Daily Devotion

Are You Holding Yourself Prisoner?

 

"For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."  2 Corinthians 3:17

 

I'm not sure if I read this or someone told me this, but when you isolate yourself, not even God can reach you.  Like a person in prison, you are kept guarded away from society, under the lock and key of your own mind.  Some people are in prison.  Not just in their minds, but in their homes, in their families, in their work environments, in bad relationships, in physical pain they imprison themselves because they do not seek their freedom. 

 

The word Liberty means "The condition of being free from restriction or control; the right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing."  One of the most famous quotations from one of our founding fathers, Patrick Henry, is "Give me liberty or give me death."  Let me explore this for you.

 

Before Christ, before He freed us through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we were destined to die.  Why?  Because we were outside of the covering and the covenant of God.  We were not redeemed, we were not victorious until Christ died.  He defeated the enemy and saved us.  We were not "given our liberty (freedom)" until the veil was torn when Christ gave up the ghost on the Cross. (Mark 15:37-38)  We did not break free until He rose on the third day (Mark 16:6).  We did not gain that liberating Spirit until Jesus returned to the Father and sent His Spirit to lead, guide, direct, and comfort us(Acts 2:3-4).  Before all of this, we were doomed to that death!

 

But here is how many people still keep themselves imprisoned; they do not realize that God has given us freedom through the Spirit, which is of Him, and therefore is Him!  By staying imprisoned in the ways of the world, we miss out on our freedom.  By staying trapped in our pasts, we deny ourselves God's grace and the love He has for us that is shed abroad through the power of the Holy Spirit.  We have been freed--freed from death, freed from separation, freed from eternal damnation and liberated into the body of Christ! 

 

"Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice. The one who subjected it to frustration did so in the hope that it would also be set free from slavery to decay in order to share the glorious freedom that the children of God will have." 

Romans 8:20-21