Help With Your Baggage

On some of my trips I can travel pretty light, but there have been a few recently that I felt like a mule carrying the things I had to take. I had one trip I had to pack for three different seasons; professional settings, youth settings - you get the idea. And because I was going to be gone for quite a while, of course, I had to basically take my office with me. Okay I had a lot of baggage. When I arrived someone at the area met me at the gate and said those magic words - "Let me help you with your baggage." I did.

Well I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Help With Your Baggage."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew, Chapter 11, verse 28. A wonderful invitation from Jesus Christ. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." That invitation is echoed in another place in the Bible in I Peter, Chapter 5, verse 7, it says, "Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you."

Now, we all have baggage, the emotional kind. In fact, maybe you're carrying a lot of pain right now. Maybe you got some crippling issues from your past. Maybe some bad news you got recently or an overload of stress. It could be you carry baggage from a divorce - your own or maybe your parents, or from some sort of abuse a bad relationship maybe. Some of us are trying to carry the weight of a serious medical condition, a financial crisis, maybe a family issue. Well my friend John has some very heavy baggage.

One day in a doctor's office, he heard one of the words we dread . . . cancer. He has a deadly cancer. He is suppose to have been gone three or four times already. John had ten operations in eight years, but when you talk to John you just can't believe what he's gone through, he is going through. He is joyful. He's positive. He's interested in how you're doing. It's just hard to believe he could be carrying such heavy weight, yet seem so light. John's doctor has heard how John has been such a blessing and encouragement to other patients. They told him. So he called him in one day and said John can you visit some of my other patients? They need what you have. What's John have? He made that clear to me the other day. He told me about others that he knows who are falling under the weight of cancer.

Many just made this simple observation - He said they're trying to handle it without a Savior. Well that's the difference for John - the Savior difference - the Jesus difference. He could be the difference for you. Let's look at the baggage you're carrying. I wonder if John's words describe you, trying to handle it without a Savior. See you were never meant to carry that pain, that burden alone. Jesus says, "Come to me." I want to carry it. He knows your pain. He understands it because He's been here. He's experienced everything from loneliness, to betrayal, to torture, to dying; and Jesus has dealt with the deadliest baggage we carry, the sin of our lives that will one day keep us out of heaven.

But the Bible says He carried our sins in His own body on the tree, and the day you tell Him that you are trusting Him to be your own Savior from your own sin is the last day that you will ever carry your burden alone. The strong arms of Jesus are reaching out to you today as He says, Let me help you with your baggage. I can handle it. I already bore all the weight of your sins upon my cross. The rest is easy. The promise of Jesus - I will give you rest. If your soul is really tired today, let Jesus give you what only He can, rest and peace at last.

If you would like to know more about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or if you want to know for sure that you belong to Him...

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