Easy Yoke, Light Burden, Trust and Belief

Don't let the chaos, confusion and uncertainty consume and bring you down. It is frequently during trying times that the wheat is separated from the chaff, fallow is distinguished from fertile ground, light outshines the darkness, a flash of clarity is received and truth is revealed. Listen out for the still voice of the infinite creator which guides and raises you above the apparent emotional quicksand and seeming uncrossable rivers. Take action undergirded by prayer, faith, trust and belief.

Gods yoke is easy. His burden is light. Trust and believe you can reach your goal.



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Question: "What does it mean when Jesus says 'my yoke is easy and my burden is light' (Matthew 11:30)?"

Answer: The phrase “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” is part of a larger passage (Matthew 11:28-30), in which Jesus tells all who are weary and burdened to come to Him for rest. He isn’t speaking here of physical burdens. Rather, it was the heavy burden of the system of works that the Pharisees laid on the backs of the people that Jesus was offering to relieve. Later on in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus will rebuke the Pharisees for laying heavy burdens on the shoulders of the people (Matthew 23:4).

The “yoke of the Pharisees” is the burdensome yoke of self-righteousness and legalistic law-keeping. It has been said by biblical scholars that the Pharisees had added over 600 regulations regarding what qualified as ‘working’ on the Sabbath. That is a heavy burden! Recall the story of the lawyer who asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment of the Law (Matthew 22:36). You can almost read between the lines of the man’s question – “What law, of all the laws we have, do I absolutely have to keep?”

Jesus was saying that any kind of law-keeping is burdensome and amounts to a “heavy yoke” of oppression because no amount of law-keeping can bridge the gap between our sinfulness and God’s holiness. God says through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah that all of our righteous deeds are like a “polluted garment,” and Paul reiterated to the Romans that “no one will be declared righteous."

What makes Jesus’ yoke easy and his burden light is that in Jesus’ own active obedience (i.e., his perfect fulfillment of the Law of God), He carried the burden that we were meant to carry. His perfect obedience is applied (imputed) to us through faith, just as His righteousness was exchanged for our sin at the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our obedience to Jesus then becomes our “spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). Furthermore, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who works in our lives to mold us into the image of Christ, thereby making the yoke of Jesus easy and His burden light. The life lived by faith is a much lighter yoke and a much easier burden to carry than the heavy and burdensome yoke of self-righteousness under which we continually strive to make ourselves acceptable to God through works.

"Restoration Harvest"

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Time to Get Out the Vote !

 Join leaders of our churches as they discuss the Theology of Voting Sunday evening.Get your souls to the polls early, if you can to start making that needed difference. Vote as if your life depended on it. Because it really does. For the first time in our nation’s history their is a black woman on the Presidential ballot. That is something to be excited about!

Dr. Gina Stewart’s Woman’s Day Sermon at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church

 Dr. Gina Stewart preached a mighty word today as Hartford’s Women’s Day speaker. It was tremendously inspiring. I honestly felt the sermon had been tailor made for me. But, that is how the spirit moves and why preaching is such a powerful form of transformative healing through God’s word. It touches who it is supposed to. God’s omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence is made manifest through anointed human vessels such as Dr. Stewart, delivering his mighty word.

She shared the story of two women in the Bible Shiphrah and Puah who were obscure but who did a great thing, a great work by not being obedient  to the evil king and refusing to carry out orders to murder all male babies. In fact, they were very clever about it. The King even approached them personally and asked why they did not do as he ordered. They responded that the Hebrew women give birth before the midwife can even arrive. But they feared God rather than the political rulers of the day and are eventually rewarded for their actions.

The male child in the midwives’ care was Moses and we all know how important he became.  He shook up the world and laid a solid foundation for eons and generations to come, a great man of god,charged with leading his people out of the bondage of slavery and a self-imposed wilderness of 40 years. No Christian or Hebrew story  is complete without the inclusion of Moses. Here we are now thousands of years into the future with a sermon, a conversation with Moses as crucial subject.

What I liked most about Dr. Stewart’s sermon was how she blended people, freedom fighters and social activists of today with the midwives story and status equating them as midwives as well. She built up the momentum of their importance in a crescendo of vocal recognition  at the end of her sermon that by its very nature increased the value and expanded the importance of midwifery while leveling up the playing field so to speak, of obscured heroes in history and our everyday lives. She mentioned a stream of civil rights icons like Dr. King, Medgar Evers, Rosa Parks, Suffragettes, everyday people who do their part and others one by one, building up the value of doing good and being good,helping and saving others like the midwives saved and protected Moses.

Everybody that helps others, that protects others in harm’s way  or who speaks out or acts out for justice is a midwife.Those who are overlooked but who are important to God’s plan in contrast to those on the other hand who beat their chests out loud, who may be “talking loud, but saying nothing” (my interjection/not Dr. Stewart’s words)and doing only harm and seeking rewards and self-aggrandizement for their evil, like the King seeking mass execution of male children out of maniacal selfish motives. He was threatened that they might rise up against him one day. 

I resonated with the subjects she chose, two women that have as far as I can remember never been mentioned in a sermon let alone been the subject of one. Her sermon demonstrated how the Bible is rich with stories and with hard work and impeccable research you can cast sacred Biblical stories and the characters contained in them in a new light and build upon their spiritual value as she did with Shiphrah and Puah.

Rev. Cynthia Wilson

Wait Until After the Election to Confirm RBG’s Supreme Court Replacement

 No Replacement Yet for RBG, Please.  Republicans are attempting now to rapidly push through their conservative agenda to appoint a conservative judge to the Supreme Court to replace recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Her body is still lying in state. Instead of allowing and condoning the Republicans to behave in this manner, they need to be stayed, stalled and called out. Give the public time to breathe and grieve.

There is no urgency to put this movement in motion prior to the election. The election is less than 60 days away. Give the woman some respect. Not only that, but honor our democratic system and declare a moratorium on any action to appoint a replacement for RBG  until after the election.  They really are coming off rather ghoulishly, demonstrating no decency or respect for such a great woman widely admired by the American public, especially many women. 

On the other hand, the Republican leaders at the President’s behest may be doing the Democrats a favor by belittling themselves in pushing so swiftly for a confirmation. Polls have been conducted which indicate that a majority percentage of men and women alike favor the nomination and confirmation process be conducted after the presidential election has been held in November.