“And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.” –Luke 11:46

            Sometimes I find myself getting into ruts. The most common of those is what I eat. To be fair I am kind of a picky eater so that already limits what I eat. For example, in college we had an all you can eat buffet every day and I found myself going to the same sandwich line for lunch and supper most days of the week unless they had chicken strips or an omelet bar. You just couldn’t pass those up. I just got into the habit or rut. To this day, my go to meal if I don’t know what to eat is always a sandwich. For some reason they just never get old. What are some of the ruts or habits that you have gotten into lately? Is it eating the same food for multiple meals in a row?  Is it binge watching Netflix after supper until you go to bed (if so you should watch White Collar, such a good show)? Or maybe the rut or habit is something you or I don’t really recognize.

            I know as someone who is in ministry full time I get in ruts. I do too many bible studies in a row that include movies, or play too many of the same games too often, but I think it is something that we get used to. Another habit that we can find ourselves falling into is teaching or telling people how terrible and sinful they are. Now this may not be intentional but it can be harmful. If we find ourselves continually giving people the law and telling them where they fall short we are just burdening and bogging them down which is not the ministry we are called to. In fact the message of the gospel is quite the opposite. In Matthew 11 Jesus specifically says “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Christ’s message isn’t that of how horribly sinful we are, it is of how much Christ has loved us to remove our sins from us. The message of forgiveness should be burden lifting, not burden bearing. We, as God’s tools, are used to be a hand up to those who are down and out. So let’s be in the business of digging people out of the holes they find themselves in and not adding to the weight they are under.

QOTD: Are you in the business of weighing people down, or helping people up?

“No man is indispensable. God’s work goes uninterrupted. The instruments are changed but the Master-had is the same, and lays one tool aside and takes another out of the tool-chest as he will.” –Alexander MacLaren