Willingly a Hostage

Posted by anointedplace on February 16, 2013 · 5 Comments 

Exodus 31:³ and I have ^(A)filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship,

Ephesians 2:¹⁰ For ^(C)we are his workmanship, ^(D)created in Christ Jesus ^(E)for good works, ^(F)which God prepared beforehand, ^(G)that we should walk in them.

 

Being children of God, set to reign with Christ; how do we continue to allow the world to determine our value? Whether if its through economics, social justice, legislation or Pharisees dictating moral code as being a substitute for salvation through faith by grace.

When I speak of this, it has nothing to do with greed but a sinful world holding our hope hostage. The world consistently tries to mock our faith and hope as it tries to display its power over our situations. It’s wins because we have been fooled into believing that our God is situational. Don’t think so? Then why do we call him the “right now God”? If we would heed the promises and let go of the world’s threats, we will see him for who he is. But what is required is a commitment to live godly in the will of God. We are required to deny ourselves and trust that God would take care of our needs. But we have sold our birth rights and dine with pigs because the world has led us to believe it is our only option. This isn’t about prosperity gospel but about being good stewards of the gospel. Being worthy of our calling out of the world. Being faithful to Christ. Because God never stops loving, Jesus Christ never stops interceding for us and the Holy Spirit never stops praying for what we should pray for. We don’t know our own worth, our identity is found in Christ but we seek it in the world. We go on living as the people the world has told us are to be. So many continue to do things because its expected and everyone else does it. We pick up habits we can’t support, not because we really want it but we are told that we want it. When Jesus tells the people to deny themselves it is a direct attack on pride, covetousness, and idolatry. All of which are chief enemies of love as well as God. They also plague the heart, riot the mind, and infect our emotions. In Luke 9:23-25 Jesus speaks about the consequences of living as a hostage to the world and its concerns. As we seek to save our lives by accumulating all the things we think will save us, we lose the most valuable. We lose our souls in the end but we are blinded by the bondage of our hope. The kidnapper has deceived the prey into thinking that this is all that is left. So we live situation by situation and we subject our souls future to the grave. When our vision ends at the dust of the ground we become worshipers of the lowly. To keep us like this our idols dangle the carrot of achievable happiness. While showing us the carrot, they belittle our worth in the process. They belittle our workmanship and the work God has prepared for us. They tell us that we are not complete or whole until we follow the world’s lead. Lose weight, eat this, don’t eat that, wear this, don’t wear that, use this phone, go to this school, drive this car, don’t drive the one you have, your house is to small, buy a bigger house, don’t work there, work for yourself and earn millions. They say why you can’t have it all?

Do you see the tree and its low hanging fruit? Do you see our desire to be god and our handing over our hope to the world? Do you see our crying to Arron about Moses not coming back quick enough so make us a god? Do you see that Satan has brought us to the top of the world and is telling us that we can have it all?

We have fallen in love with the kidnapper and we have stayed in bondage purposely. We are freed slaves clinging to the plantation master. Because we lost our worth, have handed over our hope and sold our birth right just to take part in the last supper with pigs. Have we become so complacent that we don’t even notice anymore? Or maybe we just don’t care, the troubles of sin are so deep. Our eyes are shut tight as we try not to see that it’s more that over coming habits.

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Filed under Depravity, Faith, Idols, Jesus Christ, mankind, Reconciliation, Salvation, Sin, The Gospel · Tagged with Christ, Christ Jesus, Epistle to the Ephesians, God, Holy Spirit, Jesu, Jesus Christ, Luke, Moses, Prosperity theology, Satan