Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores His captive people, Let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad. (Psalm 53:6 NASB)

I’m going in a different direction with this scripture than it’s intended context.  It’s intended context is literally the salvation of Israel – the entire nation of Israel being saved as scripture tells us will occur in Romans 11 and other scriptures…

But I’m not going to speak on this – I have spoken on this before – I’m going to take poetic licence – as the Lord Himself seems to do from time to time – and use this scripture to demonstrate a universal truth about the way the Lord delivers His captive people…

Who as a believer has felt like a captive? Who has had addictions as a believer which they just can’t budge? Who has felt like Israel felt in Egypt as they waited 400 years for their deliverer?

Who has been there?

And this scripture is so true…

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24 NASB)

Who will set me free?

But hold on He’s already set us free you might say, scripture says this…

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood– (Revelation 1:5 NASB)

In His eyes He has…

He speaks outside of time…

He caused us to be born again and yet we can’t release ourselves from our addictions…

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:5 NASB)

Only He can…

When the Lord delivers His captive people…

This is so true…

I’ve been having some strange experiences recently…

And the Lord has been showing me the reality of the statement that all things work together for good to those who love God…

He’s also been showing me the reality of the scripture that says, you are not your own, you have been bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belong to God…

The reality is that we are not our own…

He owns us…

And He controls our pleasure and our pain…

Sometimes He allows us to continue on in our captivity to sin to allow us to experience the full pain of where it takes us – doesn’t matter what our sin is – what our private struggles are – He allows this to show us the extent of our lostness – even in Him – even with a new creation we have the desire to do what is right but we cannot carry it out – we just can’t…

Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 53:3 NASB)

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. (Romans 7:18-23 NASB)

Why am I speaking of this? People get the impression that Christians are perfect or better than them – those who are not yet Christians – and that if they became a Christian it would involve giving up things which are precious to them, i.e. trying really hard not to do things which they know they really like doing…

That is not what becoming a Christian is all about…

Becoming a Christian is realising that after the Holy Spirit comes to live in your inner man as Paul puts it in the above that you have two different entities so to speak at work in you, two completely separate entities which will never mix or become one or combine…

The flesh will always sin – the new self as it grows will do more and more and more righteous things – the new self will always be righteous…

But it will do more and more and more righteous things as the Holy Spirit from within enables it and lives through it…

Understanding this removes condemnation from the Christian’s life…

Yes sure, on the outside those looking on will still condemn as they see sin coming out of our lives – those of us who know the Lord – but as we educate them that this isn’t what it’s about but that it’s about knowing the Lord and experiencing Him more and more and more living through us and that as we taste and see that the Lord is good we want Him to live through us more and more and more then we see that our lives are lived between the Lord and us alone even if we have the whole world, our families, our work colleagues and our friends looking on…

Even if they don’t understand, the Lord does and as we see this – we see His timing in everything – we understand that truly there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus…

I feel the pain of those who have addictions – I also know my own suffering…

I have been through this and in some areas am still going through it – the release at the other end of it though is awesome – to see the Holy Spirit bring you to a place where He truly has delivered you and convinced you naturally from within without needing to try and convince yourself (mind over matter) but to see it coming out of yourself – that you actually don’t want to live that way anymore and that it really is more blessed to give than to receive and that truly the flesh profits nothing as Jesus said – but without having to remind yourself of these scriptures you just naturally find yourself doing these things and feeling the joy – naturally – that this brings…

I love You Lord – and if you’ve experienced it in one area you know He’ll get you there in another and then another and then another and so on…

It really is an individual journey with the Lord – He knows us and He waits for us – waits for us to be ready for the next change – He is so kind and so gentle and so gracious – He is ours and we are His – forever and ever and ever and He knows that He has all the time in the world for us and to transform us and to set us at ease in this whole process…

Our impatience is not His – He has all the time in the world – and He will show this world the sons and daughters of God – it is our destiny to be transformed into His likeness and to show His likeness to the world – He will only punish their wickedness once our obedience is complete as He says in scripture through Paul…

and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete. (2 Corinthians 10:6 NASB)

But there is no pressure on us in this process…

This is the part I’ve really been struggling with…

To become completely honest before God about what I really want to do in my heart and then to just let myself do it knowing that He will redeem me practically in His time…

And this is what I’ve been seeing but it goes completely against the grain…

Completely…

And yet it works…

He loves it when we are real – when we tell Him what we really want and what we really want to do – He doesn’t chastise us and He lets us – within reason (within His constraints) – experience the things we want to experience so we can see the emptiness that they possess and see the freedom of what He offers – and yet we need Him to make this a reality to us…

His free gifts…

Everything worth having in God is a free gift…

We just have to ask…

And then we have to wait…

To wait until He gives it to us…

This is the difficult part…

Someone once said, “I’d rather have wild fire than no fire at all”…

That was sad, when I heard that for it was from someone who I respected based on their writing…

But this is what we are all like – we’d rather keep on getting the familiar pleasures – keep living the way we know – than jump into an unknown when we don’t even know how to live any different…

Jesus knew this – the way we were…

He preempted this in the following scripture…

“And no one, after drinking old wine wishes for new; for he says, ‘The old is good enough.'” (Luke 5:39 NASB)

It is only the Spirit who shows us what is better and as we start to experience the Spirit showing us these things we begin to realize that we can trust Him for more and more and more…

And then the really difficult things come up – the deep addictions – and we see – painfully – that we just can’t trust Him for these things – we hold on to them – we just can’t let them go – and so we ask Him for His Presence – His Presence to engulf us and to remove our fear and to bring His Peace so that we can let go and allow Him access into these deep iniquities, these deep transgressions in our hearts – they are not us but they’ve been practiced by us and our forefathers for many generations – it is in these times which we really need Him – obviously we always need Him – but especially in these times where there is great resistance – we need Him more and in my experience He has been very patient with me – very patient and never pressured me – He keeps encouraging me that He is in control and that He is going to deliver me completely – completely – and I know that this is all in His timing – I can do nothing to assist Him – and I live in the meantime looking forward to that time and also seeing Him living through me in a good number of areas and making a difference to those around me in greater and greater and greater ways – but it doesn’t hurt me cos it’s Him doing it – Thank You Jesus…

That’s my testimony to date and just to encourage others who are walking through this transition – just remember that it’s just between the Lord and you – no one else’s opinion matters unless it’s the Lord’s and unless it sets you free – as where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty…

Love you all,

Andrew