Learning from Jesus

By Craig Ashton Jr., June 8, 2024

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

I’ve been thinking about what Jesus meant when He said, “Take my yoke upon you.” God doesn’t free us from bonds. I mean, if I am yoked with Jesus, I must cooperate with Jesus. The yoke is His teachings. His guidance, which reshapes my mind and behavior, depends on His ability to steer me throughout life. What we learn from Him is precisely His interpretation of the commandments and the Old Testament. Do you accept Jesus’s words as binding and authoritative in your life?

Jesus tells us to learn from Him, for He is gentle and humble of heart. Many Christians don’t want God to be gentile and lowly. Oh, they may like tolerance and leniency for themselves, but they don’t for their enemies. When we talk about Jesus coming the second time, we often describe Him not as gentle and meek but as a terrible and violent avenger executing judgment. Have we really learned from Jesus?

According to Jesus, power does not come from dominance and self-exaltation but from being submissive and humble (Philippians 2:6–8). God’s own self-revelation is that He is gentle and lowly in heart. Of course, this does not depict God as weak and passive; rather, it’s an unexpected revelation about God’s way of bringing peace and rest in the world.

We have been given a complete revelation of God and how we are to live as disciples of Jesus. How are we learning at the university of Jesus? Taking Jesus’s yoke means accepting His interpretations of God, the law, and the Old Testament. It means accepting His commentary on and explanations of the stories of the Bible.

Have we learned from Jesus? Learning from Jesus means changing not only our perspective to understand God as gentle and humble but also our behaviors. It means aligning our character with Him. He is our example. When we learn from Jesus in such a way, people will start realizing that we have been with Jesus: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

Jesus is the teacher we all need to find rest for our souls.

Craig Ashton Jr.