How do you want to leave 2024—and enter 2025? What will you leave behind and what will you take with you?
How we enter/leave a job, position and even a year is important.
We have an opportunity as we enter 2025 both corporately (as a nation) and individually, but it requires an action on our part. Are you ready to break off the yoke that has been on you?
Yokes aren’t always a bad thing. A young ox is yoked to a more mature and experienced ox to train them how to pull together and walk. Also, we are yoked to Christ when we receive him as our Lord.
Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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” (NIV 1995).
But what about yokes that have been placed on us by others or because of events?
Many are carrying yokes of oppression, depression, disappointment, lack, rage, etc. from what has been done to you or happened to you.
The longer it has been there, the more it has seemed like it would always be there. But it doesn’t have to be.
Yet to be free requires an action on our part.
Are you ready to break the yoke off your neck? That is a word for you as we leave 2024 and enter 2025. Let’s leave the old baggage behind. How can we do that?
SEE ALSO: Are You Positioned for a Miracle?
First, let’s look at Esau. His blessing as the firstborn was stolen when his mother and brother conspired to trick his ailing father into giving his blessing of the firstborn to his younger brother.
It was brutally unfair and unjust and made worse because it was his own mother and brother who betrayed him.
When Esau entered his father’s tent for the blessing and learned it had been given to Jacob, he cried out, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” (Gen 27:38 NIV).
Esau had already traded his birthright of the firstborn to his younger brother and now his blessing was stolen. But in that moment, his father gave him another blessing. One that required an action on Esau’s part to walk in it.
“You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck” (Gen 27:40 NIV).
The New Living Translation says it this way, “You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother. But when you decide to break free, you will shake his yoke from your neck.”
That blessing had a contingency.
The blessing of restoration was there, but Esau would have to come to the place that he was tired of his brother’s foot on his neck and break that yoke of Jacob’s dominance off.
SEE ALSO: It’s Time to Leave Egypt
When his birthright blessing was stolen, Esau was furious. And rightfully so. It says, “So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said [a]to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob” (Gen 27:41 NIV 1995).
That grudge produced rage in Esau which in turn became the determination to kill his brother. When a yoke has been put upon us because of a betrayal, injustice or other event, the human response is anger.
But when anger is left unchecked, it will build to rage.
And when rage is left to simmer, it will turn to murderous intent.
SEE: “Infected: How to Stop the Global Spread of Rage Deception and Insanity” to learn more about the 7-stage spiritual progression that produces rage.
Esau lived most of his life with that yoke and bitterness toward Jacob. But remember his father’s blessing was always there waiting. It took Esau a long time to finally get to the place where he was willing to break the yoke (dominance) from Jacob off his neck.
He didn’t do it by rage or killing him, but by forgiving him.
I encourage you to read Genesis 33 as the inevitable showdown between the two brothers finally comes to a head. Jacob knows he did his brother wrong and needs forgiveness. He’s ready to offer significant gifts and wealth to obtain it.
But just as the Word said, the Holy Spirit had gone ahead of him to prepare Esau’s heart.
In the act of forgiving Jacob, they both received what they needed. Esau finally broke the yoke of dominance and hate off his neck and Jacob finally could return home without fear that his brother would kill him.
“Then Jacob went on ahead. As he approached his brother, he bowed to the ground seven times before him. Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept (Gen 33:3-4).
As we leave 2024 and enter 2025, is there a yoke on your neck that needs to be broken off? Is there someone you need to forgive?
Has there been something that has been holding you back for years and you are ready to see it gone?
Now is the time.
We are living in a time of invitation. The Father has a blessing for you…just as Esau’s father had a blessing for him. Our action is that we make the determination to break off that yoke and walk into 2025 free from the burden and yokes of the past.
If you feel you are bound up with rage over an injustice and can’t seem to forgive, this is an opportunity for a new start.
To learn more about how to forgive and break the cycle of rage, check out my books “Infected” and “God’s Justice After Injustice.” The first explains the deadly process of rage, and the second how to walk in and receive the blessing that has been stolen from injustice.
I am praying for you for a fresh start and new beginnings in 2025!
