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Chapter 2

Why does God release you from bondage?

We have been focusing on the healing of our inner wounds through forgiveness resulting in the release from bondages.  We have proposed that our wounds have come from different types of sin; the sins against us by others like rejection or abuse, our own sin, and the generational sins that we inherit.  We have seen how Jesus bore all these sins for us.  He was wounded for our wounds, and as we walk out that reality, we become free. However we have also coupled with this that the reason for that release is that we can be in relationship with our Father God.

We have covered the idea that rejection is the most powerful negative force and that the love of God is the most powerful positive force.  Rejection from a father, a father figure or perhaps even the inheritance of the generational curse of rejection, is a very powerful type of wound.  This type of inner wound prevents us from our God given purpose, which is to be in tight real-time relationship with our Abba Father God.

Just the night before I wrote this, a man I know came to me with a testimony. Actually by the time I finished writing this chapter, there were three such testimonies. I knew that this man was a radical follower of Jesus, and I also knew that he had been in bondage to sexual sin. In addition, even while a believer, he struggled to become completely free. He testified to me that his wound came to him from his father who did not raise him properly. However as he has gone through forgiveness, now his father is a radical follower of Jesus. He is a man who stays hungry for the Word. My friend told me that he now sees his father as a "King David" who committed horrible sins, but finally became a "Man after God's heart."

Why does God want us free?
Many people focus only on the "getting free" aspect and then fall short of the ultimate purpose, a relationship with Father God.  The New Testament makes it clear that we were created to be a slave to somebody; we have no choice.  Our only choice is we may be a slave to Satan or to Jesus and The Father. "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?" (Romans 6:16).
God wants us free so that we may choose Him, and live for Him.
" and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again" (2 Corinthians 5:15).
God knows that the only way we can live a fruitful prosperous life is to live for Him.  He loves us so much, that He wants us to live for Him, and in doing so we are looking after our own best interests.

Lost dreams? Does your life feel without purpose? 
God wants you "Free To Be You."
So many people, even believers, have lost (or have never even had) the dreams and visions for their life's purpose.  God has hard-wired you with a wonderful purpose in life, one that will be "abundant" in your eyes.  By setting you free, not to be an independent person, but a person under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, you may come out of your bondages and into a worship relationship with Him.  In doing so you will inherit your original purpose for life, your God given dreams will be revived and will come to reality.  My co-editors and I have seen this happen in our lives.  We all have seen God do things in our lives that are beyond comprehension, beyond our wildest dreams that we could have produced. 

Ephesians 3:20, Amplified Bible says, "Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]."

Take a lesson from the Egyptian bondage and exodus.
"Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD: 'Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son [God's Son Jesus was actually in Israel] go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn''" (Exodus 4:22,23). 

Notice the word "serve."  In Hebrew it is abad, which means to worship and even to work hard and work as a slave.  Earlier in Exodus, God used that same word to indicate the type of bondage His people were in to Pharaoh.  That does not mean that God is a hard taskmaster as Pharaoh was and Satan is, but it does infer that there is no middle ground of independence.  There is no such thing as independence for man.  You can only be free as a bondservant to Jesus the One who loves you and gave His life for you.

God wanted His people free.
He was going to take His action whether Pharaoh (Satan) or the people cooperated or not.  Satan had no choice.  God was going to disable the enemy and set His people free, however then it was up to them to take the next step and "serve" Him, or be in fellowship with Him as their Father God.

God not only asked them to serve Him, but He also wanted them to "sacrifice."  "Then they will heed your voice; and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt; and you shall say to him, 'The LORD God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God'" (Exodus 3:18).

Now put yourself into the culture of God and His definition of relationship.  Sacrifice means to die.  It infers blood covenant.  There is no relationship with God (or in marriage) outside of a blood covenant, and there can be no blood covenant without death by both parties.  In today's terms we are to "take up our cross daily" in order to truly relate to God.  We do not shed physical blood, but the blood of our old soul life, the unregenerate selfish person we were before we met Jesus.  Also, hang on because we will soon see how God Himself shed His blood for this relationship.

Moses reached his wit's end.
He told God in Exodus 5:22-23 that ever since he approached Pharaoh with God's message of letting His people go, that not only did Pharaoh not let them go but he increased their suffering.

God answered. "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.' And God spoke to Moses and said to him: 'I am the LORD.  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by My name LORD [Jehovah] I was not known to them.  I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers.  And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant'" (Exodus 6:1-5).

First God was going to turn His attention to the enemy, and then when the enemy was disabled God would then concentrate on His relationship with His people.  Notice in the Exodus 6:1-5 Scripture that God said that He was going to appear for the first time with a different name.  Instead of El Shaddai He would appear as Jehovah, the bondage breaker.  The name Jesus means, "Jehovah is salvation."  What God was saying was, "You knew Me as God Almighty, but now I am going to show you My other side, I am Jesus the bondage breaker.  You will see Me shed blood to set you free!"

God was bringing His Son on the scene to set His people free so that they would go and serve Him, the Father.
Jesus always pointed us to the Father.  Jesus said that He was the Way to the Father.  It is the same in this Exodus story.  Jehovah was the bondage breaker so that the people could go worship, sacrifice and be in relationship with their Father.  Even if we are too bound up to accept God's bondage breaker power He still moves ahead.

 "So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage" (Exodus 6:9).  This shows how the bondage of many generations affected the Israelites.

From Exodus chapter 7 and following, God started putting the plagues on the gods of Egypt.  The tenth and final plague was the Passover.  This represents the Cross, the blood of Jesus, the blood covenant.  This represents God's entire wrath put on the Lamb of God.  The Passover represents forgiveness.  This represents disarming Pharaoh and Satan because all sin was forgiven.  In other words, whatever you did wrong and whatever wrongs were done to you were put on Jesus.  He was bruised for your iniquities.  Your rejection was put on Jesus at the Cross. 

The people were now free to go into the Wilderness to worship, sacrifice and serve their Father Creator. "Then he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, 'Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel. And go, serve the LORD as you have said'" (Exodus 12:3).  God instructed the people to hurry out of Egypt even before their bread could leaven.  When we see that we have been set free, it is our choice to run from our old bondage to go build our relationship with our Father.

Only two of the original group made it to the Promised Land.
" except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the LORD" (Numbers 32:12).  "For the LORD had said of them, 'They shall surely die in the wilderness.' So there was not left a man of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun" (Numbers 26:65).

 In looking at the Book of Numbers it is obvious that Joshua and Caleb spent more time around the Tabernacle then the masses.  They had faith when it came to spying the Land.  Since faith only comes by hearing God speak, they must have been in contact with Him.   Moses didn't make it for a different reason.  As God's representative his responsibility was greater.  He misrepresented God's character when he struck the rock inferring that God was mad with them.

There are only two choices for you.

Those two choices are to get into a deep abiding relationship with Jesus, or die in the Wilderness.  That is why we stress the relationship skills so much.  Approximately 2,000,000 people fled the bondage in Egypt, and of those all but two died in the Wilderness.  Those two, Joshua and Caleb spent time around the Tabernacle; they pursued the relationship with God with great zeal.

Jesus provided the sacrifice to make us free people. 
However it is our choice to respond to the blood covenant relationship He has established with our Father.  Without pursuing that relationship, we will remain in bondage!
It has been said, "Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results."  If we do not develop our relationship skills with our Father as Joshua and Caleb did, we will remain in different types of bondages. 

Our discipline is not some sort of legalism or self help program, but we do have a lot of personal responsibility. 
While we cannot discipline ourselves to stop a habit or make ourselves conform to the image of Christ, there is a discipline that we must observe.  We need to learn new relationship skills, and if we have not been used to these skills, then practicing them will be our discipline.  We were created for relationship especially with our Father God.  Engaging in this relationship will bring supernatural consequences into our lives.  This closeness to God will transfer His character and other fruit into our lives without effort.  His power will supercharge us!  Our effort is to maintain the relationship and to stand against the enemy.

Jesus said in John chapter 17 that eternal life is indeed "knowing" Him and His Father.  Knowing is a relationship description.  Paul said in Philippians chapter three that his passion was to know Jesus.  He even stated that it would be worth all of the suffering just to know even the power of His resurrection even while in his earthly body.  I can testify that so much of my knowing has been on the heels of "death and resurrection" experiences in my life. 

A God given vision brings self-discipline.
“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law” (Proverbs 29:18).  Studies of successful people in all walks of life, from brain surgeons to manual laborers, show that the one common element in all of them was self-discipline.   It was not so much a self-discipline of vowing to not do something, as it was a disciple of doing something positive.

The apostle Paul had suffered from one of the worst addictions of all, that of being self-righteous.  His vision and passion of knowing Christ as stated in Philippians chapter three is what released Paul from this horrible addiction.  It will do the same for you.  Will you have to utilize a certain amount of self-disciple against the negative?  Yes.  That will help break habits.  However replacing the negative with the positive is discipline that will allow God's power to really deliver you.   

Peter set forth several positive disciplines for us in 2 Peter chapter 1:5-9.  Then in verse 10 he said,  “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble” (2 Peter 1:10).

Relationship skills.
Mankind has all but lost relationship skills.  Our relationships are God's top priority.
If you have a great relationship with Jesus and our Father, then just let these following suggestions be a reminder to sharpen them.  If you are in the process of developing that relationship, then perhaps these will give you some structure.

We must meet God in the arena of truth.
Jesus is the Truth; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth.  I submit that there are two main realms of truth. 

First, our truth is where we are located.
It is recognizing our own infirmities, faults, sins, pride, feelings, unforgiveness and perhaps even judgments against God.  We must bring those before the Cross of Jesus and be honest with Him.  As we do we are forgiven and cleansed (1 John 1:9).  We take up our cross when we struggle with continual repentance, not being satisfied with those parts of our lives that are out of Christ's character.  Let us make sure we are not blaming others and justifying ourselves, but rather confessing our sins to one another that we may be healed. 

At the same time we can recognize that there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1-2) as we continue with our walk of faith in the Spirit with our Father and Jesus. 1 Corinthians 11:31 says, "For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged." 

Next, real Truth is the Word of God.
The Word of God is Jesus.  The Word of God is supernatural, it is the container of the blood covenant with God, and it is the primary means of hearing God and fellowshipping with Him.  The Word will conform us to His image as it plants supernatural seeds.  It brings faith to us.  We connect to God through Jesus the Word. 
The Word taken in and spoken out by us will cause Satan and demons to flee from your lives and circumstances.  As we speak the Word from the abundance of our hearts our minds are renewed and God is given authority to loose angels and all of His power on our behalf.

We offer resources for these relationship skills if you need them.
The Flowing River is a chapter in our Grow or Die book .  It gives a suggested set of relationship skills based upon God's Old Testament Tabernacle.  This teaching has helped many people improve their own personal relationship skills with God.  We have utilized much of the Flowing River lesson in a later chapter in this book.  The Flowing River is a wonderful and simple discipline into the presence of God. The Daily Moral Inventory is widely used by people who are serious about getting right with God.  That sheet is attached at the end of this chapter.

 Please bear in mind that your relationship is personal and is not a formula. So please just take these skills as ideas and as an outline.

Our next chapter is dedicated to these Relationship Skills.