Epiphany Part 6

Epiphany Part 6 - The Manifestation of the God-Man as Merciful

Matthew 11:25-30

Often we get caught up in the emphasis of God's harsh justice and firm law and we skip over His mercy. Jesus begins by thanking God for hiding things from certain people. In evangelism, we ought to do this as well...whether the gospel is rejected or accepted we are to thank God for paving the road for both. Amid discouragement, He closes the eyes of those who will not see and opens the eyes of His people. Mindful of this, we cannot predict if someone has or has not accepted the gospel, we are to always try and try more to preach the gospel, never giving up. We are to always be thanking the Father for the blinding or clarifying work that He does constantly. He will be glorified no matter what, whether through the blinded or the seeing. We often get so focused on the converting that we reduce the content of the gospel in order to see more come to Christ. We change it and make it more tolerable in order to get more blinded converts in the Church. Christianity, or the conversion to it, has become about dreams, emotions, and feelings *only*, and never speak on God's holy majesty or mercy, the Law, the need for forgiveness, or the self's sin. It speaks only to what people really want to hear, their feelings. 

"Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." Our God given belief is not of ourselves, it has nothing about ourselves. It goes on speak about how it is up to the Father. We stand as no holier than those without because of ourselves. We cannot take pride or an upturned nose to it, because it has nothing to do with us. We did nothing to deserve it. It is only of God's great mercy and grace. We are never to refer to ourselves as wise or intelligent apart from anything of Christ. Christ, Himself, refers to us in the passage as "babes". 

He calls us to Himself, saying how light His burden is. The ones He invites are the ones who know that they are dependent only on Him. They realize their lack of sufficiency in and of themselves. He raises up those who see themselves as needy of Him. Too often is is our pride that stands in the way of gaining that mercy and knowledge of God. It is a holy prayer to ask of God to take away selfish pride. 

Christ calls us to come to Him. The habits and rituals were overbearing and heavy, near impossible to achieve. But Christ takes it all away and says clearly "This is what the Law says." He says how His way is light, how He has made it light. To have his yoke and burden is a good thing, it is what we were made for. You will always have a yoke and burden in life, the only question is what yoke and burden will it be? Christ tells us of how this yoke and burden were made exactly to fit is. Christ came not to dismiss the whole Law, but to fulfill it and create a light burden, to rescue from an overwhelming burden of sin.