"You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance." psalm 32:7
I was reminded as I read my final book for one of my classes this semester that many people need to be freed today from various things which hold them in bondage. For some people this comes in the form of faulty thinking and for others it comes in toxic relationships or sinful actions. The good news is that God wishes to deliver us from the things which overwhelm and destroy our peace and replace anxiety and fear with joy and peace. The problem comes when we don't wait on him and he isn't our true hiding place.
Another passage that talks about this is in Isaiah 61:1-2 "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the cpatives and release from darkness for the prisoners and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. . . ." These are words that Jesus himself read and attributed to himself. He came to set the captives free, that is you and me, captive of sin and lies and all the things that keep us from being all that He wants for us.
Do you want to be "set free"? Then get into his word. Memorize it. Meditate on it. Thinking about it and apply it. Let it transform your mind. It is work, but it is worth the effort.
In the church we were at last week, the pastor mentioned that he knew that some people wanted to get out on time and go to K&W cafeteria. I thought to myself that most people in that congregation wouldn't complain about sitting for three hours to watch a football game, so why should the pastor feel like he has to rush through a sermon? Something mixed up about the priorities there.
How do we experience being "set free". I think one of the main ways is to meditate on and be renewed through the word of God. When I was a sunday school teacher, I was always amazed at the amount of ignorance of the Bible. You would think with a church everywhere you look we would be knowledgeable about what the Bible says, but that just isn't the case. You can see it in many sermons, that are pathetically weak and shallow. In Romans 12:2 it say that we are not be conformed any longer to the world, but to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind". That renewal takes place as we allow God to speak His truth to us through His Word.
