grateful for Christ

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”  -  Matthew 23:1-4, NIV

Those of us who are given something to teach another person–and this is all of us at various times–must beware of two things, as we can see from what our Lord says here.  First, whatever we teach a person has the potential to be a burden before a liberation.  Second, we must help those we teach bear the burden that we have placed upon them.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a liberating freedom, but we must remember that whenever our Lord drags us into the light for His purpose of purging our old sinful nature, it stings.  Whenever He chooses to use one of us as the instrument to teach another person how to do right in some particular, we must recognize the tremendous toll it will take upon that person.  Surely we must all do right and be perfect, but how can we make it there if we ourselves are weak and every howling demon in realms unknown is constantly tearing us to shreds?  Know that there is more going on in people’s lives than what is seen.  People bear burdens we know nothing about, and the simplest burden of truth may simply be too much for the natural self to handle.  It is not enough to say, “Well, I am merely pointing out the truth.  If it is hard for him to bear, it is his fault; he must be hard-hearted, lazy, or wickedly devoted to this thing.”  Our Lord here is telling us that the natural man cannot bear the burden of the light.  It is too heavy.  Only in Christ can a person bear such things, and that is where our responsibility to help them bear the burden comes in.

For everything we have been given to teach, we also are given a responsibility to help bring it to fruition in the lives of those we teach.  We must be on our knees day and night for the least of people with even the smallest burdens.  And if we lay a burden upon them, we must be prepared to be poured out, bearing the cross of helping that person with whatever might get in the way of their obedience to the light.  If, for example, I tell somebody that she needs to stop stealing, then I must be prepared to help provide her daily bread while she learns a trade.  If I merely lay the burden and walk away, expecting her to do right without lifting a finger to help her, what a heartless thing I have done!  Even the Most Holy One, our Lord, suffered and died to bear the burden of holiness and perfection that was too heavy for us to bear.  As if that wasn’t enough, He continues to bear with us in patience, sparing us from things that by all rights we should be able to face.

Did our Lord have to do such a thing?  Not at all!  He would have been perfectly within His rights to allow us to face justice unaided.  However, because He loved us, He chose to bear that burden Himself, bearing the one thing that He should never have had to bear–sin–in order that we could be free from it.  Can any of us, then, stand on any right whatsoever to avoid bearing the burden of another person?  Can we say, “But, this is my money!  I don’t have to give it to some thief!  She should just stop stealing.”  I suggest that if we take such a view of things, we may find come Judgment Day that our Lord treats us the same way.

Brothers and sisters, let us lay down our rights, even our very lives, for the sake of others.  Let us die so that the undeserving might be given one extra day to live and repent.  Let us be poor and hungry so that the ungrateful might learn a bit of the generosity of the Father.  Let us work our fingers to the bone so that those too burdened to work–though they have strong backs and good health–might be set free in Christ.  And above all, let us pray for those who are burdened that Christ will deliver them from every assault and bondage that the enemy uses to pin them down in the mud and mire.  Never point out what somebody should or should not do without also finding a way to help him bear that burden, if that is what stops him.