Exchanging yokes with the Father today was absolutely remarkable! I believe with all my heart what it says in Matthew 11 about yoke exchange. But when a substantial heart change happens to you personally it shakes your world. Maybe it doesn’t literally shake your world, but if you could see into the spirit world, things were rocking! All because of coming before Jesus and letting Holy Spirit lead the way to freedom!

Matthew 11:28-30
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 in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my load is light.

Jesus is instructing us how to get free through a detailed scripture. It requires an action out of us. We must first come to him. We do this through quieting ourselves before the One who created us and who knows us better than anyone else. We then are told to take the Father’s yoke in exchange for our heavy weight; the things that are pressing on us physically or emotionally. In doing this we receive wisdom to know how to change our circumstances, we also receive grace to walk things out till they change. His yoke is always better, easy, full of grace, and kind.

Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control; against such things there is no law.

Let’s continue to humble ourselves before God; even when it is not our problem but the other persons. In doing this we are receiving more of God’s nature as our character, our soul is being transformed in the process. The fruit of this is God’s way of thinking, God’s way of communicating, and God’s way of loving people who are not so loveable at times.

When studying the above scripture there were two Spiritual fruits that stood out to me: one was kindness, and the other one is love. It seemed to be the two things Holy Spirit was emphasizing. Kindness means to be fair, justly dealing with others, doing that which is good. We all enjoy being around people who are kind. They are uplifting in their conversations.

When Jesus said my yoke is easy, He is saying it is my nature to be kind and willing to help. That is the Greek meaning of easy. I have been in conversations with people and have had a momentary loss of thought, and the person I’m talking with fills in the blanks for me. It is comforting and there is a healthy ebb and flow to the conversation. This is a simplistic example to being kind, but for me it’s huge and stands out. The Lord is never cynical and He is never sarcastic. I love the way he is and I want to be just like him! I believe we can take on more and more of his character through exchanging our yoke of insecurity, which produces the bad fruit, and receive a transformed mind that abounds in good fruit!

God is love. He is our source of love. He teaches us how to give and receive love in a healthy way. If we are producing the opposites of kindness and love in our lives, we should welcome Holy Spirit to take a closer look at the root of our bad fruit. I believe a poor self image and negative self talk is one source of bad fruit. God is our source of kindness and love and it is only right to go to Him to help make the lasting changes we need.

I John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

Fear of many things also keeps us from experiencing God’s love and keeps us from giving love in a healthy way. Many who have experienced salvation continue to struggle with fear, and the fruit of fear does not know how to love the way God loves.

For many years it was my prayer, to be perfected in love. I came to Christ with a fractured soul; fearful of so many things. As God began to heal me emotionally, I began to learn from him how to give and receive love. He is so patient and kind with us. He knows how we are made, and he knows our beginning and our ending. He wants us to experience freedom!

I Corinthians 13: 1-8
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Wow, we can have spiritual gifts operating in and through us and still not be perfected in love! Basically, that is all of us who call ourselves believers. We are in the process of being sanctified, but Jesus still allows us to preach, teach, and prophesy. He is a God of patient endurance in regards to his children. In saying that we must also say this, we are nothing without love. The gifts of the Spirit profit us and our hearers little if we are not motivated by God’s agape love firstly.

Colossians 3:12-15
And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

This is a priceless scripture! Put on compassion, this is yet another action we are required to do. I do this by simply saying or asking, Lord would you clothe me with compassion? I put on compassion, love, and kindness. I choose to walk in these.

We are to forgive the one we have a complaint against. Why? Jesus forgave us and continues to forgive us. I would add, be quick to forgive. Go immediately into your secret place and ask the Lord to reconcile your heart towards that person. Speak blessing over the one who has offended you. Then watch what happens. There will be a transformation of your thinking and your actions. Jesus does this through the yoke exchange He spoke about in Matthew 11.

Finally we are instructed to put on love. Here we are called to action once again. We do this the same way we did with compassion. It is by faith that we say, I choose to put on love!

Holy Spirit spoke this to me in my quiet time today.

Be quick to forgive when the offense comes. Press into Me. You will gain strength to love without conditions attached. I will perfect you in love. Love given from a surrendered heart is perfect love. Love not seeking its own gratification but love given, freely given.