Entangled

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affairs, Bondage, Bound, Entangled, Entanglement, grace, Sweetness, war, world

2 Timothy 2:4

“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”

As we’ve talked about previously, the devil is after our faith.  He knows that if he can get us to step away from our faith in the promises of God, we won’t see them manifest in our lives.  He therefore uses the affairs of this life to entangle us and hinder us.  But thank God Jesus came to set us free from the devil and everything that he uses to entangled us.

When you are entangled, you are caught up in something that has you bound.  While some parts of you may be free, you’re unable to free yourself from the trap.  The place of entanglement is the mind. We can become so preoccupied mentally with the things of this life that we’re not focused on the things of God. It’s impossible for us to do what we’re commissioned to do when our minds are entangled.  As believers our one focus should be going into all the world with the gospel of Christ and the love of God.  Because the only way to change the hearts of men is through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Politics, rules, and laws won’t change men’s hearts only Jesus Christ the Son of the living God can give men a new heart.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”  When a man’s heart is new, he has the ability to live a new life. His old way of living is passed away and all things have become new.

Paul admonished the believers in Galatians 5:1 to “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”  The reason being is that God doesn’t want His people to go back and be entangled in anything He has brought them out of.  God wants us free.  The Galatians had become entangled in the law even though they were now under the new covenant of grace.   And because of that they lost the sweetness and blessedness of grace.  As believers when we become entangled in the affairs of this life, we too can lose the sweetness of grace and our effectiveness as salt and light in the world.    While this doesn’t mean that we’re not involved in the world, it simply means that even in our involvement our focus should be to bring souls to the loving arms of our Father God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Know The Truth And Live Free!

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Bondage, free, Freedom, Jesus, Jesus is Truth, Know Truth, Poverty, Truth

John 8:31-32

“The said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.”

When we are born again we are set free.  However we must learn how to walk in that liberty.  For example, if a man has been in prison all his and is set free when he is old all he would know is prison life.  He would get up in the morning at the time he did when he was in prison, he would eat at the time he did in prison, his whole thinking and way of doing things would be geared toward what he knew and did when he was in prison.  He would be a free man but living as though he was still in bondage.

Likewise when we come to Christ we are set free but are minds must be renew so that our life reflects our new status, free (Eph 4:23).  Jesus tells the Jews that believed on Him this very thing.   In order for them to live out their freedom they had to continue in His word and they would know the Truth and the Truth would make them free.  Who is the Truth?  Jesus Christ is the Truth and as we continue in His word and allow the Holy Spirit to give us revelation of Him, what He reveals will change what we  think and what we think will change what we do.  Thus breaking the bondage of what we used to know and how we used to act.  We are now walking in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1).  What Christ has done has become an experience in our lives.

The revelation of the Truth sets us free in every area of our lives.  Poverty is bondage, Jesus has set us free from all bondage including poverty.  “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).  As we look into this word and gaze upon it what we see is that the Son of God left His home in glory, put on what He created, and was stripped of all that He had in this earthly realm (Phil 2:5-8).  There is no level of poverty He did not take upon Himself on the cross.  He was hungry, thirsty, naked and homeless so that you and I would never be hungry, thirsty, naked or homeless.  It’s this revelation that sets us free from a poverty mentally, and as our minds are renewed our lives come into alignment with what we think “for as he thinketh in his heart so is he…” (Provb 23:7).

Knowing the Truth causes us to walk in power and reign in life.