The Watering Hole is a virtual stopping space in the midst of our crazy, hectic, and wildly beautiful week to week lives, to breathe deep and take a drink at the well of the Lord.

Here’s today’s drink:

We all want to be free. Free to think. Free to choose. Free to be who we are. What if the freedom that we think we have is not really free? It makes sense that if one is to be free there has to be one who came to set you free. There is always a cost to freedom. In the case of every Christian, the one who came to set me free was Jesus. His death bought my freedom. So the question becomes: Do I really believe that?

At times I have struggled with those truths that I see in the scripture verses. Where is the evidence and effect of it in my life?  Have you had those same thoughts? I think we would say that yes, Jesus came to make us free, that we have sensed the burden of sin and shame, even the fear of impending death and Satan in this world and upon our lives. I personally have felt when that great weight of sin lifted off me when I gave my life to Christ. Over the years I have read the scriptures and I have become a student of the word. I know that the Scriptures state clearly that I am free in Christ but how much of that “knowing” has gotten into my hearts where it changes my perspective. Do I really believe that the way Jesus meant that? How much has that truly affected me in my everyday life? How has it changed the way I relate to God and the circumstances of life I find that I still live in. How do I reconcile in my hearts and mind when I come face to face with my own slave mentality?

How can I believe that I am free when I cant control my tongue from saying stupid things for the 500th time? If it is true that knowing the truth sets me free. Then what I don’t know may just be killing my faith in freedom. If I don’t know that there is a literal devil who is out to enslave me and keep me in slavery than I will fight the symptoms and never deal with the root of my problem. I have a captor who even if I have Christ as my savior still desires to dictate to me where and what I can and can not do, think, be, and so on. The scripture says that we had been taken captive.

2 Tim. 2:24-26  ²⁴ And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, ²⁵ in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, ²⁶ and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.

It also states that those who have become servants of the Lord have a job to do. We are to share with people this truth that they have a captor and that Christ came to set them free. In order to do this, we must know that we are free. Otherwise, we are just living in a spruced up cage. The door is open but you haven’t flown the coop.

When a child is taken and held captive from a young age. The captor will condition the child to respond a certain way. Using force, manipulation, domination and the like to break the child into submission. This captor will force this child to rely on them for their very survival. Some children will comply and others will hold on to hope on this inside. Even if the captor gives them a new name they will remember their name and who their parents are. They hold on to hope.

Do you answer to a name that was not given to you? God says you are called “Beloved.” The enemy of our soul keeps speaking to us. He calls us “sinner, worthless, loser, stupid, rejected, unloved. He shows us all the circumstances of life that prove we that is who we are and we believe him. It’s how he is able to put camouflage over the doorway to freedom and keep us bound to “being good little rule keepers to try to please our Father.” He plays us like a marionette puppet. His voice pounding our hearts “keep performing so that you can get love. Keep pleasing so that you won’t be rejected.”  We can’t keep all the rules. We cant do the performance perfectly. It’s a noose that slowly kills our hope and that is exactly why Christ came.

The enemy of our souls puts camouflage over the doorway to freedom to keep us bound to being good little rule keepers. It’s a noose that slowly kills our hope. -Tweet that!

 

 

The greatest deception for us American Christians is we have not have lived a day as a physical slave so we think we are free. Jesus was talking about spiritual slavery. Spiritual slavery is a mentality, not a physicality. It is a way of operating in the world. It has a set of foundations that drives all that slaves do. Most of all it is a condition that causes us to lose hope.

Quote:  When you stop hoping you start drifting. – Unknown

So what am I suppose to do? Let the word of God inform your heart and mind of what is the truth. Its time for us to rise up into the freedom destiny Christ bought for us.

3 steps we must take:

• SETTLE MY OWN FREEDOM – You are going to have to wrestle with the truth and settle your heart and mind once and for all. Will you believe God or not?
• BECOME A HOPE CARRIER – After it is settled. All the holes that had been poked in the truth bucket will be filled and you will become full of hope that will spill over into everything you do.
• LOVE LIKE CHRIST & SHARE THIS FREEDOM – Being a freedom fighter requires bravery and our orders will take some courage of heart. Those marching orders are A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition. We better know why we are free!

Over the next month as our church continues to unpack this freedom that we have. We will dive into these topics.

Thanks for Listening,

Starla