Pause

As we journey through life, we are often shackled by metaphorical chains that hold us back, tie us down, or slow our progress.

However, we find in God’s abundant love and grace the hope that can free us.

So raise your hands high, liberated to receive the many gifts God has for you.

Listen

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.

Luke 8:26-27

Think

What have I gotten myself into? This was the usual question I asked myself every time I got into trouble and was caught. More often than not I had let someone lead me in the wrong direction. Like the demon-possessed man, I was no longer me. I did not literally take off my clothes or move into a cave, but my character was no longer mine. I had allowed someone else to determine who I was. Usually, that got me into some serious trouble.

The decisions we make, or allow others to lead us to make, at times result in us being in bondage. We are trapped not by literal chains, but by the chains of the consequences of those choices. No matter how entrapped we are, in Christ’s abundant love and grace we find hope of freedom from these chains.

James Blay

Pray

Lord, I am sometimes hostage to the decisions I make. As I make those decisions, help me to always seek your counsel and your leading, for you alone know what is ultimately best for me. Amen.

Go

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18