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Galatians 5:1 (ESV) says “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Yeah, I know that I don’t normally start out with a verse from scripture but have some witty antidote about life. Today, however, I wanted to really focus on the truth of the simple fact we’ve been set free of our past and the things that we have done. So many Christians today are still within some bonds of slavery and they don’t even realize it’s the case. These are people who on the outside look like they have their Christian walk down and they are prime examples of how we should live our lives on this Earth while looking heavenward. However, many of these people have bondage upon them in ways that you would never guess are happening.
I’m not talking about the pastors who are committing secret sins right now. I’m not talking about the Christian who is leading worship every Sunday morning while cheating his customers Monday through Friday at his job. I’m talking about the Christians who are trying to live as Christ called us to live but still have the chains of bondage upon them carrying names like guilt, shame and regret. These are people who know the truth of Christ and know that He can set them free but they still allow the Enemy to keep them bound up in slavery to their past mistakes and sins.
You may not look at it like slavery but 2 Peter 2:19 (ESV) says “For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” So if you allow yourself to sit in your room and think about the time you cheated off a friend’s test in college or how badly you treated your high school girlfriend or how you stole money from your employer for a year and allow the guilt of that to keep you feeling as if you’re unworthy of Christ then you’re in slavery. You’re a slave to the sins of the past that God has forgiven and forgotten! There’s no reason to allow these things to hold power over you but I’ll admit that I did the same thing for many, many years even when I was in full time ministry. It’s human nature to regret mistakes that we’ve made…and in itself that’s not necessarily a bad thing…but it’s also a place that the Enemy can swoop in and use it to dull our effectiveness for Christ.
Here’s the plain truth: NONE of those things has ANY power over you once you’ve asked Christ for forgiveness. NONE. All of those things have been wiped away as if they never happened in the first place as far as God is concerned. Those things cannot put you in slavery unless you allow it to happen yourself. So why in the world would you allow yourself to be put in a place where you are shamed, beaten, destroyed, belittled and mocked? Why in the world would you choose something like that for yourself? You wouldn’t walk up to your local jail and tell them to just throw you in and toss away the key. Every time you allow a thought from your past to control your mood, control your decision making or just have you wallow in self-pity you’re doing the same thing only on a spiritual level.
The best part is you already have the freedom. You can just shuffle off those chains right now by standing up and declaring you are a child of God, your sins have been forgiven through Christ Jesus and declare to Satan that you are not the person you used to be and that you are a child of God. Breaking free is really that easy.
Now, I’m not going to say there won’t be trials, tribulations and spiritual attacks upon you. Spiritual warfare is very real and it’s always going on all around you. That’s why Satan and his followers do all they can to keep you down in the chains of slavery to your past sins. If they can keep you focused on those things then you’re an ineffective warrior for Christ. You’ll miss the times God wants you to minister or reach out to someone else because you’ll see a similar situation to your past and the bad feelings flood in that make you flee. When James writes in James 5:16 (ESV) that “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” I believe he’s writing about those believers who have completely accepted the truth of Christ that all is forgiven and they pray for the power of God to work because they’ve felt it within their own lives. When you know a weapon can completely destroy an enemy because it’s destroyed your enemy then you have no problem using it when someone else faces that same enemy. Prayer is a weapon! Prayer is how you stand up and fight against the forces and spirits that do not bow for Christ!
So when those attacks come…and trust me, they will…stand up against them! Yell at the top of your lungs if you need to do it! Stand firm on the rock of truth and scream that you belong to God and that you are not going to allow the enemy to use your past to keep you down!
There’s a passage of Scripture many pastors teach upon regarding the “full armor of God.” It starts in Ephesians 6:13 (ESV) saying “take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” That armor is right there with you as a child of God and all you have to do is put it on and stand firm. Here’s the cool thing…if you put it on standing firm isn’t really that hard. It’s when you start to take off pieces of it that you start to lose that power. It’s almost as when Moses was leading the children of Israel against Amalek in Exodus 17:11 (ESV) where it says “whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.” The armor of God is the same as Moses holding up his hands. When you leave that armor on…completely on…you cannot be defeated. Once you take it off, the enemy can prevail against you and return you to the bonds of slavery called guilt, shame and regret.
So if you’re one of those millions of Christians who is in slavery right now to the past today’s the day to break it off. It’s really as simple as deciding enough is enough. Admitting that you haven’t fully trusted in Christ and taken Him completely upon you and allowed him to cleanse you, forgive you and stand beside you. The full armor of God is there, it’s free and it’s impenetrable when it’s intact. The more you wear it and the more you fight back the more Satan will realize that he isn’t going to win. He’ll always be around waiting for you to take your armor off but he will also know that with the armor intact he can’t stop you because you are a child of God and God will give you the victory.
