LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, October 24, 2024

Years ago my wife and I had a great time with a missionary family that our church supported. After the morning worship service and lunch,  they came to our house and we loaded up the boat and headed for the Chippewa River for some tubing fun. We had a fabulous time getting everyone worn out hanging on for dear life. The river was crowded so there were plenty of waves to navigate, and there was some serious airtime being experienced by the tubers.

At the end of the day, after driving the boat for everyone else, one of the other families invited me to get in a three-person tube for one last run. I agreed, and it was obvious from the start that the boat driver had it in for me. Everything was done to throw me from the tube, including putting me in a faulty portion of the tube. Finally, after hanging on for dear life, the tube collapsed under me, and I was gone. It was a great tumble, but I came up laughing.  

The next day my shoulders and neck were sore. I must have hit my head funny when I fell into the water at breakneck speed. I have a definite understanding of being stiff-necked. However, mine is for a very different reason than the stiff-necked Israelites. Mine is muscle stiffness: theirs was moral stiffness.

Exodus 33:3 “ Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”

The background of the word stiff-necked is agricultural, and comes from a term used to describe a stubborn ox or horse that won’t respond to the yoke or the reins. These animals have their own disposition and refuse to be broken to obey the master. That is how the people of Israel are described three times by the Lord because of their continual complaining and repeated return to their old ways of sin. So serious is this that God, in His mercy, refuses to accompany them on their journey to the promised land for fear that He will destroy them.  

It is a serious thing to have claimed to have taken the yoke of God’s leadership onto our shoulders and then replace it with the yoke of self-gratification. It is a serious thing to set our necks stiffly against the leading of God in our lives. It is a serious thing to set ourselves up as being more qualified to determine our outcomes than God. It is a serious thing to oppose the plan of God for our lives. It will lead to serious consequences and may end in the destruction of all that we once held dear.

But Jesus offers an alternative to that kind of burdensome living. In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said, “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.”  This is the cure for a stiff neck that has been caused by the burden of guilt carried on the shoulders of a morally corrupt person. Come to Jesus for forgiveness and healing of the heart, for when the heart is overwhelmed with the love of God, the will is broken, and the surrendered soul finds rest.

Pastor John