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Burning Burdens

   Day to day it gets really easy to get bogged down with all the stuff in our lives. Our jobs, school, family, friends, etc. With our busy lives, it is easy to get distracted and weighted down with the things of this world. It is scarily easy for us to shift our focus off of Christ. It is a choice we make daily. 

    I want to let you know that it is a conscious decision to follow Jesus with all our hearts. The world teaches us to put Him last, to carry our own burdens and "tough it out." But we have a more fulfilling life available to us! All we have to do is choose. 

    For some reason, we can tend to have a hard time trusting God with our lives. How ludicrous is that? To not trust your life with the One who designed it! But we can choose to relinquish all of the cares of this world to our Heavenly Father. He is far more capable of handling it than we could ever dream of. 

Psalms 55:22 Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken. (HCSB)

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (NIV)

    When we release these things into His hands it means letting them go completely. We pray to Jesus and give Him the areas of our lives that are consuming more of us than He. We give Him our fear. We give Him our future. We lay our lives down at His feet and ask Him to take over for us. The process is praying and releasing. The end. We don't need to constantly pray and beg God to do these things in our lives! That shows a lack of trust that He is faithful to come through for us. Sometimes we only need to pray a couple times because even allowing more thought into those areas weighs us down. 

    When living as a Christ follower, we have to be very conscious of where we put our efforts and energy. Do we really need to put our energy into praying the same worried prayer every day? Or would it be better if we just released our worries and fears to Him and concentrated our energy and prayers to something else? Maybe someone else needs prayer a little more than we do!!

Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (ESV)

    The last point I would like to make is that even allowing others into your life to relieve your burden can be allowing Christ in. When we are born again, we carry Christ within us! As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are supposed to be there for one another in times that are good and times that are hard. No one will love you and support you more than your true family in Christ. We cannot do it without them pointing us back to Jesus when we can't quite see the path. Lay aside your pride and do not neglect to ask for help.

Galatians 6:2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (NIV)

    I encourage you today to lay everything standing in your way to Christ at His feet. He wants to take your burdens so that you can focus on getting to know Him better. He longs for deeper relationships with us all! When we have those burdens weighing us down, we cannot see Jesus for who He truly is. Today, choose what you have access to so freely through Jesus-- choose peace, joy, and all the wonderful gifts that come with being in Him.  

Galatians 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (NIV)

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