Break bondage in every area

"that every man should set free his male and female slave—a Hebrew man or woman—that no one should keep a Jewish brother in bondage."- Jer.34:9

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." - Exodus 2:20

Bondage is defined as: The state of being a slave.  A state of being greatly constrained by circumstances or obligations. 

There are so many circumstances in life that keep us in bondage outside of the normal and/or obvious ones.  The important thing to remember is that no one is exempt from bondage.  Regardless of social status, money in the bank, health, etc. anyone in any situation can be in bondage.  It's easy to point fingers at people like addicts and criminals because of their circumstances, but make sure you are examining yourself as well.  The millionaire can be in bondage to his/her money, the hard-worker in bondage to his/her job; getting a little deeper a parent can be in bondage to their children or vise versa and the "every day church going, bible reading, roof raising prayer warrior" can be in bondage to their church.  Oh yeah, I went there.  Before you get all up in arms and stop reading hear me out, satan will use whomever is not paying attention. 

We pray daily and put on the armor of God and cover, cancel, bind and block agendas but we tend to let our guards down at church.  The one place we should really be on high alert.  We should hope and pray that un saved folks are coming into the church every service, that is the purpose - to seek and save lost souls right?  So why is it that we get in church, leave our purses and such laying around unattended because "it's church", we take everyone and everything at face value because "it's church" and we feel like if the minister is reading a scripture we don't need to see it because he/she is a minister and they know the word. 

Corinthians 12 talks about having different roles within the body of Christ, none of those roles include not knowing the word for ourselves.  Our ministers, teachers, spiritual leaders and even mentors in within he body of Christ are there to teach and guide us.  Not do it for us, no one just can get you to Heaven, you have to speak and believe the words yourself.  If your child's teacher stood in front of the class, taught the literature, gave all the answers during the test and physically did the homework for them you would be highly upset because they wouldn't learn a thing. 

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was." - James 1:22

Being a doer is in prayer and in works.  We hear and are given revelation of the word by our spiritual leaders and it is up to us to go back and study and really get even more revelation and self clarification in the word.  How else can you fully explain it to someone else if you are only mimicking what you heard? 

When you fall into that type of bondage it is very hard to get out or even realize that you are in bondage.  You feel like you are just being obedient and serving the Lord, but you have to be careful and make sure that you are truly serving the Lord and not man.  How you pray, what you pray, how you give, how you tithe, how you worship, how you praise; it's all between you and God.  When we fall into a rhythm of only being able to pray one way because "that's what sister so and so said I should do" or we only sit on the left side of the church because "brother so an so said you can't really receive on the right side"...that's bondage.  Waiting for someone to tell you how much to tithe before filling out your offering envelope, instead of praying on it and giving what you've prayed on...that's bondage.  2 Peter 2:19 talks about us being slaves to whatever overcomes us.  We need to serve God and all times and not be pleasers of man. 

We go to church to learn, fellowship and receive revelation in a holy environment.  Not for a fashion show, not to see who makes the most money and not to find out what our next move should be.  Our ministers, spiritual leaders, elders, etc. are there to guide us teach us and help mold us.  Getting to a point where we cannot think and make moves without their consultation can very quickly become bondage if you are not paying attention.  And if you are a spiritual mentor, leader, counselor, etc. to someone make sure that you are not keeping them in bondage by allowing them to put you before God.

Break loose from any and all bondage in your life. 

In The Midst of it...

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust. 3 Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler And from the perilous pestilence. 4 He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. 5 You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, Nor of the arrow that flies by day, 6  Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, Nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. 7 A thousand may fall at your side, And ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you. 8 Only with your eyes shall you look, And see the reward of the wicked. 9 Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place, (Psalms 91:2-9)
 
We often turn to music based on our moods. If you want to set a romantic atmosphere you might find some smooth jazz or a sweet “love song”. If we’re angry we tend to want something more hardcore to amp our mood. The blues when we’re sad and so on and so forth. We always want the world to know what kind of mood we’re in and/or what we’re going through at any given time.  Thanks to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter we can tell our 500 “friends” what going on in our lives in less than 60 seconds!  They can like your status and say they’re sorry for what you’re going through, but nine times out of ten that solves absolutely nothing. We either want everyone to attend our pity parties or we want self-gratification for something we THINK we did on our own.  Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with sharing your feelings and even sharing good news.  But sometimes we need to settle down and go to God first.  Then we can commence to telling it on the mountain, if He wants us to.  There are somethings we need to learn to keep our mouths shut about.  There is a point where I recent;y started asking myself, Lord is this just for attention or is this to give you glory.  Lord am I really gaining anything by blabbing about this?  Lord am I low-key trying to make someone jealous or boast about something?  Is my heart in the right place as I tell this news?  I love to gab and talk like most women do and God really began to convict my spirit about opening my mouth so much.  I would vent out of anger, and once I was calm, I would pray about it and feel bad that I said anything but it’s not like I can take it back.  God wants us to talk to Him and be real with Him.  Yes He already knows, but He wants us to have a desire in our hearts to tell Him everything and allow him to deal with us and/or it accordingly.
Christians, we are doing nothing but selling ourselves short if we feel like we should wait until this are “okay” to go and talk and commune with God.  He will deal with us in the midst of our trials, in the midst of our sin, in the midst of whatever situations we are in.  Psalms 91 says that God is our refuge and fortress and in HIM shall we trust. He will take us under his wing and deliver us from the snare of the fowler. It says that His truth, which is His word, will be our shield and only with our eyes will we see the reward of the wicked. If we’re taking refuge and need shields that means we are in the middle of battle family.  God didn’t say He would be our shield because it sounds nice, He said it because we should constant;y be aware of the spiritual warfare going on around and within us. Satan is always at work and he will send his demons to work on your mind first because that is our arena of faith. Once he plants a seed in our mind we tend to run with it and confess it and then he can pull his demons off because we start to do satan’s dirty work and become our own worst enemy. We confess, “oh my back is killing me!” “Oh Lord I’m so broke” and so many other negative things we speak into our lives and confess them on a daily basis. When we start to feel symptoms or things seem impossible, that’s when we should hold fast our confessions! Take refuge in the Lord and know that he will carry you through. It’s okay to need the Lord, it’s okay to have trials and tribulations. Only the “perfect Christian” doesn’t have issues…I’ll let that marinate

Don’t ever feel like you did something wrong if you are going through a rough patch. God to God, lean on the word and believe it. Have faith and know that his shield will keep the fiery darts of the wicked one (Eph.6:10-20 the armor of God) away from us.  God is not a respecter of persons so don’t count yourself out.  Take joy in the midst of a trial and seek the Lord diligently because He’s got a blessing in the midst of it all.

Live like you're already there!

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)

The world tells us to “Live like you’re dying” but the word tells us that we are already there!  We, as believers, are in this world, we have to abide by laws put in place and live accordingly.  However, we are not of this world and we must stop picking and choosing what biblical laws to follow.  If you’re running late for work and get stopped by a red light, are you gonna run it just this one time because you need to get to work?  I seriously doubt it because of the fear of getting pulled over and ticketed for breaking the law.  In the same manner that we have respect for the laws of man, we need to have respect and fear for God’s law and what the word says.  If there’s a red light and the Holy Spirit is saying that you shouldn’t go just yet (and maybe not at all), don’t try your luck just this one time…just don’t do it!  Proverbs 3:5-6 says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”  That means that we need to walk in the spirit and seek God in all of our decisions, we need to be consistently obedient, and in constant prayer.

The world tells us in Romans 6:4 (above) that when we were baptized we were buried with Christ and just as Christ raised from the dead, we did as well through the baptism and we now walk in the spirit in the newness of life!  1 John 4:17 says that as He is so are we.  Christ Died, was buried and rose again!  In the same way, through being born again and baptized our old self died – That ol’ girl died, that good for nothing man is dead – was buried and we rose again in the newness of life!  God wants us to have his best.  We are heirs and joint heirs with Christ!  We don’t have to “Live like we’re dying…” Family we already died and rose again and have been walking with Christ.  We have arrived…we’re already there!  There’s no need to “Live like you’re dying” we should be Living like we are already there!  Have a blessed and highly favored day family!