History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid. - General Dwight D. Eisenhower
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. - Jesus (John 8:36)
The role and mission of an earthly father is to walk with God in such a way as to show his sons (and daughters) what the heavenly Father is like and, at some point, invite his son to turn to the Father for continued fathering.
Author and counselor John Eldredge says in Fathered by God:
“We aren’t meant to figure out life on our own. God wants to father us. The truth is, He has been fathering us for a long time—we just haven’t had the eyes to see it. He wants to father us much more intimately, but we have to be in a posture to receive.”
But count on this: The lines of intimacy and communication, of receiving love from our Father God, have been infiltrated…
Sabotaged…
Compromised.
And so the first captive I need to see set free… is me.
Partnering with God, a man can hunt down that which has previously hunted him: the agents of darkness that taunt, assault, and labor to build and use a man’s false self to entangle, enslave, and encumber (2 Peter 2:20, Gal. 4:9, Heb. 12:1).
It is the wounding moments of our past that speak into our current and keep us bound though we are free. How can we be free and bound? Look around…it is everywhere. What Christ has done HAS set us free, but what the enemy has done is keep us from experiencing that freedom. It’s time to put this “spiritual bipolar disorder” to an end.
Remember, John 10:10 has a Part A: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” So he has and does.
And thank goodness for Part B: “I have come that you might have Life and have it Abundant… Full.”
With each reclaiming or resurrecting of what was lost, stolen, or put to death in a man’s heart, a man becomes more and more free. Freedom to receive love results in a man becoming more and more whole, and wholeness increases the man’s freedom to then offer and bestow love to others.
And that is what the battle is all about: LOVE—a man’s ability to be loved and his increasing skill and ability to love others!
The creator of our hearts knows how to treat our wounds and bring about their healing by removing the old and replacing it with the new. The truth replaces the lies. And just as each wounding moment is an experience, so it is also an experience when the truth comes and replaces the lie on our journey with God. Jesus said: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32 NIV)
BUT… we must participate. We have a role to play in the exchange. We must see what is in the way-lies we have believed about God, others, and ourselves, and that these lies are operational. They are at work within.
With our acceptance of His invitation to heal, and with our participation, Jesus removes the lies and heals the broken places of our hearts with his presence and his words. We confess and repent we believed falsehoods and then turned them inward. He deconstructs the toxic and false self time bombs inside us. He sets us up to move forward freely without further injury to ourselves and, more significantly, the others in our life who are there in order for us to love. This is how wholeheartedness is accomplished and how we can join our King in the great turn of the tide in this spiritual battle in which we find ourselves the objects of and in the midst of doing the bidding for one of two kingdoms…darkness or Light.
If wounded hearts wound, then free hearts can free hearts.
In your time alone with God, ask Him:
Father, which kingdom have I been serving and how? Where am I compromised?
Jesus, thank you for Life. What intel does the enemy of my heart have on me that is keeping me from your promise of a Full and Abundant Life?
Holy Spirit, what lies are still operational against my belovedness?
