Looking for True Strength and Real Freedom?

Zoos have always held a lot of enjoyment for us.  One time we were watching small monkeys and one of them had their hand caught in the cage. It seems the little animal had wanted something that was outside the cage. After grasping the item, their paw was then a fist. That fist wouldn’t fit back through the cage. Try as he might, the arm was not budging. No amount of squealing, jumping or pulling was going to achieve a thing. Only when he let go of the object he had so wanted was he able to pull his arm back inside the cage was he able to free himself from entanglement.

Traveling through the airports now, it’s a big deal to go through the checkpoint to get on the plane. You empty your pockets and get every little thing checked. There are simply some things you cannot take on board with you. If you insist on taking things that they don’t allow, you will be barred from your flight. Fight them, argue with them, demand your rights – it all turns out the same. You will not be carrying anything on the plane they consider unfit. The only way to be free to travel is to learn how to pack.

There is a freedom God desires for you to walk in that will require you to let go of what is entangling you. It may be something you desperately want to keep or have desired for some time. It could be a person, place or thing.  You want to be free, but you keep hanging on. If you will let go you will find the freedom that is best for a child of God. He doesn’t want your stuff, but He does want your heart. And it’s amazing how much stuff and hearts are intertwined.

There are places  God wants to take you that will require you to unpack some things that you’ve carried around with you as well.  You simply cannot travel the heights with the Lord while hanging onto baggage. You’ll need to drop that unforgiveness. Lose the fear. Toss out the worry. Empty the guilt. While you’re at it, get rid of the lies: you know - the things you’ve believed about yourself that are so untrue for a child of the Most High God. 

Just as we are embarking on a New Year, you are embarking on a new day with the Lord. You may have heard His call but you’ve been living with a knotted fist and insisting on your rights to carry the junk with you everywhere you go. You think a new day would be great, but what about your stuff?

God speaks to our hearts doesn’t He?  Where you are today is not where I want to take you. I have wonderful plans for your life and for your new year. If you are willing you will walk in My freedom and your load will be light. But you’ll have to trust Me to prepare you for the trip.  Don’t look at what you are losing, look instead at what you are gaining. It’s no accident that you find yourself in a quandary between your desires and My plans.  A new year will come whether you want it or not. 2013 is quickly becoming a vapor. My plans are for now. My plans are for your good. My desires for you are better than your desires for yourself. Don’t walk away from the terminal of decision and count it too much to lose. Remember that I desire freedom for my children and that freedom is found only in relinquishing your life into My loving care. You don’t have the strength to break the bars of your own entanglements. You don’t have enough weaponry of flesh to insist to carry junk you don’t need with you. It’s not about fleshly or secular strength. It’s about becoming obedient to Me that you find true strength and real freedom.

Oh beloved, what wondrous love is this, that God won’t leave us as we are. He never quits planning our lives for His glory. Our best travel and our greatest freedom is when God is in charge of everything.  Let Him take you to the next level as you lay aside the things that want to keep you earthbound. Relinquish every entanglement and watch as you learn to enjoy freedom in Christ. Oh how He loves us! So much that He refuses to leave us as we are! A better life is ahead for you as you live in the light of His Word!

John 14:1 Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in Me.

Ephesians 4:21-23 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him,  throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.

Matthew 6:21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

2 Corinthians 3:17 For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Philippians 4:19 And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

You are Priceless Treasure to the Lord

My mother was a trash to treasure kind of woman. She could spot something sitting on the side of the road, take it home and remake it. It would sit in its new place of honor and no one could tell it had ever been a castoff. I find myself doing the same thing. A rickety rocker or a bent frame can have a new life by a simple touch of a delicate hand.

God speaks to my heart: I’ve been a castoff. You may have too. Someone made a personal private decision that you were no longer worthy of their time, their presence or their attendance. So to the curb you went.  You tried to make yourself believe you were going to be okay, but the wind and the rain and the scorching heat as you sat in despair drenched you with sorrow. You wished, you hoped, you dreamed.

But before the trash truck can thoroughly destroy you, there comes One on the scene who has fallen in love with you. He has a place just for you; to display you in His home of grace, surrounded by His fields of blessings. This honored spot in His home is protected by goodness and mercy and unwavering devotion.

He picks you up, me up, all up and gracefully bundles us to Himself, holding us very closely and tenderly right near His heart. Although others are laughing and making fun – for you see they only see with their natural eye. They see tatters and rips, rusty edges and broken glass. They think the One who is carrying you is foolish for even bothering. Some are even mad that the thing they threw away in derision is now loved passionately by Another.

The simple touch of the delicate hand of the Master, the hands that were nail pierced along with the side wounded for you, has taken you in! You are no longer trash, you have become treasure! You have been Redeemed, Renewed, Restored! You are fragile indeed as He sits you in His Kingdom for His admiration and use. Everything about you is beautiful, perfect and useful.

Oh beloved, who told you that you were trash? Who cast you off? Who decided you weren’t worth knowing, loving or friending? Who spoke deceitful things about you? Who left you wounded on the edge of the street?

What is the truth about you? Is it the truth that you were dumped like so much junk? Or is it the truth that you, although considered worthless by others, have been bought with a price above all rubies?  Which truth you decide to live in is the truth you will become. And it is the truth you will share with others.

Run to the One Who picked you up out of the gutter and only sees you as priceless! He is your King and your God. But He is also your worth and your value. Others may spend their whole life on worthless things, but God gave His whole life because you are of extreme value to Him. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is what God says about you. And He spreads the sweet fragrance of your worth around the world for others to be encouraged and set free from their own dumpster of lies.

Rejoice that God loves you extravagantly and watches over you continuously. He said you were worth it, and therefore you must walk in the light of His Truth every day of your life!

 

Psalm 72:14 He will redeem them from oppression and violence, for their lives are precious to Him.

Isaiah 43:4 Since you are precious in My sight, Since you are honored and I love you, I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life. (NAS)

Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? (NAS)

Psalm 139:17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (NAS)