No Longer A POW

"Have you heard? It’s over!”  I sometimes wonder what that would have been like in 1945 to hear the conversations going on amongst people as World War II ended.

What a relief that must have been for them to know…the war is over!  Unfortunately, in most wars there seems to be some that remain in the aftermath of the war as POW’s.

As believers though, unlike POW’s in war, incredibly, we have a choice to remain prisoners or walk out free and alive.

I was thinking about this thought this morning in relation to my life and forgiveness.
Jesus is saying to us in John 19:30; ‘Have you heard? It is over, finished, and paid in full.’
The war is over!!!

How often do we forget this big news in our life?  When Jesus said ‘it is finished’, he meant it. We don’t have to continue to fight the war with the wrestling of shame and guilt in our life for things we have done in our past.
Once we believe and receive Him, confessing our junk to Him, then that’s it. No more shame. No more living in the spirit of sin and death. Now we live in Christ, with the Spirit of NEW LIFE.

How are you doing today? Are you choosing to remain a POW from not receiving forgiveness from our Father, not forgiving others or not forgiving yourself? We no longer have to hold onto the shame from our mistakes, nor the resentment for wrongs done to us any longer either. He wants to take that away too.
Maybe it’s time to surrender, not to the enemy, but to the One who defeated the enemy for us.

The battle is no longer ours to fight. Christ’s words, shouting from the cross, as a broken, battered and bruised Savior, saying, “It is finished!” reminds us of this Good News.

“But by the free gift of God’s grace we are all put right with Him through Christ Jesus who sets them free.” Romans 3:24

 Have a great day alive and free in Him.
 
Rodney Holmstrom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do we introduce ourselves?

One of the things that might confuse a newcomer coming into this great ministry is the way we introduce our self and do so every time we meet in a Step Group and/or Open discussion group. The question that often comes up is; “Why in the world would we have to introduce our self every time we come together? I mean, we all know each other don’t we? We all know what the other is struggling with right? So why should I have to state my main issue I am dealing with? These are all logical questions and I think the below content from Tina at Saddleback might help shed some light on this. As you may already know, in our small groups we ask our Leaders to introduce themselves with this statement: “Hi my name is _______; I am a believer who struggles with________.” We ask our leaders to keep it short; to stick to one or two primary areas of recovery. We ask them not to state a host of recovery issues and character defects, etc… especially because we do not run recovery specific groups for cha...
Read more

12 Days Of CR Christmas

Image
One of our great leader Monica rewrote the lyrics to this old Christmas song to tie into the 12 steps. We had a lot of fun singing it and love that it keeps the focus on the 12 steps thru Christmas. Great job Monica! On the first day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the notion it’s not about me; On the second day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the third day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fourth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, my inventory, will to be faithful, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the fifth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me On the sixth day of Christmas, my Savior gave to me, desire to be humble, the chance to come clean! my Inventory, faithfulness, my sanity, and the notion it’s not about me. On the ...
Read more

Guidelines are there for a reason

Anyone who has participated in a Step Study or a small group through Celebrate Recovery has heard the five small-group guidelines. They’re supposed to be read aloud before each meeting starts, just to remind everyone or to inform any newcomers. Most of the guidelines are obvious and make perfect sense on the first reading. Anonymity is vital and as people who are submitting to God as our Higher Power, we should realize that we are in no more a position to “fix” each other than we are to “fix” ourselves. There’s one guideline that puzzled and even annoyed me at first, that pesky no. 2. “There is NO cross talk. Cross talk is when two individuals engage in conversation excluding all others. Each person is free to express his or her feelings without interruptions.” At first I really didn’t understand the guideline. “Did they seriously need to tell us not to talk to each other while someone was sharing?,” was my thought. But as the guideline was explained further, I better understood. We ar...
Read more