Help with coming to Jesus

 

"Come to me...and I will give you rest"

When Jesus said these words he was physically with the people he was inviting. It would have been simple for one of them to come to him in the same way we might come up to a speaker after his talk and initiate a conversation.

But it has been 2,ooo years since anyone could physically come to Jesus. What is a practical way for someone like me--especially when I am tired, worn out, even perhaps "burned out on religion"--to come to Jesus?

The words Eugene Peterson uses in Matthew 11:28-30 have been a great help to me, and using them as the basis for prayer has been a very practical way for me to come to Jesus:

I do want to keep company with you and learn to live freely and lightly.

May I continually come to you, get away with you and recover my life.

May you show me

   how to take a real rest,

   walk with you and work with you;   

   may I watch how you do it.

Help me learn the unforced rhythms of grace, trusting that you won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on me.

Amen.

Praying like this, and contemplating what Jesus offers does make a difference!

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Wondering about the photo above? 

It is a group of Moldovan university students who are about to get on a train to attend an IFES conference in Ukraine in 1997. They represent the first steps towards a dream...what is now CSC, the IFES fellowship of Christian students in Moldova. Click here to learn more about CSC.