Resurrection life means we know we don’t need to get free, we already are free. Satan’s work has already been defeated by Jesus’ finished work on the Cross and His resurrection from the dead. That means countless Christians are living in some form of bondage from which they have already been liberated.
The manner in which many Christians live on this earth is reflected in the way a young elephant is trained to be compliant in captivity. An elephant trainer starts when the elephant is very young by chaining one of its feet to a stake. The small elephant isn’t strong enough to pull out the stake from the ground, so after a while, it stops trying.
Because the young elephant was never able to pull that stake out of the ground, it remains bound to the stake even after it grows to adulthood. The elephant has become far more powerful than the chain or the stake and yet its training as a young elephant continues to hold it in captivity.
We must refuse to accept any kind of bondage in our life. We are undergoing a divine training process, breaking loose of the devil’s old training methods because in Christ, we are already made free.
First John 3:8 says, “…For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” That is why Jesus came to earth to live, to die, and to be raised from the dead. So why are we still bound by any form of bondage in any area of our life? Because we haven’t yet decided to come out of it.
This idea is conveyed in the story about the prodigal son in Luke 15. This story is actually more about the father than it is of the son.
The youngest son in the story wanted his inheritance now. He then went off and squandered it all, until one day he found himself living with pigs. For Hebrews, feeding the pigs was as low as a person could get.
The Bible describes the father as looking toward the horizon every day, believing that what was inside his son would rise up one day and bring him home!
God wants us to know that a loving, open relationship with Him as our Father is freely available to us. We need only to come and avail ourselves of what is rightfully ours.
So many people have a distorted concept of what it means to approach God as their Father because their own earthly fathers were so messed up. They think, If God is anything like my father, then I don’t want anything to do with Him!.
But God is the perfect Father that our heart has always longed for. He always has the right thing to say. He always knows what to do to help in any given situation. He always has access to all the resources that are needed to turn a situation around on our behalf. He is willing to do whatever is necessary to make things right in our life. That is the kind of Heavenly Father we have!
