Some chains are easier to see than others. All enslave.

If you’ve got pain
He’s a pain taker
If you feel lost
He’s a way maker
If you need freedom or saving
He’s a prison-shaking Savior
If you’ve got chains
He’s a chain breaker

Zack Williams “Chain Breaker”

This is one of those songs that moves me to my core.  I cannot sing it out loud because I lose my voice in the emotions of it.  Just copying the chorus for this blog entry made me cry… a little.  Sometimes my wife calls me a “big ol’ girl.”  But then, she reminds me of her appreciation for the spirit that causes these strong emotions in her husband. She knows the chains that have been broken in my life better than anyone else.  She knows first-hand about my slavery to sin. She has watched Jesus break down the strongholds and free us from the chains of sin.  So, she is OK if I get a little emotional about it.      

I was a lost sinner when she met me.  She married me anyway. There was very little I would not try to get a happy feeling.  I was not picky about the people I hung with or the things we did together. Entertainment to me was the strip clubs, getting high and drunk, talking trash and gettin’ by day by day.  Satan was busy putting chains on me and I did not care. 

Satan’s formula for my life was a lot like boiling a frog.  You cannot put a frog directly into the boiling water. You have to put him in the water while it is still cool and comfortable to him.  Then you turn up the heat, but very slowly.  That way he doesn’t jump out.  He knows it’s getting warmer, but it’s only a little worse than it was a moment ago, so he stays put.  By the time he is uncomfortable enough to want out, it’s too late.  He is cooked and cannot longer get himself out of the boiling pot – and he dies.

Satan did not put all the chains on me all at once. He took his time and layered them on one by one.  Each a little heavier, each a little more dangerous, each based on my ability to accept it.  Some were considered normal behavior for a 20 something person. Some were a little less moral, I kept those secret. Sometimes, I would encourage others to join me, most of the time they did. That way I could use the excuse “well everybody else is doing it.” Some habits were easy to break, and I felt good about myself. Then I could speak the other lie of rationalization “I can quit anytime I want to, I just choose not to right now.”

Then God called. He told me simply “Go to church.” The call was clear and in an audible voice. I obeyed by looking up a church in the yellow pages that was near my house and started late. God did not tell me to stop getting high on Saturday night so I might need to sleep late on Sunday mornings.  God’s call was not concerned about all of my bad habits and my sin nature. When I showed in his house that first Sunday morning, I had quite a collection of chains in tow. He did not mind, he just wanted me to come and fellowship with him. He knew that through fellowship with him, I would develop a relationship with Jesus – The Chain Breaker.

Now about those chains, Satan had mercilessly entwined into my soul. He had taken his time over the years to layer them on and I had learned to live with each one. I had grown used to them, and they had become part of who I was and how people identified with me. To remove them would change who I am, and how people would know me. Over time God in his mercy has taught me who he is, who he created me to be and he has developed in me a deep relationship with his son, Jesus Christ.  It is in my relationship with Jesus that I have been mercifully and unapologetically shown the truth of God’s Word and that I have been set free from sin. Freedom as He break every chain. 

Jesus is indeed a chain breaker, but we have a role to play as well.  Just as Satan cannot put any sin on you that you do accept, you cannot be completely free for a sin from which you have not turned. I know that in my life there are times I have failed to break free of sin through simple prohibition.  Perhaps you have heard a sermon or read a passage in the Bible that causes you to know you need to change something about your life (we call this conviction).  You vow to never do that sin again, but you never deal with the nature of that sin. For example, you have decided to never drink again but you continue to enjoy telling all the old stories of how much fun you had when you were drunk.  You read in the Bible that fornication and adultery are sins.  Yet you still joke about and perhaps even brag about your own conquests and “Hook Ups”.  I am not very good at prohibition, I must decide that it is not good and never was or I will fall prey to that temptation over and over again.

I was recently watching a new science fiction show (SCI-FY) that had a very interesting and plausible plot. There were no aliens (only humans) so the creation story was not being lied about.  There were no superpowers or magical characters depicted so I the occult was not being worshipped. I was feeling good about myself because I vowed to never watch SCI-FY with those elements anymore. Then one of the main characters blasphemed. Then he did it again. My wife says “Oh my” out loud. I turned off the show and thought to myself, “Perhaps I should not be watching this genre at all. Then, as if a dark veil had been lifted from my eyes, I knew I was wasting my vision on imaginary worlds and outcomes rather than what God describes in the Bible.  Right then, Jesus lifted a chain from me that I have carried since the first time I wrapped a bath towel around my neck and pretended to fly like Superman.  He lifted my vision so that I could see him as the super-powered being that will come save the day. All of my hope need to be in Him and not in these fictional characters.

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. ³² Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:31-32 NIV

The truth of the matter, for me, is that SCI-FY was an escape from placing all my hope in God and God alone.  This was something that was planted in me as a child and cultivated by Satan all of the 63 years of my life.  This may not be a stumbling block for you but let me encourage you to examine your life and the way you are living. We say so often say we are saved, but our lives are not ones of freedom.  What are the chains that Satan is binding you with? It may be things you never suspected.  It may be things you have simply kept secret and do not want to admit to. It may be a relationship issue.  Are you willing to turn away from those relationships, habits, hobbies, desires, careers, hatreds or other foul thing and let the Chain Breaker – Christ Jesus set you free? 

“Breaking the Chains of my life has been sometimes painful, sometimes gut-wrenching but always liberating.  When I look back, I often wonder, “how did I survive until these chains were broke?”

My Journal 5/3/206