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JESUS LIFTS THE BURDEN
November 21, 2025The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners. Isaiah 61:1
1. JESUS BRINGS GOOD NEWS TO THE AFFLICTED. When Jesus started His earthly ministry, He opened the scroll of Isaiah and read the prophecy about Himself – how He was anointed to bring good news to the afflicted. Affliction is another term for suffering – the painful aftermath of the fall of man.Then He declared, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). In Psalms, David wrote, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (34:19).
2. JESUS TOOK THE WEIGHT OF SIN AND GAVE US HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. At the Musée d’Orsay in Paris hangs a massive realism painting of Cain – thirteen feet tall and nearly twenty-three feet wide. Cain, who killed his brother Abel, is depicted with all his harshness: his face and posture are so weighed down with anxiety, pressure, and the burden of His own sin and failure. He even had the “tech-neck” stoop long before technology existed. The artist, Fernand Cormon, captured how depressing, how horrid the fallenness of humanity is. By contrast, Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). We don’t have to carry the weight that Cain did. The burden is lifted!
3. JESUS BINDS UP THE BROKENHEARTED AND CAUSES US TO TRIUMPH. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18). Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and comfort all who mourn. Whatever you are facing today – depression, stress, hardship, or disappointment – God will deliver you out of it all. You will get to the other side of it. Jesus will cause you to triumph (2 Corinthians 2:14).
DEFINITION: af·flic·tion, noun
A condition of pain, suffering, or distress.
Press on,
Pastor Jeff Perry
PRAY THIS OUT LOUD: God, thank You for sending Jesus to lift every burden, bind up my broken heart, and deliver me out of all my afflictions. I pray for abundance, breakthrough, and joy to flood my life today. I receive Your freedom, comfort, and peace, in Jesus’ Name, amen.
Copyright © 2025 St. Louis Family Church, All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. “Deliver, V.” American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, HarperCollins Publishers, 2022, https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=deliver. Scripture quotations marked (Weymouth) are taken from The Weymouth New Testament (5th Edition, 1929) – The New Testament in Modern Speech: An Idiomatic Translation into Everyday English from the Text of the Resultant Greek Testament, by Richard Francis Weymouth, revised by James Alexander Robertson. Public domain. Scripture quotations marked (ASV) are taken from the American Standard Version, are taking from the (from The Bible from 26 Translations), copyright © 1988 by Mathis Publishers. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (PHILLIPS) are taken from The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips, copyright © 1960, 1972 by J. B. Phillips. Administered by the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked (Moffatt) are from The Bible: A New Translation by James Moffatt. Originally published in 1935. Public domain.
