Come clean and break free!

We have a fundamental belief, especially in America, that it is all up to us. If we are going to make it, succeed, and be all that we can be, then we will need to work hard and get a little lucky. In the United States we talk about the self-made individual and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Certainly we need to strive for excellence in the use of our gifts, but the underlying reality of life is that everything is a gift. If we would spend less time grabbing and hoarding and more time receiving and giving thanks our lives would be more abundant and free. Jesus died to make us free. Jesus breaks the shackles of legalism and perfectionism and enables us to live true, authentic lives.  God’s grace liberates us so that we can be free to do what God has called us and created us to do. We are invited to live in the reality of God’s grace, shed our shackles and to live free.

Galatians 5:1 says, "Christ has set us free so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom. So keep on standing firm in it, and stop attaching yourselves to the yoke of slavery again."

Paul says we’re free, and he says this emphatically. He literally says that it’s for freedom that Christ has freed us. Jesus’ whole mission was to free us. Paul tells us in the clearest terms that in Jesus Christ we have been freed.

But then he says, “Stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Do you realize that this is one of the most important tasks that we have as followers of Jesus Christ? What is it? To simply stand firm. Stay in one place. 

One of the biggest tasks in the Christian life is to guard against wandering off from the freedom that has been won for us through the saving work of Jesus Christ. You’re free, emphatically free. Now stand firm in that freedom and don’t fall back in to those things that have enslaved you. What are those things that have enslaved you? Peter 2:19 says that “For a man is a slave to what ever controls him.”

Many of the times when people think of breaking free from habits, people minds immediately switch to… drugs and alcohol, but it goes so much further than that. Some people are a slave to work, some people are slave to jealousy, some people are slave to gossip, some people are slave to peoples opinions. Take an inventory of the negative habits in our lives that need to be broken as habits that master us slowly bind us, then break us and eventually destroy our life. Habits destroys us in so many different ways: Physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and relationally. A habit may at first seem very harmless, at any time in the early stages you could rid your self. In fact you convince yourself you could stop at any time. Then the habit takes a stronger foothold, advancing a little more taking away a little more of your freedom. Over a period of time that habit like the enemy begins to advance and destroy you.

How many marriages have been lost to habits? How many families have been divided because of habits? How many jobs have been lost? How many relationships destroyed because of habits? Time wasted because of habits? 

Finally today come clean and break free from the grip of a bad habit in your life,  1 Corinthians 10:13 says that, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man, and God is faithful: He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” God lets us know that in every situation with every temptation He provides victory so that you will never be bound again!