What do you do when you are burdened with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness as for years unending we seem shackled by certain besetting sins. We fast and pray; we even share with others, and we still struggle. Can God really help us; can we be delivered from our sinful habits?
Major undertakings within and outside the Church are usually preceded by a feasibility study. A major component of such a study is a cost benefit analysis. From a cost benefit analysis you essentially want to answer the question of whether or not the investment of resources will produce the desired rewards.
I believe that the most expansive project that's occurring in the universe today is the Plan of Salvation. The tremendous cost of this project is life of Jesus Christ. It had to have been that God saw the possibility of everyone being delivered from the bondage of the sins that Jesus died. Although the statement of Paul in Romans 8: 32 appears to be referring primarily to God's WILLINGNESS to supply our needs, it also alludes to His ABILITY to actually supply these needs: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Salvation is not just a good idea - it's a fool-proof plan!
Jeremiah 27 taken in its entirety not only shows God being aware of the impending Babylonian captivity that awaited His people, but the passage importantly ended with God eventually restoring His people. In similar fashion, the formulation and execution of the Plan of Salvation not only included His knowledge of our eventual sin, but it also sets forth His plan to restore His image within us. It is important that we believe that if Christ has done so much already He is able to carry through that which He has started to its completion. "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:" Phil. 1: 6. We must never resign to just sinning, but must believe God for a change... claim it!
So yes, we may be yoked...shackled by sin, but Jesus knew about that even before we were born, and He still decided to die for us. Surely then, if Jesus must die, then it must be that He ought to also be able to deliver us from sin. After all, that's why He died.
So Father in Heaven today in confidence that You are not only willing but able to deliver us, we come to with our burdens. May it be that when we would have come to the end of this special day of prayer, that we will all be fully unshackled, and that in freedom we all become Your willing servants, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Charles Evans
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