You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Yesterday I invited us to think about an area in life in which we feel stuck; a condition or limitation we just live with because we don’t think anything can be done – which is like saying that thing is more powerful than God. Most likely the woman in our story, bent over with a damaged spine for eighteen years, thought that was her future. The gospel writer says she was afflicted by an evil spirit. She may have been told it was the result of sin. In some Christian circles she might be told her suffering was a way of coming closer to God, an honor, a test, a blessing even.
Jesus told her, “Here’s something we can heal.” When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.
It is his first instinct – “Let's take care of that.” He doesn’t deliberate and wonder if it’s “God’s will." He knows illness and disability are not God’s intention for us. We don't always see healing as immediately as in this story; often it’s more gradual. But we can trust that it is God’s will that we be whole, even when we do not see that wholeness fully manifest in this life, for bodies and minds do sustain damage. We see it more when often as we trust that wholeness is the will of our God whom we call One and Perfect. How could such a One desire less than wholeness for us?
Freedom is also God’s desire for us, and for this world. Jesus said he had come to proclaim release to the captives. Any time we’re unsure of God’s will in a given situation, we can ask where we sense the most freedom and pray toward that. This does not mean we don’t honor commitments to relationships or jobs, which can at times feel like they impinge on our personal freedom. It means we look for where God is inviting us to be free within those commitments. If our workday is confining, we plan in times for a restorative walk or rest. If church feels like a burden, we make sure there are some activities in which we are just nurtured, not working. If our movement is constricted by disability, we pray for healing and restoration.
What came up when you thought about something you’re stuck with, that God could release you from? Bring that to Jesus in prayer. Invite the power and love that made the universe to be released in you, in your body, your mind, your spirit. And expect that the living water of God is flowing and bringing new life to you wherever you need it most.
“For freedom, God has made us free,” Paul reminded the Galatians (5:1). We honor God when we accept that gift every time God offers it.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
7-4-22 - Independence - and Inter-dependence
You can listen to this reflection here.
This coming Sunday we get one of the most famous of all of Jesus’ parables, the one he tells in response to the lawyer who asks, “Who is my neighbor?” We’ll examine it in greater depth and in more personal terms in coming days. Today, as we celebrate America’s independence as a nation – and enjoy a day of rest and cook-outs – I will keep it short and more global. Let’s consider this story in light of our past, present and future as a nation “under God, with liberty and justice for all.”
In particular, let’s jump to the end of Jesus’ story, when he asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy,”’ Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
We live in a world in which whole communities, even countries can fall into the hands of robbers. We share a history in which too often we have been the robbers. We also share a legacy of mercy and providing help to those who are injured.
How might we as a nation, and as individuals, more fully live into the character of this outsider who put himself at risk to reclaim, restore and renew the one fallen by the wayside? After all, that is what God has done for us. Might we “go and do likewise?”
At the heart of it lies the truth that until we are all free and equal in opportunity, security, and peace, none of us is free. Until we are willing to “respect the dignity of every human being,” as our baptismal covenant asks us to promise, we will let discord and mistrust rule us rather than the Law of Love. Just like all three of the passersby in Jesus’ story, each one of us has the choice when we see someone in pain – or a community or nation in the grip of tyranny – to stop or walk on, engage or condemn, bring healing or leave someone to die. How will we exercise the choices we do have?
Freedom is God's desire for us - and for all creation. Sometimes we have to be willing to be the outsider to set someone else free to thrive; to embrace our inter-dependence in order to celebrate our independence. Happy Independence Day.
This coming Sunday we get one of the most famous of all of Jesus’ parables, the one he tells in response to the lawyer who asks, “Who is my neighbor?” We’ll examine it in greater depth and in more personal terms in coming days. Today, as we celebrate America’s independence as a nation – and enjoy a day of rest and cook-outs – I will keep it short and more global. Let’s consider this story in light of our past, present and future as a nation “under God, with liberty and justice for all.”
In particular, let’s jump to the end of Jesus’ story, when he asks the lawyer, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy,”’ Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
We live in a world in which whole communities, even countries can fall into the hands of robbers. We share a history in which too often we have been the robbers. We also share a legacy of mercy and providing help to those who are injured.
How might we as a nation, and as individuals, more fully live into the character of this outsider who put himself at risk to reclaim, restore and renew the one fallen by the wayside? After all, that is what God has done for us. Might we “go and do likewise?”
At the heart of it lies the truth that until we are all free and equal in opportunity, security, and peace, none of us is free. Until we are willing to “respect the dignity of every human being,” as our baptismal covenant asks us to promise, we will let discord and mistrust rule us rather than the Law of Love. Just like all three of the passersby in Jesus’ story, each one of us has the choice when we see someone in pain – or a community or nation in the grip of tyranny – to stop or walk on, engage or condemn, bring healing or leave someone to die. How will we exercise the choices we do have?
Freedom is God's desire for us - and for all creation. Sometimes we have to be willing to be the outsider to set someone else free to thrive; to embrace our inter-dependence in order to celebrate our independence. Happy Independence Day.
6-16-22 - Fear of God
You can listen to this reflection here.
As an animal lover, with a soft spot for pigs (though also for bacon and pork chops), I have to admit I abhor the next part of our story:
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.
Maybe Jesus, as a Jew, had little use for the value of swine. But why did the demons have to go into anything? Couldn’t he command them into the lake without the pigs? Couldn’t he command them back to hell and bind them? All I do know is that the news spread quickly. (And here comes an echo of another iconic bible story – Jesus’ birth, and sheep herders running off and telling the wondrous things they’d seen to everyone they met...)
As the news spread, the townspeople came running to see. They were both amazed and frightened – but not so much at the destruction of the herd. What scared them to the core was the transformation in the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.
Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
It was not the economic loss or property damage that frightened them – it was the damage to their sense of reality, this glimpse into the raw power of God as conducted by Jesus. It was having their convictions about what is possible overturned right before their very eyes that frightened the daylights out of them. It was having their conceptions about this man and his place in their community completely shattered. He was even wearing clothes! What happened?
The next thing we know, they’re asking Jesus to leave, “for they were seized with great fear.” And don’t we often want to separate ourselves from what we don’t understand, what frightens us? That is the root of so much prejudice and hatred, division and conflict.
Have you seen someone transformed by healing? People who know addicts sometimes get to see this kind of contras, though not the course of a single day. Those who work with wounded veterans and the mentally ill sometimes see such transformation. If we saw instantaneously, it would scare us too.
When we find ourselves afraid of God’s power, we can talk to God about it. We can ask the Spirit to gently lead us into a greater awareness of what God can do and has done. If only those townspeople had taken this miracle as an invitation to expand their ideas of this God they did not know instead of sending Jesus away, so much more healing and transformation might have taken place. Let’s not make their mistake.
As an animal lover, with a soft spot for pigs (though also for bacon and pork chops), I have to admit I abhor the next part of our story:
Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.
Maybe Jesus, as a Jew, had little use for the value of swine. But why did the demons have to go into anything? Couldn’t he command them into the lake without the pigs? Couldn’t he command them back to hell and bind them? All I do know is that the news spread quickly. (And here comes an echo of another iconic bible story – Jesus’ birth, and sheep herders running off and telling the wondrous things they’d seen to everyone they met...)
As the news spread, the townspeople came running to see. They were both amazed and frightened – but not so much at the destruction of the herd. What scared them to the core was the transformation in the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.
Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.
It was not the economic loss or property damage that frightened them – it was the damage to their sense of reality, this glimpse into the raw power of God as conducted by Jesus. It was having their convictions about what is possible overturned right before their very eyes that frightened the daylights out of them. It was having their conceptions about this man and his place in their community completely shattered. He was even wearing clothes! What happened?
The next thing we know, they’re asking Jesus to leave, “for they were seized with great fear.” And don’t we often want to separate ourselves from what we don’t understand, what frightens us? That is the root of so much prejudice and hatred, division and conflict.
Have you seen someone transformed by healing? People who know addicts sometimes get to see this kind of contras, though not the course of a single day. Those who work with wounded veterans and the mentally ill sometimes see such transformation. If we saw instantaneously, it would scare us too.
When we find ourselves afraid of God’s power, we can talk to God about it. We can ask the Spirit to gently lead us into a greater awareness of what God can do and has done. If only those townspeople had taken this miracle as an invitation to expand their ideas of this God they did not know instead of sending Jesus away, so much more healing and transformation might have taken place. Let’s not make their mistake.
2-17-22 - What Goes Around...
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many “New Age” teachings assert that we make our own reality, form our own destiny, are fully in charge of our lives. While this is not the Christian understanding - I am relieved to know there is a loving God who has authority over my life, even as s/he allows me the freedom to make choices for good or ill - Jesus does suggest there is a connection between what we put out and what we receive:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
I have experienced this truth. In areas of my life where I am trusting and generous, I experience plenty. Where I am grudging, tight-fisted and judgmental, I see only paltry blessings. But I don't think Jesus is teaching karma, or suggesting that God punishes or withholds according to our attitudes. He is making a profound observation: only freedom can beget freedom, just as only love can beget love.
When we regard others with compassion rather than judgment or condemnation, we seek the best in them; such an outlook leads to more freedom. In fact, when I catch myself judging, I pray for the ability to see where that other person hurts. Compassion can break that cycle. (We need to practice this on ourselves too…).
When we are able to forgive people who have hurt us, and really release that debt, costly as it may be, we are set free and so are they. And when we give, our hands are open to receive. Not only our hands – our hearts, for giving makes us joyful, and joyful people are attractive. As we cultivate an attitude of giving, things get unjammed, and gifts flow to us as well as from us.
This teaching, “the measure you give will be the measure you get back,” is another way of saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Go through life pinched and puckered, that will likely be the way you experience the world. Go out in joy, sharing your gifts and your compassion, and just see how much blessing surrounds you.
Jesus uses such an exuberant image to describe the abundance God wants to pour on us – good measure, pressed down, shaken, running over into our laps. We need to affirm and forgive and give our little hearts out just to make room for all the blessing God desires for us to have. Are you ready?
Many “New Age” teachings assert that we make our own reality, form our own destiny, are fully in charge of our lives. While this is not the Christian understanding - I am relieved to know there is a loving God who has authority over my life, even as s/he allows me the freedom to make choices for good or ill - Jesus does suggest there is a connection between what we put out and what we receive:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
I have experienced this truth. In areas of my life where I am trusting and generous, I experience plenty. Where I am grudging, tight-fisted and judgmental, I see only paltry blessings. But I don't think Jesus is teaching karma, or suggesting that God punishes or withholds according to our attitudes. He is making a profound observation: only freedom can beget freedom, just as only love can beget love.
When we regard others with compassion rather than judgment or condemnation, we seek the best in them; such an outlook leads to more freedom. In fact, when I catch myself judging, I pray for the ability to see where that other person hurts. Compassion can break that cycle. (We need to practice this on ourselves too…).
When we are able to forgive people who have hurt us, and really release that debt, costly as it may be, we are set free and so are they. And when we give, our hands are open to receive. Not only our hands – our hearts, for giving makes us joyful, and joyful people are attractive. As we cultivate an attitude of giving, things get unjammed, and gifts flow to us as well as from us.
This teaching, “the measure you give will be the measure you get back,” is another way of saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Go through life pinched and puckered, that will likely be the way you experience the world. Go out in joy, sharing your gifts and your compassion, and just see how much blessing surrounds you.
Jesus uses such an exuberant image to describe the abundance God wants to pour on us – good measure, pressed down, shaken, running over into our laps. We need to affirm and forgive and give our little hearts out just to make room for all the blessing God desires for us to have. Are you ready?
1-17-22 - Anointed To Proclaim Freedom
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
When Jesus began his public ministry, full of the Holy Spirit, his reputation quickly spread as he went from synagogue to synagogue, teaching. And when he came to his home in Nazareth, he showed all his cards. Reading from Isaiah, he sat back and said, “This prophecy is fulfilled in me. Today.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Anointed to bring good news. To those most in need of it – the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed. This, he was saying, is what God is up to, has always been up to, is doing among us even now. Today. We who bear the name and life of Christ share in this anointing, whether or not we choose to live it out.
Today we celebrate the life and ministry of one who did not shirk that anointing, but embraced it, gave himself to it even unto death, in the footsteps of his Lord Jesus Christ. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that the Good News hadn’t gotten around to everyone yet. There were still plenty of poor people who needed to hear it; plenty of people blinded by greed and power and lack of insight; plenty of people still oppressed by injustice and cruelty and the legacy of slavery; plenty of people held captive in systems of racism and white privilege that hold resources and opportunities for the few.
And so he went with his anointing and preached Good News, not only proclaiming release but working tirelessly to bring it about. He worked and proclaimed and wept and dreamed until he was silenced. His dream is not fully realized – the last few years have made that abundantly clear. God’s dream is not yet fully realized in our world. We are invited to use our anointing to help bring it to fullness for all people.
Today I invite you to read that prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus claimed in the synagogue so long ago, and ask the Spirit to renew this anointing in you, to allow the Spirit to work through you to bring to visible completion the Good News Jesus proclaimed and won for us. Can we open ourselves to God’s dream of wholeness for all of creation, of blessing for every child of every race in every place?
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Today this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Join Jesus in making it so.
When Jesus began his public ministry, full of the Holy Spirit, his reputation quickly spread as he went from synagogue to synagogue, teaching. And when he came to his home in Nazareth, he showed all his cards. Reading from Isaiah, he sat back and said, “This prophecy is fulfilled in me. Today.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Anointed to bring good news. To those most in need of it – the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed. This, he was saying, is what God is up to, has always been up to, is doing among us even now. Today. We who bear the name and life of Christ share in this anointing, whether or not we choose to live it out.
Today we celebrate the life and ministry of one who did not shirk that anointing, but embraced it, gave himself to it even unto death, in the footsteps of his Lord Jesus Christ. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that the Good News hadn’t gotten around to everyone yet. There were still plenty of poor people who needed to hear it; plenty of people blinded by greed and power and lack of insight; plenty of people still oppressed by injustice and cruelty and the legacy of slavery; plenty of people held captive in systems of racism and white privilege that hold resources and opportunities for the few.
And so he went with his anointing and preached Good News, not only proclaiming release but working tirelessly to bring it about. He worked and proclaimed and wept and dreamed until he was silenced. His dream is not fully realized – the last few years have made that abundantly clear. God’s dream is not yet fully realized in our world. We are invited to use our anointing to help bring it to fullness for all people.
Today I invite you to read that prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus claimed in the synagogue so long ago, and ask the Spirit to renew this anointing in you, to allow the Spirit to work through you to bring to visible completion the Good News Jesus proclaimed and won for us. Can we open ourselves to God’s dream of wholeness for all of creation, of blessing for every child of every race in every place?
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Today this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing. Join Jesus in making it so.
10-22-21 - The New, New Story
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Stories function in interesting ways for many people. While we generally love a new story, something we haven’t encountered before, we are also very attached to the stories we already know. “I love to tell the story,” goes the old-time gospel hymn, “The old, old story of Jesus and his love.”
And yet that “old, old story” is ever becoming new in our lives. In order to really accept healing and freedom and renewal, we need to be able to believe a different narrative than the one that has defined our lives so far, a different story than the one the world or our parents or our society has told us. We are often bound by what we have experienced as “normal.” Jesus’ gift is to show us the new normal, to show us what we can be.
Bartimaeus believed this story he had heard about Jesus, and it gave him power to walk out of his old story into the new. The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again.’" Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
That meant giving up a certain kind of identity, a certain degree of security. Walking into our new stories always does. That’s why we often stay stuck in situations that are less than what God might have for us.
What old stories have defined you for too long?
One way to get at that question is with this one: What are you pretending not to know?
What new story is calling you? Maybe it’s a vocation stirring in you, to use your time and gifts in some way other than how you have been doing. Maybe it’s a different place, a new person to love, a rediscovery of yourself. What is trying to be born in you?
Bartimaeus left his roadside and followed Jesus – right into Jerusalem, where Jesus was at first lauded and soon after condemned to a brutal death. That new story might not have been at all what Bartimaeus hoped for – and maybe it was more. For he got to witness firsthand the greatest love story the world has ever known. And he got to be around when that perfect man who had poured himself out for us, even to death, rose from the grave to usher all of us into the New, New Story God is writing. And that story, like God’s mercies, is new every morning, as we allow it to claim us.
Stories function in interesting ways for many people. While we generally love a new story, something we haven’t encountered before, we are also very attached to the stories we already know. “I love to tell the story,” goes the old-time gospel hymn, “The old, old story of Jesus and his love.”
And yet that “old, old story” is ever becoming new in our lives. In order to really accept healing and freedom and renewal, we need to be able to believe a different narrative than the one that has defined our lives so far, a different story than the one the world or our parents or our society has told us. We are often bound by what we have experienced as “normal.” Jesus’ gift is to show us the new normal, to show us what we can be.
Bartimaeus believed this story he had heard about Jesus, and it gave him power to walk out of his old story into the new. The blind man said to him, "My teacher, let me see again.’" Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
That meant giving up a certain kind of identity, a certain degree of security. Walking into our new stories always does. That’s why we often stay stuck in situations that are less than what God might have for us.
What old stories have defined you for too long?
One way to get at that question is with this one: What are you pretending not to know?
What new story is calling you? Maybe it’s a vocation stirring in you, to use your time and gifts in some way other than how you have been doing. Maybe it’s a different place, a new person to love, a rediscovery of yourself. What is trying to be born in you?
Bartimaeus left his roadside and followed Jesus – right into Jerusalem, where Jesus was at first lauded and soon after condemned to a brutal death. That new story might not have been at all what Bartimaeus hoped for – and maybe it was more. For he got to witness firsthand the greatest love story the world has ever known. And he got to be around when that perfect man who had poured himself out for us, even to death, rose from the grave to usher all of us into the New, New Story God is writing. And that story, like God’s mercies, is new every morning, as we allow it to claim us.
10-15-21 - Ransomed
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many Christians these days challenge traditional doctrines of the Atonement, those various ways of articulating how Christ’s death on the cross effected salvation for humankind. Some reject the idea that humanity needed saving; others are put off by the notion that our God of love could be so wrathful as to require an atoning sacrifice to meet the demands of his justice, let alone the sacrifice of his own son. Ideas that Christians have prayed, confessed, preached and sung about for centuries are suddenly in the recycle bin.
This is more than I could address in a short spiritual reflection, even if I were equipped. I raise it simply because of the last thing Jesus said in his discourse to his disciples about service and humble leadership: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
If we wonder why theories of atonement developed at all, that line about giving his life as a ransom is one reason. That tells us something about how Jesus saw his mission and impending passion. It suggests that “many” are indeed in need of being rescued, saved, liberated, redeemed like an item sitting on a pawn shop shelf.
Whatever you think about sin and sinfulness, however you view your need to be forgiven and saved or not, each of us can relate to the notion of being held hostage to something. Whether we are hostage to our own schedules, to cycles of disease or addiction in family members, the materialism of our culture, the demands of social media, or our own broken patterns of relating to ourselves, to others and to God – each of us can, I believe, appreciate the notion of being ransomed from that bound condition into freedom.
Even if we accept Jesus’ gift only in that light, it is enough to make us profoundly grateful to be ransomed – meaning, someone has paid the ransom so that we can walk out of captivity into the bright sunlight of liberation.
What in your life have you been ransomed from? What do you need freeing from now? Might you ask Jesus in prayer today how his offering of himself unto death and back into new life has provided you a key for the door?
Do you owe a debt to another person you can never repay, perhaps a hurt you caused or joy you stole? Can you accept that Jesus may even have paid that debt for you?
In what ways might we still be sitting in our captivity, even though the door has been opened – because it’s scarier to move out of our patterns of unhealth into the responsibility of freedom?
There’s a beautiful song called Be Ye Glad, with this refrain:
Be ye glad, O be ye glad; every debt that you ever had;
Has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord; Be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad.
We are ransomed. Open the door and step into the Light!
Many Christians these days challenge traditional doctrines of the Atonement, those various ways of articulating how Christ’s death on the cross effected salvation for humankind. Some reject the idea that humanity needed saving; others are put off by the notion that our God of love could be so wrathful as to require an atoning sacrifice to meet the demands of his justice, let alone the sacrifice of his own son. Ideas that Christians have prayed, confessed, preached and sung about for centuries are suddenly in the recycle bin.
This is more than I could address in a short spiritual reflection, even if I were equipped. I raise it simply because of the last thing Jesus said in his discourse to his disciples about service and humble leadership: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
If we wonder why theories of atonement developed at all, that line about giving his life as a ransom is one reason. That tells us something about how Jesus saw his mission and impending passion. It suggests that “many” are indeed in need of being rescued, saved, liberated, redeemed like an item sitting on a pawn shop shelf.
Whatever you think about sin and sinfulness, however you view your need to be forgiven and saved or not, each of us can relate to the notion of being held hostage to something. Whether we are hostage to our own schedules, to cycles of disease or addiction in family members, the materialism of our culture, the demands of social media, or our own broken patterns of relating to ourselves, to others and to God – each of us can, I believe, appreciate the notion of being ransomed from that bound condition into freedom.
Even if we accept Jesus’ gift only in that light, it is enough to make us profoundly grateful to be ransomed – meaning, someone has paid the ransom so that we can walk out of captivity into the bright sunlight of liberation.
What in your life have you been ransomed from? What do you need freeing from now? Might you ask Jesus in prayer today how his offering of himself unto death and back into new life has provided you a key for the door?
Do you owe a debt to another person you can never repay, perhaps a hurt you caused or joy you stole? Can you accept that Jesus may even have paid that debt for you?
In what ways might we still be sitting in our captivity, even though the door has been opened – because it’s scarier to move out of our patterns of unhealth into the responsibility of freedom?
There’s a beautiful song called Be Ye Glad, with this refrain:
Be ye glad, O be ye glad; every debt that you ever had;
Has been paid up in full by the grace of the Lord; Be ye glad, be ye glad, be ye glad.
We are ransomed. Open the door and step into the Light!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)