Living in Bondage

Every person that has come to Jesus in true repentance, believing that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was crucified, died, was buried and raised again, asking Jesus to be their Lord and Savior and to forgive them of their sins and to cleanse them of all unrighteousness, has been born-again, I believe.  I believe that this is the prerequisite, but there is not a particular formula, only the Lord knows the heart of a man or woman and his, or her, intentions and only He can bring about the rebirth of a person.  Once a person is reborn, they receive the seed of God within them and the Holy Spirit and are the temples of the Holy Spirit, they also become new creations in Christ and are covered with His righteousness and washed with His precious blood.  At that point they have been set free of the bondage of sin that they were enslaved to.

I believe we should be striving for perfection from that point on, I don’t believe in sinless perfection, but I believe we should not practice sin.  Read what Paul says about this in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

We should take on the role of loving the sinner, but hating any form of sin.  Like I said earlier, we are set free from the bondage of sin but we can put ourselves back in bondage again because of the way we respond to the temptations that come our way, or you might say, things that can cause us to sin.  

Let me try to explain what I mean.  If a man pumps iron, and enjoys it and benefits from it, but it gets to be what you might call an idol in his life, would getting rid of the weights be a solution?  It may be, but on the other hand that is not dealing with the main cause of the problem.  The weight set is not the problem, and saying you will never touch a weight or workout with them again, can put you in bondage in the future if you ever want to work out again.   What we need to do is work on the thing within us that caused us to feel that way.

I knew a guy that had to have and be riding motorcycles and it seemed to be the most important thing in his life.  The motorcycle wasn’t the problem, the problem was how he felt about the motorcycle, so getting rid of the motorcycle and vowing never to own one again would have put him in a certain kind of bondage if he ever wanted one again and unless he dealt with the problem he would be in the same situation but with something else that he would put all his time into.  We have to be careful how we choose our words and the best thing we can do is deal with the cause of the problem that made us feel the way we did in the first place.  

Read Matthew 5:27-30, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

I don’t believe Jesus was saying to literally dismember yourself, a blind man can still lust.  In this case this is relating to marriage but I think it could relate to other things as well.  There are some things you need to get rid of and never go back to, like if you have a drinking problem, or let’s say you are hooked on drugs, porn, prostitution, lying or stealing and so on, you need to flee all these things and also deal with the causes, and when you are set free you should never go back and get caught up in those bondages again.  But should we always get rid of the things that frustrate us, stress us out, make us angry and tempt us to sin?  I don’t think so.

That is sort of like the person that has a problem with lust taking his eyes out; the eyes aren’t the problem, they may contribute to the problem, but like I said you can be blind and still lust.  There are many things that contribute to temptation but not all of them are sin in themselves, the thing we need to do with the Lord’s help, is to learn how to control ourselves and our habits and resist the temptations and repent from the heart when we allow ourselves to be overcome by them.

When King David sinned with Bathsheba, he didn’t get rid of her, he repented.  You can read his repentant prayer in Psalm 51.  Bathsheba was not the problem, lust, rebelliousness and who knows how many other things were involved, like shirking his duty and selfishness.  The thing that helped him was true repentance.  

If we get rid of everything that has a potential to cause us to sin, we may not have much left, plus we will still have the problem and we will be in bondage and still not deal with the main issue that caused the problem in the first place which is within our hearts.  At one time I owned a number of different kinds of birds, I had so many I was called the bird man by some people.  Some of these birds were very loud, along with their repetition of screeching, which would stress me out and make me very angry at times, so I would eventually get rid of them.  Was it the birds fault?  No, they were just doing what birds do, I was the problem.  The Lord may have been using them to help me deal with my patience and my anger, but instead I just got rid of the birds which seemed to help but I wasn’t dealing with the main problem that was inside of me that caused the frustration, anger and impatience.  

So, if the Lord is allowing things to take place in your life to help you to be more transformed into His image, don’t just get rid of everything, ask the Lord what He is trying to show you, then ask Him to help you to better deal with the circumstance you find yourself in.  Ask the Lord for discernment in what to do or how to handle the situation, also you can seek some Christian counseling, but be wise with your words and the vows you make.  Deal with the thing that’s inside you that causes you to be frustrated or angry to the point it causes you to sin.  Repent when you need to.  Once you get that under control, you may not have to get rid of what caused the problem in the first place.

Something to think about!  May the good Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super day!!