Then He said, “Drink ye all of it” (Mathew 26:27) “My blood of the new testament.” “Drink ye all of it” Let us become one. Let us become one in our purpose to die for the world. Your blood and mine together. “My blood of the New Testament.” It is my demand from you. It is your high privilege.
Friends, the group of missionaries that followed me went without food, and went without clothes, and once when one of my preachers was sunstruck, and had wandered away, I tracked him by the blood marks of his feet. That is the kind of consecration that established Pentecost in South Africa. Take the route that Jesus took, the route the apostles took, the route that the early church took, the victory route, whether by life or death. Historians declare, “The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.” Beloved, that is what the difficulty is in our day…we have so little seed. The church needs more martyr blood.
If I were pledging men and women to the gospel of the Son of God, as I am endeavoring to do tonight, it would not be to have a nice church and harmonious surroundings, and a sweet do nothing time. I would invite them to be ready to die. That was the spirit of early Methodism. John Wesley established a heroic call. He demanded every preacher to be “ready to pray, ready to preach, ready to die.” That is always the spirit of Christianity. When there is any other spirit that comes into the church, it is not the spirit of Christianity. It is a foreign spirit. That is what we need today. When I started to preach the gospel, I walked twenty miles on Sunday morning to my service and walked home twenty miles in the night. I did it for years for Jesus and souls. In early Methodism an old local preacher would start Saturday and walk all night and then walk all night Sunday night to get back to his work. It was the common custom. Peter Cartwright preached for sixty dollars per year, and baptized ten thousand converts.
Friends, we talk about consecration, and we preach about consecration, but that is the kind of consecration that my heart is asking for tonight. That is the kind of consecration that get answers from heaven. That is the kind God will honor. That is the consecration to which I pledge Pentecost. I would strip Pentecost of its frills and folderols. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost, calls us tonight NOT to an earthly mansion and a ten thousand dollar motor car, but to put our lives…body and soul and spirit…on the altar of service. All hail! Ye who are ready to die for Christ and this glorious Pentecostal gospel, we salute you. You are brothers with us and with your Lord.
Wow!!! Very powerful. May I ask if you are from South Africa as well?
Amen – only dead men can be vehicles of His Life. I recently received the call to go to India and preach the Gospel of God. I will be going in July and would appreciate your prayers that I would faithfully represent Him. There is an excitement in the call and a joy that is filling my heart in the opportunity, yet also aware of the cost.
I am always blessed by His gift to you, which is an a critical call to His people in our land. May God prepare us for the day which is upon us.
Blessings brother.
BT
Let me know the dates so that I can be sure to pray for you.
Working on the itinerary now, will update you and thank you.
It will be in the month of July for sure.
BT
Thank you, Terry!
Blessings
Brian
“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
Galatians 6:14
May we step fully into this wonder whereby we may KNOW all that the cross of Him brings.
Blessings
BT
The Moravians would say, “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten “.
No, I’m not from South Africa. I’m from S.E. British Columbia, about 1 hour north of the Canada-USA border. God Bless!!
Yes and Amen! 🙌
Blessings to you and your loved ones. Thank you for stopping by.
BT