Are you bound?
Chains. How effectively they keep prisoners secured. Rattled by hapless captives, their oppressive clanking echoes through history and literature. But the most oppressive chains produce neither clank nor rattle. I have in mind chains such as bitterness, anger, fear, suspicion, self, and habits. Do you find yourself impaired and restrained by chains such as those? Maybe you despair of ever being free. About the time you think you have finally shed them for good . . . Clink, clank!
[…]
Our divine Deliverer experienced the apparent defeat of the cross and the tomb so that He might utterly triumph over both. Speaking in a figure, He allowed Satan to shackle Him with his best and strongest chains so that He might prove His might against them . . . and take the keys for our deliverance.
Jesus rose again from the grave so that we might live in freedom from and victory over everything evil and sinful. As Romans 4:25 puts it, He “was raised again for our justification.” To me that means the power of His resurrection working in me makes me more and more just, righteous, and godly. If His only mission was to forgive my sins, then His death and blood accomplished that…He need not have risen from the dead. But He also came to free me from sin so that as His resurrection power works in me, I will have less and less need for forgiveness. That’s deliverance. That’s good news!
Do read the in-between portion here: Christ, the Almighty Deliverer.