Who will Free Me From My Ball and Chain?

 

If the enemy can't get you to walk away from Jesus or live in blatant sin, his next tactic is to remind you of all your past sins. I don't know about you, but this has been his strategy against me of late. I spent much of my youth without the Lord and hence, made many mistakes. Most of the consequences of those mistakes I still live with, which makes it hard to forget them! Of course I always fire back at satan the precious verses in God's Word about how "There is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and who live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh"  and in Psalm 103 where it says "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath HE removed our transgressions from us." There are other Scriptures which tell us that God not only forgives us, but forgets those sins!  

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about sin in general. The Lord recently gave me a vision of myself with a ball and chain wrapped around my ankle, dragging myself up a tall mountain.  The ball is my sin nature and as long as we are in these fleshly bodies we will be chained to our sin nature. The path upward on this mountain was very narrow, covered with sharp rocks and bordered by thorny bushes. At certain points, there was a huge drop off to one side. Yikes! However, I noticed that the higher I went on the mountain, the smaller the iron ball was becoming. As it was dragged over the sharp rocks and thorns that I was walking on, pieces of it chipped away.  I also noticed that even though, when I first started up the mountain, there were others with me, the higher I went, the fewer people were on the path. 

Still, there were a few others with me, some above me and some below. I also saw some who had become exhausted and were sitting alongside the trail on benches, taking a break. Others were still at the bottom of the mountain, dragging their ball around the base over and over, but never taking that first step onto the path that led upward. Instead of getting smaller as they went around the bottom of the mountain, their ball remained the same size. 

Far below me, I also saw some people who ran away from the mountain, dragging their ball behind them and as they did so, their ball became larger and heavier until finally when they could go no further because of the weight, they just dropped to the ground. 

I'm sure you can figure out the meaning of this vision. The mountain is the Mountain of God, the top of which is our destination to the heavenly Kingdom and eternity. The narrow path that is jagged and covered with sharp rocks and bordered by thorns and huge dropoffs is the Christian life. As we grow closer to Jesus by prayer, praise, and meditating on His Word, we move up that path. As we move up the path, the sin in our life diminishes. In other words, we sin less because it becomes less desirable and loses its power over us, and thus, it begins to fall away. Even so, this path is not easy. It's full of dangerous cliffs, craggy uncomfortable rocks and thorny plants. It's a struggle to keep going, but with each step, the path that was originally rather dimly lit, grows lighter and lighter and we begin to get glimpses of our Savior at the top!

The people who sat down to rest are still on the mountain and still going to heaven, but the struggles and trials of the path made them give up for awhile. Some will get back up eventually and keep going. Others, however, will remain where they are and never quite get rid of their struggles with sin or fulfill God's wonderful plans for their life. Some may even head back down the mountain.

The people who kept circling the base of the mountain are baby Christians who never grew up. They are saved but they lack the discipline and strength and will to go all in for Jesus. Unfortunately for them, they spend their lives struggling with the same sins over and over. They sin and then they repent sincerely, but eventually they commit the same sin again. They want to get better and overcome their sin, but they aren't willing to do what it takes to get rid of it. I believe these people are truly saved. They know Jesus, but they don't want to give up everything for Him, deny themselves, and take up their cross. But unfortunately, they live an unproductive life of defeat and miss all the blessings God had for them. 

The people who walked away, dragging their iron balls behind them either were never saved, or they got saved but then saw what would be required of them and walked away. In this group I would include those believers who think that once they get saved, they do not have to get rid of their sin. This is the most dangerous condition of all.  When each of these people unplugged from the mountain, they unplugged from the power of God to help them get rid of their sin, and their weight of sin only grew and grew until it became so enormous and heavy they couldn't even move. They truly became slaves to sin. 

But here's my point. We Christians too often judge each other for our actions. We see a fellow brother or sister sinning and we automatically condemn them as either non-believers or apostate. The truth is every one of us who are truly on the path belong to Jesus, but each one of us is at a different point in the path. As I've said before, it's a matter of the heart, and only God knows the heart. As long as someone is born again and they truly don't want to purposely sin and when they do, they repent and keep trying, then I believe they are saved. They may struggle more than others because of their past and personal weaknesses. They may even sit on the bench for a while, but as long as they are trying and their heart is to follow Jesus, He will give them strength, and His mercy and grace will sustain them. 

Back to my original thought of being attacked with memories of my past sin. As I watched myself climb up the mountain of God, dragging my ever-present ball of sin behind me, I noticed that my sin WAS BEHIND ME. As long as I kept going upward and kept my focus on things above.. i.e. where I was going, up to Jesus and my heavenly home, then I couldn't even see my sin!  What a great lesson!  

Another point to make is that we will never be sin free until we get to the top of the mountain and Jesus cuts through our fleshly chain and frees us from sin forever. But the sure sign of a follower of Jesus is that he or she should sin less and less as we each forge upward along the difficult  yet highly blessed and joyful, path of the Christian life!

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:13-14