The Chains Are Gone

by Keith Gardner

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. [Romans 6:18-22 (NIV)]

Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39 both tell the story of a man so ravaged by our spiritual enemy that he had lost all senses of who he was. The man was wild, living among the tombs, naked and beastly. He was not friendless however, and not without love. Those who loved him had tried to seize him. And while we are not told, I am sure they tried to reason with him as well. But the mind, ravaged by sin, cannot be reasoned with; it cannot understand the voices of love, or the cries of the hopeless that are also bound to the sufferer.

In some, and I do not understand why, the ruin of sin so intertwines the soul and spirit and flesh; that the identity of the man is not distinguishable from the actions of the demonic intent on destruction. The stronghold of a life, filled with acts of selfish thought, have given way to the prince of selfishness to the point where the prince now rules the life.

It is in this hopelessness that hope is regained. Jesus, in declaring His purpose, brings hope again.

He [Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." [Luke 4:16-21 (NIV)] 

This is the reason Jesus came. This is the reason we all have hope. Jesus came to release the oppressed; to set us free from the prison of our selfish, sinful nature; to present to us the good news of His purpose.

As the story concludes; the wild man was freed from the ravages of his sins. The strongholds that had dominated the man were gone. He was again in his right mind. He was in fellowship with his creator.

Father, I pray for divine appointments with the bound, and a releasing of the chains that have made us prisoners to our sinful nature, and have bound us to demonic intent. Forgive us and those we love for our sinful, selfish acts of disobedience. Release your favor upon us. Shower us with your mercy. Amen