Wednesday, July 16, 2014

My Chains Are Gone; I've Been Set Free!

   

     Most of us have heard or sung the old familiar hymn, "Amazing Grace."  But there is an additional chorus now that has been attached to it, which caught my attention this morning.  As I heard the phrase:  "My chains are gone; I've been set free," I started thinking about chains.  In Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," it speaks of Jacob Marley wearing chains as he appears as a ghost to Ebenezer Scrooge.  Marley tells Scrooge that he is now wearing the chains that he forged in life, because of the decisions he made that were self-serving.  He was warning Scrooge not to make the same mistakes he made, so that he wouldn't succumb to the same fate.
     When we don't allow the Lord to have control of our lives, or communicate with Him in prayer, it's so easy to be weighed down by invisible chains.  Throughout the day, the enemy uses our weaknesses and our fears to forge these chains.  We don't even realize the chains are there, until we take our eyes off of our circumstances and turn them back to the Lord.  Once our focus is on Him, He has the ability to open our eyes to the chains that have been trying to subjugate us.
     The Lord has been showing me one way of breaking those chains:  by giving thanks in every circumstance.  Yes, it's based on Scripture:  "...in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you" (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Giving thanks won't necessarily change our circumstances, but it will change our perspective.  And with every prayer of thanks we utter, a chain link will break!  Let me give you a couple of examples...
     Our car wash business has been running for 14 months now.  Even though the Lord provides every week what we need for our employees' payroll, sometimes it cuts a little too close for comfort.  This can bring stress, which can lead to fear.  Then the enemy can use that fear to forge another chain link.  This morning, as I was writing the paychecks, I thanked the Lord that we have good employees.  Just then, I felt the peace that comes with the breaking of that chain link!  Then, I thought about the medical bills that I have to pay monthly, and I thanked the Lord that there were medical resources that were there to help me last December when I was hospitalized (not to mention in 2006 when I had a ruptured appendix, sepsis and pneumonia). Again, I felt a chain link break!
     Life is going to take us through a lot of uneasy situations. We just have to know how to deal with them. How we view (and handle) those situations will determine if we live a life of freedom, or if we live in bondage to our circumstances by the chains of the enemy. Whenever the stress of a situation starts to bring bondage to your life, take that moment to give God thanks.  Giving thanks to the Lord will break one chain link at a time. And when the chains are finally gone, you will be free!  "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."  (John 8:36 NKJV)

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