Set Free

“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Hebrews 12:1b

One of my favorite worship songs is Chris Tomlin’s version of Amazing Grace. I love the chorus “My Chains are Gone, I’ve been SET FREE”! Now I’ve never been arrested or put in handcuffs but I understand the concept, you are bound and are not free.

I believe you don’t have to be in hand cuffs to bound or in bondage. As I have been attending the conferences at Keswick this summer, I have been challenged to put into practice the message we have been entrusted to. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” James 1:22. One of the speakers boldly told us “The last thing most of us need is another message, you haven’t done anything with the ones you already heard” OUCH!

What is it that keeps us from being “Doers of the word”? What are the “Chains” that are holding us hostage and in bondage, that are preventing us from “acting” on what we already know. Maybe it’s fear, maybe unbelief or our priorities are out of wack.

Whatever it is, the best thing we can do is identify it as sin, confess it, and listen for the chains to fall off. I can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking just because drugs and alcohol are no longer a part of my life that I’m free. Well God has shown me that whatever prevents me from “Getting in the Game” and to “Run with endurance the race that is set before us”, is bondage and those chains have got to go. Amen! – Rob Russomano is a grad of the Colony of Mercy and serves full-time at America’s Keswick

Daily Bible Reading: Psalm 40-42; Acts 18

Quote of the day: I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, of which I have not since seen reason to be satisfied, that had it taken place in season and circumstance just as I proposed, it would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least it would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me. We judge of things by their present appearances, but the Lord sees them in their consequences, if we could do so likewise we should be perfectly of His mind; but as we cannot, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is spoken of as one of his heaviest judgments, when He gives any person or people up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk after their own counsels. John Newton

Verse to Memorize: Your promise is well tried and your servant loves it. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. Psalm 119:140-141 ESV