“Come to Me”

Come to me…The invitation is to come to him.  Why him?

He offers the invitation as a penniless rabbi in an oppressed nation.  He has no political office, no connections with the authorities in Rome.  He hasn’t written a best-seller or earned a diploma.

Yet, he dares to look into the leathery faces of farmers and tired faces of housewives and offer rest.  He looks into the disillusioned eyes of a preacher or two from Jerusalem.  He gazes into the cynical stare of a banker and the hungry eyes of a bartender and makes this paradoxical promise: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29).

The people came.  They came out of the cul-de-sacs and office complexes of their day.  They brought him the burdens of their existence, and he gave them not religion, not doctrine, not systems, but rest.

1 of 365 devotionals in Grace for the Moment, Volume II
Originally excerpted from

From Six Hours One Friday