Lay Your Burdens Down

What I have to share is very testimonial. I use to have a very narrow perspective of coming to the cross and asking Jesus to forgive me. Very ritualistic and not personal. It was in a way a checklist. Asked for forgiveness – tick.

I want to share a revelation God gave me that he used to bring healing and wholeness to me again. However I know that this will only be possible if you are open and vulnerable to His Spirit which will council you. Often we can ignore things that hurt us and then just carry all the hurt. But I am trusting God to bring healing and release to you. I have prayed that He will heal you. So I am preaching but it is all about the response from you.

A while back I was struggling with dealing with issues of rejection and brokenness. It was as if when I was a child I hadn’t suffered but then I met the world and I became broken. God showed me that I could take this to him and that when He died on the cross he was rejected and broken for me so that I wouldn’t have to be rejected by God. The greatest rejection that any one can face is to be separated from God. This is a relationship that truly matters. It’s the most important one. And Jesus was separated for a time for us.

Isaiah 53 (NKJV)

There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs. And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. …By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Then I asked God if he sees me broken, or maimed, and he said that no He saw me made new. That his blood has washed over me and made me clean. As before the fall. I was redeemed. Like when he first made Adam and Eve. He saw me like Eve was created to be. (Rom 15:18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men). And that as I am continually washed by the blood, this is how he sees me always.

A few days later I was walking along and praying and God bought to my mind the grief of a mother whose son committed suicide. I use to know him when I was young and I was at loss to deal with this and felt grieved for the mother. Then God showed me the cross and How all her pain and all her confusion and suffering the mother felt He took upon himself. So that she could come to Him and receive healing and live with joy again.

So God again broadened my view. Not only did he take all my rejection and totally accepted me, becoming my closest friend, he redeemed me as new and continually washes me with His blood. He has also taken all the sorrow and grief we are going to face and have faced.

I feel that God wants us to give him our burdens, sins, grief’s, sufferings, false accusations and know that He went through all that for us. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter even though He was innocent. He took our pain and punishment. He has made a way for us to let go all the things that have happened because of the fall.

God has been teaching me about letting go and surrendering. The cross is a place of humility. And not striving. It’s a place of surrender. We don’t have to do it Jesus has done it.

1 pet 5:6-8 (AMP)

Therefore humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you, Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.

Verse 6 talks about surrendering and humbling one self and verse 7 Giving everything to God. It occurred to me that giving God our burdens is an act of humility as you no longer going to carry the load yourself. You give up. You come to a point where you admit you are not strong enough to carry it anymore. It’s a good place to be as Jesus died for that burden and you no longer have to carry it. It’s carrying in vain, its carrying something that has already been carried. Jesus took the weight of the world upon His shoulders, so we don’t have to. We are called to soar like eagles and not walk. Yet how can a bird fly if it is so weighted down?

Have you read or heard of Pilgrims Progress. I felt that God wanted to bring my attention to this book and share an extract with you. The Pilgims Progress is about a man named Christian who is on a journey with a heavy burden on his shoulders.

“Then I saw in my dream, that Christian asked him farther, if he could not help him off with his burden, that was upon his back. For as yet he had not got rid thereof nor could he by any means, get it off without help. He told him, “As to thy burden, be content to bear it, until thou comest to a place of deliverance, for there it will fall from thy back by itself.” Then Christian began to gird up his loins, and address himself to his journey” (The Pilgrims Progress, By John Bunyun, page 43)

This extract showed me that I didn’t have to ply off my sin and burdens but that when I came Jesus and surrendered them to Him, They would roll away as Jesus would take them. There is no striving in anyway. My Mom often tells a story about forgiveness. How she thought she had forgiven her dad but hadn’t. Then one day she just gave it to Jesus and then didn’t think about it anymore. Then a few months later she knew she had forgiven as she had forgotten and received healing in that area of her life. So when you give God your burdens don’t worry if His taken them. Just trust that He has and keep your eyes on Him.

I just want to read to you how Pilgrim came to get rid of His burden.

Now, I saw in my dream, that the highway up to which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall that was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a Cross, and little below, in the bottom, a Sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that, just as Christian came up with the cross, His burden loosed from His shoulders, and fell from His back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do so till it came to the mouth of the Sepulchre, where I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, “He has given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death. (Page 52 & 53)

God gave me picture for this message of a man walking with a heavy pack, relinquishing it at the cross and then walking stooped. Still under condemnation. Not realizing he can run and dance now.

Jesus’s last words on the cross were “It is finished!”

1 Cor 15:55-57

55"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God wants is to walk in Victory. Sin no longer has a sting. Knowing that we are justified.

We are not meant to carry the weight of the world on our shoulder. Jesus already has.

Roman 8 : 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution…37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Now when I think of the cross I think not just of Jesus suffering so I could go to heaven but of a place I can go to God and lay down my burdens. Knowing He has already carried them and suffered in my place. I am filled with love at what God has done for us. A complete work. So come to Jesus and give him your cares, disappointments, sins, sadness, grief, traumatic experinces, mourning, rejection, false accusations, betrayal, pressure and expectations of others. Give it to him and then walk knowing you walk in Victory. He is the only one that has any right to judge us and He has justified us. Its just between you and God. We mustn’t worry about what others think or say. Its only important what God thinks and says. We have one life and we should live it for the one who died for us. Not the empty approval of man, or even our own approval. We are approved the blood of Jesus.

Rom 12: 1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight (unnecessary weight), and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

There is a special place that is always open for us. Where we meet the grace of God and are washed anew. The other morning I felt I was been attacked with condemnation and remembered things I had done more than 10 years ago that was wrong. I simply knelt before God and confessed my sins, asked him to forgive me and then put my eyes on him. I think this is a place we can learn to walk in.

SKIT TO ILLUSTRATE WHAT THIS MESSAGE IS ABOUT: A man is walking with a heavy pack loaded with rocks. He comes to a picture of the cross and he gives Jesus the rocks. 11 rocks in the back pack. I asked God to give me the names of the rocks so I knew the burdens that we are carrying. Take rocks out one by one and read them out. Then man walks upright with joy.

There are 11 burdens he gave me.

1. Rejection

2. Worry/anxiety about anything and everything

3. Betrayal/False accusations

4. Worry for your children

5. Disobedience/Sin

6. Unforgiveness (for some reason this gets its own stone)

7. Pressure (From, self, others, boss, parents,). Even pressure to have a child when you can’t.

8. Fear (people, future…)

9. Provision (financial, provide for your family)

10. Heart Brokenness (could be past relationships, disappointment)

11. Loss of some-one who died.

So right now, lay your burdens down at the cross, give them to Jesus and fix your eyes on Him. Picture Jesus and picture the cross. Think about what He did for you and then surrender in your heart and give them to him. You can even ask him to show you your burdens (things that have happened to you, or things you have gone through, sin ect...). Then walk in victory. Knowing you are redeemed made whole and no-one can judge you as God has Justified you and washed you.

(Future tip: I have really taken this message to heart. And what I do now is I constantly lay my burdens down at His feet. Also I am practicing being like my brother Samuel. He likes the saying “water off a ducks back”. Any pressure you put on Him is like that. Sometimes people will off load their burdens on one. I am not saying this is bad. It means one knows what to pray. But I have learn’t (am learning) not to pick them up. Just pray for that person and then leave it in His hands. Not think or worry about it.)