Jesus said - Luke 4:18, Isaiah 61:1 - that the spirit of the Lord had come upon HIM to preach the good news, proclaim freedom and give sight to the blind, freeing the prisoners.
We are all ignorant, trapped, blind and imprisoned in some way. In our thoughts, our emotions, our physicality to varying degrees.
And so he offers help: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Yes, but how? Paul has the answer:
"I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms
With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
Brian Houston: ""For we were slaves." Ezra 9:9
Many people who have already walked through the door of freedom in Christ are still slaves to something or someone....The word 'release' implies momentum and action. It carries the idea of liberation, spaciousness, generosity, forgiveness, mercy and grace. Release is about emancipation - set free from whatever has restricted us. When I think about release, I see prison doors swung wide open with overjoyed people running onto a wide-open field....
It's time to break free from bondages in circumstances, relationships, finance, addictions or health. It's time for deliverance into an overcoming life. Don't settle for brokenness - Jesus came to heal the broken, to release us from everything that weighs us down.
God has not forsaken you. He has not forgotten you nor has He given up on you. Do whatever it takes to walk in the freedom that Jesus won for you."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment