How will you 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 before us 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 and leave it behind
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 seems like it will 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?
As we look at the life of Esau, the blessing as the firstborn was stolen when his mother and brother conspired to trick his ailing father into giving his blessing to his younger brother.
It was brutally unfair and unjust and made worse because it was his 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. But 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 given to him, but Esau would have to finally come to the place where he was tired of his brother’s foot on his neck and break off the yoke of Jacob’s dominance.
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 natural human response is anger. But when anger is left unchecked, it will build to rage. 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 that dangerous spiritual progression.)
That’s why we are instructed to not let the sun go down on our wrath. (Eph 4:26) The one hurt most by retaining anger is the one carrying it.
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 the right way.
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.
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 was forgiven and able to finally 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, a ceiling over you, 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 determined decision to break off that yoke and walk into 2025 free from the burden and yokes of the past.
If you would like prayer over such a situation in your life, please let us know. 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. Leave it behind in 2024 and enter 2025 free from that yoke able to walk into the blessing He has already provided. We are praying for you for a fresh start and new beginnings in 2025!
Father, as we leave the year of 2024 and enter 2025, I make the decision to leave behind the baggage of the past. (name those areas that have been a yoke) I forgive those who have betrayed me, lied about me and stolen from me. I break this yoke off my neck and declare it will not follow me into 2025 and it will no longer hold me back from walking in my identity and destiny that You have for me.
I declare that depression, oppression, hurt, rage, unforgiveness, confusion, lack, sickness, disease, etc. will not have dominion over me. I take with me, into 2025, your promise of blessing. Just as Esau’s father gave him a blessing, You have given me a blessing. Help me as I break off the yoke of the past, to receive Your blessing.
I call forth the blessing of identity and future that You have destined for me and my family an declare it will no longer be held back. The ceiling that we have hit time and time again, I declare it can no longer hold us back, but is demolished now.
I choose to forget the former things and will no longer dwell on the past. For You, O Lord, are doing a new thing! Now it springs up; and I perceive it! I will see it and receive it! For You are making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
I declare the blessing withheld is now being poured out. The feelings of frustration and hopelessness must bow their knee and I say, “Be gone now!” I declare old things are passed away and that You are making all things new.
Is 43:18-19, 2 Cor 5:17