This past June I received a letter from dear friends and missionaries that struck a chord. As I make ill attempts to reconcile this upside down, backwards culture, I am reminded of the one true, unchanging standard by which I am to position myself to judge. Everyone is screeching for freedom…freedom to abort their child, freedom to cross a border illegally, freedom to live however they want…on the street, in a house, on the open road in a motorhome, freedom to educate their children…freedom…freedom… No nation has ever failed to prosper when its people put God first and their country second. Harold Lindsell
“The Bible records one of the most dramatic accounts of being set free imaginable! There was a demon-possessed man who could not be controlled, even with chains! The Scriptures declare that he had been “often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him.” Nothing could subdue this man! But Jesus drove the evil spirits from this man, saved and set him free and made a new person out of him. The truth of the Bible is meant not merely to inform, but also…to transform.
When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones.’ Mk. 5: 2-7NIV
It takes more than chains to make a man what he ought to be. Our society is filled with social programs attempting to deal with the unleashed violence, wickedness and lawlessness of our generation. Drugs are produced to help suppress irrational behavior. Treatment programs are prescribed the condition the addicted are to believe and that he will never be anything other than what he has always been. Prisons and jails are constructed to restrain the violent or habitual offender. The truth is that none of these measures can or will solve the problem. Incarceration is a necessary part of the judicial system, but it only deals with the symptoms, not the root cause!
Only Jesus can break the chains and deliver
the sinner from the sin that binds him.
This is true for every life.
There is an unconverted need for the Gospel of Christ and the transforming power of salvation. Some are not bound by violent behavior, but are equally enslaved by their pride, prejudice or trust in a false religion that holds no hope…”
What chain binds you today?
It takes more than chains to bind us to sin, when HE came to set us free!
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom and freedom is
the knowledge of our own ignorance. Charles Spurgeon
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
