| By His ministry and resurrection from the dead, Jesus has proven He can break every chain of bondage in our lives. Romans 8 provides great commentary about just how Christ sets us free.Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”Are your chains condemnation, guilt, and shame? Why live with those chains when you could be free?Romans 8:3-4: “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a SIN OFFERING. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” Jesus was a sin offering. That meant that He was the offering to God the Father for the sins of the world. Though He was perfect in every way, He was willingly chained by our sin. Why live with the chains of sin wrapped around you when you can go free? Let Jesus put your past in the past FOREVER. In addition, the chains of impulse, the chains of our fleshly desires, those desires that take us to a dead end street, the kind of desires that wind up destroying parts of our lives and wreaking havoc on our relationships, those chains can come off too, and the Spirit of God will teach you a new way to live. You can learn to say “no” to the temptations of this world that Satan wants to use to destroy you. You don’t have to obey the chain called desire in your life. You are free to follow the Holy Spirit once you are in Christ, and what the Holy Spirit does is lead you to increasing freedom. More and more and more freedom. More and more and more power to resist temptation. More and more clarity about what is really priority, and the power to live the way you WANT to rather than the way you have been trained and chained into thinking you have to live! Romans 8:5: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” This may be the greatest chain in the devil’s arsenal. He wants to convince you that you can never change. Often the chains have to fall off our minds before our flesh can be unbound. The chains on your mind where doubt, discouragement, depression, and distrust have distorted your thinking can be broken, and the truth of God’s Word can be applied to your mind as the Spirit of God starts a “Resurrection Process” the Bible calls the Renewal of the Mind. Verse 6: “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:11: “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” If the Spirit of Christ lives in you, the chain of death has been obliterated! You will live eternally in heaven with Christ and all who have professed Jesus as Savior and Lord who have gone on before you. Are you tired of the chains? Are you ready to live free? There is power in the name of Jesus to live free today. Let’s CHOOSE to live free! Pastor Melissa |
