There are many things in life that can make us feel like we’re stuck in chains. From the way we think about ourselves, to huge life-controlling issues such as anxiety and depression, we can often feel like we’re trapped and that we’ll never be free. But God promises us freedom. He can break off all the chains that we feel are holding us back. In fact, some of the time He’s already broken the chains but we can be tempted to try and put the chains back on. We want to live in freedom but the chains can feel like they’ve become part of our lives and we’re not sure how to live without them. When God took the Israelites out of slavery and towards the Promised Land, it should only have taken eleven days but it ended up taking forty years. They complained endlessly, and as a result kept going around the same mountain again and again. They’d been in slavery for 400 years, and they thought and talked like slaves. They couldn’t grasp what God had promised them. Finally He told them, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain…See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land the Lord swore he would give to your fathers’ (Deuteronomy 1:6;8 NIV). And we need to move into the freedom He’s promised us. The Bible says: ‘Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.’ We’re no longer slaves, we’re free. So today, let’s make the choice to step away from those chains, and refuse to let anyone, including ourselves, put them back on us again.
