“I will break the chains and smash the yokes that keep you in slavery.” (Jeremiah 30:8, CEV) Everywhere you turn, it seems today that we are being bombarded with heavy, almost depressing headlines: “War in Afghanistan Escalating, Casualties Climbing” “Deadly Car Bomb Found in NYC” “AZ Town Deems Home Bible Study ‘ILLEGAL’” “Morning After Pill Now to Be Stocked On Military Bases Worldwide” “Disease Rate in America Soaring” “500 Year Flooding strikes for 3rd time in last 10 years” “Natural Disasters of Earthquakes … Tornadoes … Volcanoes” “Fuel & Food Prices Threaten to Soar As Summer Approaches” and many other distressing ‘Breaking News’ reports that continue to permeate today’s 24/7 news-saturated culture. After 14+ years in vocational ministry for the Lord’s Kingdom, I am finding a growing number of families today being weighed down with many of life’s oppressive burdens – some standing vicariously close to becoming entangled in one of the enemy’s choice weapons in his arsenal – that of his ‘chains of hopelessness.’ Link by link, Satan is attempting to slowly slide his chains of hopelessness around the hearts of many unsuspecting victims through adverse, tumultuous life circumstances which many of us are facing here in the 21st Century. These chains only serve but one purpose: to lead us into a state of bondage to the enemy’s lies – a place where we are inhibited from walking in the freedom which God has prepared for us to walk (Psalms 119:45). Pastor Damian Phillips of Camp Ground Baptist Church once shared, “Satan wants to 
keep us chained right where we are, not being able to experience God’s blessings. He wants us to think that it’s better to give up and quit trying rather than be disappointed. Many of us have not been able to break free of our bitter lives and venture into new territory in God’s Promised Land because we have not tasted and seen that the Lord is good. We haven’t tasted any good grass to motivate us to cross that fence and wind up on the other side because we haven’t dared to try.” What is so amazing in today’s world is that a growing number pf folks who have “tasted and found the Lord to be good” (Psalms 34:8) seem to have lost their appetite for the living bread of Life (“Christ,” John 6:35); instead, they seem to want to gorge themselves upon the “fast food pleasures of the world” which offer no spiritual nutrition, only empty calories that leave us unfit for kingdom service. Yet God promises us that we can be set free from these incarcerating chains that hold many of us in tight bondage. Listen to the promise of HOPE which God offers to all of us, “For God will break the chains that bind His people." (Isaiah 9:4) Through the prophet Jeremiah, God spoke these liberating words to His people, “I am freeing you from the chains!” (Jeremiah 40:4) For each of us who have sincerely given our lives to Christ through His gift of salvation (John 3:16), there are no chains which Satan can effectively hold / restrain us from the true freedom which Christ has prepared for us to live. The Apostle Paul declared, “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.” (Galatians 5:1, The Message) So no matter what life circumstances you may be facing today, no matter the “feelings of bondage” that you may sense is enveloping you in the world around you, know that God has already prepared a way for you and I to “live as free men” (1 Peter 2:16) when we choose to live in the equipping power of His Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17). Take a few moments to collect all those broken chains that lay on the floor around you – for as Christians, these chains no longer have any usefulness but to be returned to their rightful owner, Satan! ….Selah!Today's Spirit-led video by CCM artist & Worship Leader Chris Tomlin can be viewed by clicking on the on the song title, "Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)"
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