We need to learn how to engage God in our spirit. What is the yoke of Jesus? What is the way? The way is the way of discipleship. Everything that we are doing is in the realm of our spirit. The kingdom is within our spirit, and we have to open that first love gate on a daily basis, to invite God’s presence, the river of life, the presence of God into our spirit, so that God can flow out into the world around us., To create an atmosphere of the kingdom, so that we see the kingdom of God upon earth, as it is in heaven, flowing through our lives as a gateway.
Matthew 11:28 – come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is the basics of this teaching, it is from this passage. Discipleship is really being yoked to Jesus, Yoked to his person, and to his teachings, as a lifestyle. We are following him, being like him. Following him is so much easier when we are actually yoked to him. Because if he is somewhere and we are not, it is very difficult to follow someone where we aren’t. If they are always with us, it is very easy to walk alongside. We know that God is in us, but also he wants to guide us, and direct us, and a walk alongside of us. When it comes to a yoke, we can visualize that as being Jesus, the master or farmer, and us being yoked with a light load – but this isn’t what it is talking about.
In reality, farmers use to yoke a young ox with a more experienced older ox to train it. So the younger ox, that like to go into its own thing, to wander off and eat some grass, actually couldn’t when they were yoked to a larger ox. Oxen are large animals, they are heavy animals. When we have a large ox then it’s very difficult to pull it off course. The farmer would actually yoke the oxen together. So that they would be training, is what this is referring to. The older ox would take the major load and younger ox would be walking alongside learning the ropes.
Now the older ox knows the master’s voice, and the directions that the farmer would give. So it is very familiar with where to go, and what to do. It doesn’t need much direction. Jesus knows everything, from the father, so he only did what he saw the father doing, and he wants to help us do the same thing. So the older ox would keep the younger ox on the right path.
Now that’s what’s called being unequally yoked we don’t want to be yoked to something that will lead us into foolishness, stupidity and not on the right path. But, but we can be for not yoke to the right person. If we are not yoke to the right person, then we can end up on the wrong path. And all this has been yoked to the wrong person when we start out. We are yoked to a pathway which does not lead to life. So it is really important that we get yoked to the right person. And that yoke is taking on discipleship with Jesus.
Acts 26:14 this is the story of Paul’s conversion. Saul saw where you persecuting me, it is hard for you to kick against the goads, pricks. What is this talking about? It is the same picture. The man working the ox would position a goad or a stick with a point on it as a way of exerting influence and control over the ox. And when we are not following the right path, life’s circumstances have a very strong habit of actually making it difficult for us. And if we recognize those is what they are, a little jab, to get us on the right path, and then we can respond to those circumstances in the right way. If the ox refuse the command of the farmer the goad would be used to jab it. Sometimes things in life are like those little jabs. Now when we are actually yoked to Jesus there is no need for that. Why was Paul in the situation that he was? Because he didn’t listen to the truth. If you think of where Paul was, he was actually around where everything was going on in the early church. That whole thing of what would happen when the farmer said go this way, and the ox didn’t want to, they would call it kicking out. And Paul found it very hard, because he was resisting the call of destiny over his life – the yoke of Jesus.
All these pictures come out of a pathway of understanding discipleship. Jesus asked us to take his yoke upon us, So that we could be joined to him. Where he goes, we go. This means we don’t get to choose our own field or what thorough we are going to plow. Jesus sets the field, the path and direction for our lives. And this makes it very easy. We don’t have to try and work out where to go and what to do. We just have to follow. He just wants us to follow him. If there is a yoke, Jesus will carry the weight when we yoked to him. Because his yoke is easy. Jesus will teach us and train us in discipleship. We can learn from him, we can learn to be gentle and heart, our strength surrendered. We can learn to be humble in heart, our identity surrendered. The key is in taking the yoke.
John 14:6 – Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and life no one comes to the father but through me. There is only one way that brings life. There are many ways, or a wide way which brings a lot of things other than life.
When the early church first formed, before they were called Christians, were called followers of the way. That was their name before they were called Christians. That was the way of discipleship. Jesus basically said that he would be with them and would equip them to make disciples and he would guide them in that process. And Jesus actually said to people, come follow me. He didn’t give them a whole list of things in the instruction. It was just basically a come follow me.
What is it mean to follow the master around? The Rabbi, the teacher. They had a very good understanding of what it meant to follow him. Because there were rabbis in Jesus’s day and people were following them. So when Jesus started to call people they knew what it meant to come and follow him. Literally for Jesus it meant come and die.
Now that was the path to Jesus was gonna take, which doesn’t seem to pleasant, but in reality we are not talking about physical death for us, but we are talking about dying to self. So the way, or the path of discipleship is called in the Bible lots of different things. The highway of holiness, the everlasting way or the heavenly way. The ancient paths, the eternal pathway of the tree of life, the narrow way, the way or path of destiny. It is important that we are on it. Because if were not on it then we are headed in the wrong direction. God wants us to be following the path that is prepared for us.
Jeremiah 6:16 says thus saith the Lord stand by the way, see and ask for the ancient path, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. This is the Old Testament passage which Jesus is referring to when he says if you are weary and heavy Laden come to me, you will find rest. But the reality is that they said we will not walk in it. And the first people to say that we will not walk in it, other than Satan was adam and eve. Who were given the choice to follow the right path, The eternal pathway, and they chose another path.
Jeremiah 18; 15 says for my people have forgotten me, they burn incense to worthless gods and they have stumbled from their path, from the ancient paths to walk in by-paths not on the highway. There is only one way which leads to destiny, everything else is basically – off into the wilderness, on a false path. They lost access to the path of life. And they were walking on a path which would only bring death.
The path of the tree of life or the path of the knowledge of good and evil was their choice. We actually get to make that choice every day. Which path are we going to follow? Are we can to do our own way or are we going to do it God’s way. We can choose our way, which is humanistic, materialistic, and in own strength, with the sweat of our brow, it’s hard work and actually never produces any real life. Or God’s way, which is the supernatural way. In which we can be yoked to him and he can guide us and lead us in paths which are beyond our imagination thinking right now. Because God is unveiling where these paths lead, and where they go.
Proverbs 14:12 there is a way which seems right to a man but its end is the way of death. You see there is always a way, the choice is whether we want death or life. If we want to keep on doing things our own way, it will always produce death.
Proverbs 12:28 – the way of the righteous is life and in its pathway there is no death. So when were following the right path there is life and abundance, for us in relationship to God. All there is, is death in the old way of doing it. The pathway of death, or the pathway of life, our choice. The pathway of true life must come from death to self. We cannot do it our way and God’s way at the same time. We have to make a choice. Am I going to surrender doing it the way that makes sense to me or am I gonna surrender to the path that makes sense to God. And when I know him, it begins to make sense to me.
Romans 8:29 – those who he foreknew he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son. This has always been the path. This has always been the desire that God has for us that we would be like him. The destiny, the way that we have been assigned in our life that was ordained and predestined is to be like God. This is it. It is not a physical thing to do it is a person we become like. And we become who God created us to be. We were formed in God’s heart in eternity. And we can reengage that to discover who we really are, not how we have become shaped by the choices that we have made.
Psalm 139:15 – my frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, your eyes have seen my unformed substance and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, as when yet there were not one of them. Everything happened in eternity in God’s heart. His thoughts about us, it says how vast are the some of the thoughts he has about us. It is all about who we are and who he created us to be.
Proverbs 8:1 – it talks about where these paths can be engaged in a realm in heaven. Does not wisdom call and understanding lift up her voice on the top of the heights besides the way where the path meets she takes her stand besides the gate the opening to the city at the entrance of the door she calls, and cries out, that is an actual place in the realm of heaven where we can engage wisdom and we can engage where those paths are and we can find out who we really are. And then we can begin to walk it out.
That is a picture of, the ancient paths. It is not a straight path, it is a continual re-birthing path we get a new chance every day. A new day, begins a new beginning in which we can stand and what is, look into what was into eternity, and walk into eternity and bring what will be out of that. This is actually something that we can learn to do. We can naturally know God’s heart and go to that place and bring that place into what is today. And we can walk that path that will continually bring us life. Continually life. If we were able to look at what decisions we have made and the results of those decisions before we made them, do we think we would have changed any of the decisions that we have already made. So if we go back into what was, God’s intention for every decision we make and get his heart then we can change the decisions of the decisions we have made on the basis of what he says rather than what we think. And God can give us that revelation on a daily basis.
We are to be conformed to that eternal image. That God prepared and our spirit agreed to follow. You see your spirit was created before it came into this physical existence. And it was created within God’s heart and we can engage what we were called to be. Adam and Eve were sinless, but not perfected. They had done nothing wrong but they still would have had to be conformed to the image of Jesus. That was not immediately, there was a process to follow. They would’ve had to follow the same ancient path to fulfill their governmental authority as conformed sons of God, in the full image of God.
Psalm 86:6 – I said you are God’s, and all of you are sons of the most high, nevertheless you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes. Why? Because they were not on the right path. This was calling them gods, not God. Because there is only one God, but gods – made in the image of God to be sons to be able to do the things that God does, because that is what he wants his children to do but because of the wrong choice, they weren’t going to outwork that. And that is why Jesus came, to get us back on the right path. They followed the path of the knowledge of good and evil
John 10:34 – Jesus quoting that passage, Jesus answered them has it not been written in your law, that I said you are God’s. This created a big problem for them because they didn’t understand what he was saying. Because he was saying I’m the son of God. Look at me, look at God. That challenged their whole perception of what relationship was with God. If he called them gods to whom the word of God came in the Scripture cannot be broken. If he called them gods, then what are they? They are God’s. And who are we, we are gods, not God, but made in the image of God to outwork the purposes of God. We all started with two strands of DNA, because we were born on that wrong path. And when we transferred pathways, when we came out of the pathway which leads to knowledge of good and evil and transferred to the pathway which leads to life we get a third strand of DNA. The light that was hidden now gets revealed and we can begin to be restored and transformed.
That process of conformity is where we access the nine strands of God’s DNA. And it’s a wonderful thing when we begin to engage God personally, intimately. The path of ascension, again if I use that word it is because it is a word of truth. There are steps that lead us to become more like God, it is a process. But those words have been taken and used and twisted and now we can use them. But actually we need to reclaim back the words that have been robbed, so that we can actually use the correct words that describe the process that God has called us in, in discipleship to become like him. This will lead us to the Firestone’s, and there are nine Firestone’s in Eden in the mountain of God. Some of us have experienced them and have been there and engaged in those Firestone’s. The path will also lead to a place which is called the dance floor where we can engage with the DNA strands of God. Where his light comes around us and he dances with us and he puts within us truth. Because Jesus is the way, but also the truth and the life. So if we want real life we need to be on this path of pursuing discipleship. We get three strands from the father, three strands from the son and three strands from the spirit. He conforms us to the complete image of the sons of God. Jesus described us as gods, sons of the most high. And we need to realize that, not think of ourselves as worms and nobodies and nothings. Just because we messed up, Jesus is taken all the mess; he did it on the cross. For gave us for everything, took our sin, our sickness everything. So that we can have life in abundance but we need to know who we are. And we are called sons of God; we have been adopted into his family. We are not now wandering around not knowing what to do. We have someone that we can be following and through transformation, transfiguration, metamorphosis, that process of ascension or conformity to the eternal image as a son of God. This is what discipleship is.
It is not just wandering around following aimlessly, it is becoming like the one we are following. It is being transformed into his image. It is being able to do all the things that he did an even greater things that he says we should do. Because we can do greater works. So there are nine Firestone’s, nine strands, and they reveal the character nature of God as revealed in the fruit of the spirit. They also revealed the nine foundational principles of government. So that we can rule in the heavens as sons of God. Because sonship is not just on the earth it is to the whole of the created order. Our true destiny of Sun ship. The fruit of the spirit grows as we walk the pathway of discipleship. It is not imparted as a gift it grows through the journey. But there are things we can learn that help us to take responsibility as sons and bring God’s government around our lives through our lives and into the world, because were operating in the realms of heaven. They are the laws, testimonies, ways, statutes, commandments, precepts, judgments, ordinances, wonders of God. And we can literally engage those, have revelation as we follow this journey. Walk in his ways in this realm we can then exercise heavenly authority, have charged the house, charge of the courts and have access the stand in the assembly of God. There are many courts and assemblies which we engage within the realms of heaven. The transfiguration or transformation or metamorphosis is coming into the true reality and consciousness of who we really are. Because God created everything by thought and his consciousness created him to speak and bring transformation. And he is still speaking, and we can still file that pathway and be transformed, knowing who we really are. Knowing our true identity as sons of God, knowing that we are not destined to fail or mess up but to succeed and to prosper and to bring Dominion to the world. So the pathway of the tree of life is the true source of relationship. That brings knowledge, wisdom, understanding, counsel might the fear the Lord as we engage with the spirit of the Lord and the seven spirits of God. That is not possible on the path that Satan offered. The humanistic path of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is where we do it our way. The Frank Sinatra song my way. It is so proud and arrogant that we think we can do it our way rather than God’s way. And it’s God’s way or no way if we want life. If we want to carry on being miserable then we need to follow the way that we have been on. God invites us to change direction and follow a new way. And this is the path of the cross.
Discipleship is a death to self, my way to produce fruit, gold, silver, precious stones that are on our swirl of destiny, when we produce the fruit of who we are.
John 12:24 – truly, truly I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone. But if it dies it bears much fruit. So the only way that we are going to bring the fruit of discipleship is if we died to doing in our own way. And our own way makes us weary and heavy laden and burdened.
Romans 6:4 – this is what happens when were baptized into the death of Jesus; therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father that we too may walk in newness of life. This is the pathway of discipleship – newness of life. Not the old life not the old sin miserable life but a new life. For if we have become united together with him in the likeness of his death we also shall be his resurrection. We can have resurrection life the same power because Jesus to be raised from the dead can be outworked in our life as we follow the pathway of discipleship. Resurrection life, newness of life, new creations, the path of discipleship’s death to self effort and that brings a new and an abundant source of life. Because were not just dependent upon what we can do, we have an external source and an internal source of life. The flow of the river of life the flow of the relationship of father son and Spirit.
Genesis 1, 26 – our original mandate. To be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and rule. How do we be fruitful? Producing more disciples. Ultimately this is the fruit of discipleship – more disciples.
Matthew 7:13 – is the way in. Enter through the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and there are many that go in there by, many that enter through it. We don’t want anyone to go to the place of destruction. Hell is not a good place. But we have all been given the choice. Of whether we choose to follow that path.
For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. There’s only one way that we can go, through Jesus. So when we walk in through that way and it says there are few who find it. When we walk through that way and we walked through the gate we come in to an expanse of revelation and truth. It is not restricted on the other side of that gate because God can do exceedingly and abundantly beyond what we can imagine or think. So the pathway that we can follow is way beyond anything that we presently know. But it is coming, the revelation is coming.
Jesus invited people to follow me follow him. That was the point. Jesus is the path. He is the way.
Luke 9:23 – he was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. To become an apprentice, it is on-the-job training. As he shows us revelatory things. So the decision to follow Jesus is the beginning of Christian discipleship. And Jesus himself demonstrated the very clear conditions for his disciples. He didn’t make it easy to follow him. He challenged people’s perceptions because they knew what it was to follow a Rabbi. And he was coming with a new order. He wasn’t coming like the old, he was establishing a new covenant, a new way and he challenged them to that new way.
So what is it mean to be a follower of the way, a disciple? We need to know what it is not first. It is not easy, it is not a bed of roses. it is not a use for our spare, free time. It is not just going to church on a Sunday. It is not a life of compromise. It is not a license to do whatever you like. Discipleship isn’t like this. That is what religion will offer you. But God offers relationship.
Luke 14:26 – if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother wife children brothers sisters, yes and even his own life he cannot be my disciple. Wherever does not carry his own cross, after me cannot be my disciple. What a challenge. This is the cost, everything.
Luke 14:33 – so none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. This in reality is what we do when we die to self. We surrender to him.
Mark eight, 34 – he summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to him if anyone wishes to come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. This was a challenge to them.
Luke 8:35 – wherever wishes to save his life shall lose it whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul. There are many people who are very successful in life and have lots of money and power, worth position, fame and fortune and are not happy. Why? – Because they have not discovered their true destiny and relationship with God.
We can gain so much materialistic things and yet forfeit our soul., our peace, our joy, our rest.
Jim Elliott who was a missionary and actually gave his life, he died on the mission field, said this he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. So you can try and keep your life but you have not got the capacity to keep it for eternity, think about it he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to get – gain what he cannot lose.
When we follow the pathway of discipleship we gain abundance in life that we will never lose.
One John 2:6 – one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. As we are in relationship with him, we need to follow and walked away he walked. He walked the way of the cross, dead to self only doing what he saw the father doing and only saying what he heard the father saying that was the way he walked. And he was able to do all the amazing things he did only because he follow the guidance and direction in his relationship with the father and he invites us to do the same.
Matthew 11:28 – come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Now I experienced this when I was in heaven and I encounter Jesus face-to-face and I sat talking to him he sat me down and he actually talk me through this Scripture and he shared what it was to be living from a place of rest, A place of peace and wholeness. He gave me a revelation from that passage which I can live in and I do every day. Coming from a place of rest not coming from a place of wandering, wondering what to do, trying to figure out what to do but coming from a place of rest just following him who leads us and what to do.
So the choices do we take that yoke and find rest for our souls or not. In a literal sense it is just a word that means a bar of wood constructed to unite to animals and enabling them to work the fields work the fields drawing a load pulling instruments used for farming. That is just what it means in a literal sense. But from a negative sense a yoke can be difficult. Synonymous with slavery. Servant hood, submission, burden, load, oppression, bondage to sin. We don’t want to be yoked any of those things
Acts 15:10 – now why then do you try to test God by putting on the next of Gentiles a yoke that neither we or our ancestors were able to bear. We can’t do it through religion they had a lot of follow that they were able to bear. The religious bondage of dead works to earn God’s salvation, or favor blessing is a yoke of slavery and bondage. It is not Sun ship.
We have been set free from that. We may feel that we are under a yoke of center oppression guilt failure anxiety worry but Jesus has set us free from that yoke. We just need to come to him and cast all are heavy burdens on him and he will give us rest for souls. Jesus took upon himself the yoke of the lawn fulfilled it. Therefore we can be set free from the yoke of sin and death. Jesus invites everyone who is under the yoke of the law or sin and offers true rest, for each person.
If Jesus promised his yoke is easy and is burden is light is that our personal experience? Because if it is not – then what are we yoked to? Are we tired and burdened, think about it? If we feel tired we need to asked Jesus to show us why. Not just physically being tired, we’re talking about being spiritually heavy, weary, tired from trying to do things in our own strength.
Are we trying to survive and cope with life ourselves. Or are we surrender to him.
Are we trying to provide for ourselves or is God our provider. Are we trying to protect ourselves or do we trust in his protection. We trying to find significance in our achievements. Are we trying to create our own self-image. Are we trying to compare ourselves with others.
Or are we content to be me. To be who God created us to be. We trying to be somebody else, this is really tiring. It is okay to have role models but we need to be free to be ourselves. Are we trying to meet others expectations of us. This is really tiring. Maybe the expectations of our parents. That they put on us when we were a child. This can be weary. God has expectations of us to fulfill and that’s just being ourselves. And fulfilling our destiny. Are we always feeling a failure? Are we trying to wear a mask of pretense keeping up appearances. Are we trying to maintain control. To keep it all together. Or are we surrendering control to God. Are we trying to cover up our inadequacies. He knows our faults and weaknesses and loves us anyway. Why do we need to put fig leaves figuratively and cover up and hide in the bushes?
We can walk into the light and received forgiveness and cleansing. He loves us enough to accept us and he loves us enough to also transform us and make us whole. Are we trying to be good and righteous with dead works. This is really tiring. Trying to make yourselves good enough for God is not a good idea. Are we trying to make amends for our past? Or do we receive forgiveness as a free gift?
Jesus’s sacrifice provided everything that we need for salvation and transformation. But are we trying to do it by works. We cannot please everyone, so it is better to choose the just please God. How can we please God? It is just being who he created us to be. And this is wondrously freeing just to be ourselves. If we feel burdened are we caring things that we should not be. Maybe we are burdened by false responsibilities. We feel we have to look after our family our finances. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and he looks after everything else. If we feel burdened it is because we are caring a responsibility that belongs to him not us. Are we burdened by sin guilt and shame and condemnation. In Christ there is no condemnation. In Christ we are cleansed and made the righteousness of God. Are we burdened by the weight of false expectations are we burdened by sorrows and griefs Jesus came to carry our grief and our sorrow there is a grieving process but we don’t have to bear it. Are we burdened by disappointments hope deferred make it the heart sick. Proverbs 1312. Disappointments can be a heavy burden to carry. Are we burdened by unforgiveness – 37 10