Restraints, bondage, held captive against one's will.....This is our state before our encounter with the Son. But....when the Son comes to town.....the chains fall off! Often enough, we are not aware we are even captive. You ask captive by who, or what? WE have been in another kingdom, a kingdom ruled by authorities, in high places, so the Christian scriptures say. But by being nailed to the cross, Jesus made an open spectacle of them and conquered all authorities in high places. Wherever Jesus went you could be sure something was going to happen, and the people knew it. For he drew crowds, and masses of people who wanted to see who this man was who did the things no other did. His fame so to speak went before him. And he did by all accounts of what we read about him, he was not interested in it at all! In fact he often sought out, out of the way places for solitude to get away from the noise and personal adoration and sometimes the hateful people who despised what he did and stood for.
But for those who had eyes and ears, to see beyond, he was the one to go to, to be free. Free from hate, malice, anger, immorality and many other things that we were conceived in at birth...from shame, and the sheer weight of sin that restrains freedom to be what we were supposed to be...like him.
So is there a preacher in your area who is unlike anyone you have heard before? Are their people that don't complain, don't gossip, give freely and love one another near you? Seek them out for they are the ones who know their God. For at some point the Son came near, the Gospel came near, and the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them and they changed. They switched kingdoms! The chains fell off, just like when Jesus came to Legion, across the lake at the Gadarenes,on the Eastern shore of Galilee.
