Breaking The Chains…

Breaking The Chains…

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 got chains, He’s a chain breaker ~ Chain Breaker, Zach Williams

The chains of addiction, the chains of pornography, the digital chains, the chains, the chains, the chains… So many chains, so little time.

If you’ve been alive for any length of time chances are pretty high there have been some sort of chains placed upon your wrist. Sure, some are highly polished and some of us even proudly show them to friends and family. Instead of seeing the chains for what they are, some people see them as a badge of honor. This doesn’t make them any less immobilizing. The enemy is no longer prowling around ready to devour, the enemy is laying comfortably, like a house cat, across your lap. Why roar when you have it all?

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. ~ 1 Peter 5:8 NKJV

Difficult to “be sober” when the gleam from those polished chains is filling the eye.

Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. And when Herod was about to bring him out, that night Peter was sleeping, bound with two chains between two soldiers; and the guards before the door were keeping the prison. ~Acts 12:5-6 NKJV

Peter is describing the prison of addiction to a tee.

Turning our life over to Jesus Christ, seeking, asking and knocking invites the Holy Spirit comes into our lives to guide us out of the prison. We can walk out, free, and break the chains forever. The Holy Spirit is waiting to escort all of us out of prison and deliver us to the path that leads to freedom – real freedom, in the arms of Jesus Christ. Just because we are locked in a cage doesn’t mean our heart, our spirit and our mind should be locked away as well.

Now behold, an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in the prison; and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, “Arise quickly!” And his chains fell off his hands. Then the angel said to him, “Gird yourself and tie on your sandals”; and so he did. And he said to him, “Put on your garment and follow me.” So he went out and followed him, and did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of its own accord; and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him. ~Acts 12:7-10 NKJV

When the Father had cleared path for safe passage it was difficult to understand the gate had been opened. Once the wreckage was cleared, the tears stopped and I could breathe once again it was seeing the chains laying on the ground for the first time. It was not a dream / vision. The Holy Spirit shone the Light on me, struck my side and walked me out of the prison. There are no words to convey what happened, for the words describing what happened are vastly inadequate.

Either the Gospel is divine inspiration, the Word of God teaching us how to live and how to be a reflection of Him, or it’s nothing more than a historical account of events.