Wow! It's been a while since I've blogged. I'm having blog withdrawal!
Baggage; family baggage, emotional baggage, generational baggage, relational baggage... the list goes on.
My Bible study with Beth Moore this season is "Breaking Free." The premise of the study is to totally release yourself of the baggage that is holding you captive. The types listed above and many others, for that matter, are what keeps us from developing that deeper more intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior. How can we let go of the weight we've put upon ourselves.
Have you ever heard someone mention how children will pay for the sins of the parents? Did you realize that was part of the 10 Commandments? Exodus 20:5 says, "You shall not bow down to them (referring to any kind or type of idol) or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." Generational baggage or bondage! Let me make some sense of this for you....
The Commandments represent an ancient boundary stone we are not free to move to fit our lifestyles. Once we move beyond that boundary, making up our own rules, we begin to see evidence of bondage, which in turn will develop into a well-trodden path for our children and their children to follow in. Life beyond this stone leads to bondage. Bondage leads to sin. Sin leads to more bondage. The cycle doesn't stop until someone has enough courage to move back to the ancient boundary stone God ordained.
Let's go back to the verse for a moment and camp out on the whole idol part. An idol (or god - notice the small "g"), is anything or anyone we worship or use as a replacement for God. Only Christ can set us free from this worship. All other gods can only enslave; therefore, enslaved parents teach their children how to live in bondage even with the best of intentions to do otherwise.
Take alcoholism for example, if a census were to be taken of the number of alcoholics in three generations of an alcoholic father's family, the head count would very likely be high. Why? Because alcoholism had been deposited in the family line. Alcoholism reared it's nasty head and an unfortunate number of children and grandchildren fell into the same type of bondage as the father. Sins of the parents and grandparents add up in the next generations.
So, how do we escape this generational bondage? COURAGE! Courage to believe we can be different. Some will try to excuse themselves by saying they can't help the way they are. After all, their mother or their father or their brother was that way. We need to take a stand and tell ourselves - WE ARE GOING TO CHANGE THE WAYS OF MY FAMILY!
We have to have the courage to be misunderstood by those we're closest to. Our family members who are still in bondage are going to think of us maybe as traitors or fanatics. They won't be able to understand our desire to return to that boundary stone, to change our ways, because they can't see beyond their own bondage. I totally understand being loyal to your family, but that loyalty will not save your family members! They have to see and understand our freedom (freedom is as contagious as bondage!) when we've stopped jumping down into the pit with them! All we've done, is create a family bubble and it needs to be popped!
We have to have the courage to deal a new way with old memories. Hang on to the good memories and extract those that hold us back from developing that intimacy with Christ.
In Beth's study, she quoted Eugene H. Peterson, Answering God, "Memory... is vigorously present tense, selecting out of the storehouse of the past, retrieving and arranging images and insights, and then hammering them together for use in the present moment."
You don't have to be held captive by your memories. Select the precious from the worthless and apply the precious to the present. Every time you draw something painful from your storehouse, draw something priceless from God's.
If you do your part for one generation, He'll do His for a thousand. Sounds like a pretty awesome deal to me! Is it worth being in the pit, being held captive and not being free, to continue down that well trodden path of your family? Break free! Your life has the capacity to affect every generation in your family line until Christ comes to take us home. Time is short. The blood's been shed. Isn't knowing that worth the sweat and tears of changing the path of future generations?
If you have questions about your walk with Christ or would like to experience the salvation God has freely given to each and every one of us, please email me. I'd love to walk you through the plan of salvation and have you spend eternity with me in heaven!!
Baggage; family baggage, emotional baggage, generational baggage, relational baggage... the list goes on.
My Bible study with Beth Moore this season is "Breaking Free." The premise of the study is to totally release yourself of the baggage that is holding you captive. The types listed above and many others, for that matter, are what keeps us from developing that deeper more intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior. How can we let go of the weight we've put upon ourselves.
Have you ever heard someone mention how children will pay for the sins of the parents? Did you realize that was part of the 10 Commandments? Exodus 20:5 says, "You shall not bow down to them (referring to any kind or type of idol) or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." Generational baggage or bondage! Let me make some sense of this for you....
The Commandments represent an ancient boundary stone we are not free to move to fit our lifestyles. Once we move beyond that boundary, making up our own rules, we begin to see evidence of bondage, which in turn will develop into a well-trodden path for our children and their children to follow in. Life beyond this stone leads to bondage. Bondage leads to sin. Sin leads to more bondage. The cycle doesn't stop until someone has enough courage to move back to the ancient boundary stone God ordained.
Let's go back to the verse for a moment and camp out on the whole idol part. An idol (or god - notice the small "g"), is anything or anyone we worship or use as a replacement for God. Only Christ can set us free from this worship. All other gods can only enslave; therefore, enslaved parents teach their children how to live in bondage even with the best of intentions to do otherwise.
Take alcoholism for example, if a census were to be taken of the number of alcoholics in three generations of an alcoholic father's family, the head count would very likely be high. Why? Because alcoholism had been deposited in the family line. Alcoholism reared it's nasty head and an unfortunate number of children and grandchildren fell into the same type of bondage as the father. Sins of the parents and grandparents add up in the next generations.
So, how do we escape this generational bondage? COURAGE! Courage to believe we can be different. Some will try to excuse themselves by saying they can't help the way they are. After all, their mother or their father or their brother was that way. We need to take a stand and tell ourselves - WE ARE GOING TO CHANGE THE WAYS OF MY FAMILY!
We have to have the courage to be misunderstood by those we're closest to. Our family members who are still in bondage are going to think of us maybe as traitors or fanatics. They won't be able to understand our desire to return to that boundary stone, to change our ways, because they can't see beyond their own bondage. I totally understand being loyal to your family, but that loyalty will not save your family members! They have to see and understand our freedom (freedom is as contagious as bondage!) when we've stopped jumping down into the pit with them! All we've done, is create a family bubble and it needs to be popped!
We have to have the courage to deal a new way with old memories. Hang on to the good memories and extract those that hold us back from developing that intimacy with Christ.
In Beth's study, she quoted Eugene H. Peterson, Answering God, "Memory... is vigorously present tense, selecting out of the storehouse of the past, retrieving and arranging images and insights, and then hammering them together for use in the present moment."
You don't have to be held captive by your memories. Select the precious from the worthless and apply the precious to the present. Every time you draw something painful from your storehouse, draw something priceless from God's.
If you do your part for one generation, He'll do His for a thousand. Sounds like a pretty awesome deal to me! Is it worth being in the pit, being held captive and not being free, to continue down that well trodden path of your family? Break free! Your life has the capacity to affect every generation in your family line until Christ comes to take us home. Time is short. The blood's been shed. Isn't knowing that worth the sweat and tears of changing the path of future generations?
If you have questions about your walk with Christ or would like to experience the salvation God has freely given to each and every one of us, please email me. I'd love to walk you through the plan of salvation and have you spend eternity with me in heaven!!
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