LETTING GO!
Galatians 5:13, 17 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
[17] For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
2 Timothy 2:26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
I recently read about some monkeys who live in the South Sea Islands who are constantly taken captive because of their own desires. The captors have found that if they will drill a small hole in the coconuts, leaving just enough room for the monkeys to squeeze their hands through, they can capture them very easily. You see the captors place food inside these coconuts, and when the monkeys reach in and take hold of the food, they find that they cannot remove their hands for they are too big to go back out of the hole when their hands are in a fist. All the monkeys have to do is let go of the food and they would be free, but instead they hold on to it, and are then trapped for the captors to come and take at will. These monkeys are held captive by their own desires.
How often do we find this same problem in our own lives? We may have a desire, a dream, a thought, idea, or an addiction that we refuse to let go of only to find ourselves enslaved in the end when all we had to do was just open our hands and let go of it.
The things we reach for and even grab hold of are too often not what God intends for us to have at all. If it enslaves us, then it is not of God. God never intended to free us only to have us bound in chains of slavery to another. Have you heard the saying; “locked doors are locked from the inside?” This is true in our lives. The only doors of slavery that we are trapped behind are the doors we lock ourselves from the inside, and we are the only ones that can open them back up again.
Freedom was given to you in Christ when you were forgiven and born again by God’s Spirit! Slavery is found only when one embraces some THING or another. What are you holding on to that God never intended for you to reach for? What are the things that have you bound? Freedom is found in letting go, in complete surrender, and in utter abandonment of ourselves and in obedience to Jesus Christ. God meets us at our point of obedience, and disciplines us at our point of rebellion. There are seasons in our lives of letting go, and there are seasons of embracing. You cannot embrace God if you are holding on to anything or anyone else that causes you to be contrary to the things of God. Only empty and clean hands are free to grab ahold of God. My Christian friend, your hands were given to you by God and they are to be used to cling only to HIM, completely and unreservedly. Today, would you just let go of whatever it is that is keeping you from having God’s touch, power, and blessing in your life???
Bro. Lawrence Longworth
Isaiah 61:1 “the opening of the prison to them that are bound;”
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