What did Jesus mean that His yoke is easy?

Is Christian living easy or hard? 

Is it easy or hard for you to live the Christian life?

I have asked this question to thousands of Christians and consistently they will answer with resolve, “Hard!”

Then, I show them this familiar verse:

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:30 (NIV) 

I ask again, wording the question slightly differently, “Did Jesus teach that following Him would be easy or hard?” Puzzled looks. 

I never get an explanation this complete, but it seems they are saying, “I don’t care what that verse says, believe me, Christian living is very, very hard.”

One word of clarification. I am not asking whether life is hard. Our experience confirms what Jesus taught: life is hard. “In this world you will have trouble.” John 16:33 (NIV) Trouble. Life is hard. 

I am asking whether Christian living is easy or hard, not whether life is easy or hard. In this world full of difficulties, is it easy or hard to live as Jesus taught?

The answer seems clear. Jesus taught that His yoke is easy. Could it be we have put on some other yoke?

• Perhaps we have put on the yoke of religion. 
• Perhaps we have put on the yoke of duty.
• Perhaps we have put on the yoke of feel-good faith.
• Perhaps we have put on the yoke of legalism. 
• Perhaps we have put on the yoke of moralism. 
• Perhaps we have put on the yoke of trying really hard to be good. 

If the yoke that we have around our neck is not easy, it is not Jesus’ yoke. 

Ortberg suggests that we have replaced Jesus’ yoke with rule-keeping: 

A recent study by the Barna Group found that the number one challenge to helping people grow spiritually is that most people equate spiritual maturity with trying hard to follow the rules in the Bible. No wonder people also said they find themselves unmotivated to pursue spiritual growth. If I think God’s aim is to produce rule-followers, spiritual growth will always be an obligation rather than a desire of my heart.

“Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith,” Paul wrote, “but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping.” In other words, it only results in a rule-keeping, desire-smothering, Bible-reading, emotion-controlling, self-righteous person who is not like me. In the end, I cannot follow God if I don’t trust that he really has my best interests at heart.

The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. There is an enormous difference between following rules and following Jesus, because I can follow rules without cultivating the right heart. 

The gospel of the early church went like this:

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. Acts 3:19 (NIV)

If we have not experienced repentance as a refreshing experience, perhaps we have misunderstood repentance. (Spoiler alert: it means to change your mind. Repentance means to change your stinkin thinkin.)

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