"Bonds of Glory"

"O LORD, truly I am your servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds." (Psalms 116:16)

 Maybe again, it is really all about dying to self! Reckon the old man is dead, is another way of saying, I do not serve that master anymore; I have a new Master, and Him will I serve! As I was praying about this verse, I saw an illustration of a man, most likely myself, being chained to the earth. It was almost as if that person was molded from the waist down as part of the soil and vegetation, almost as if he were part of the earth and his chains kept him fastened to the ground. This is not a very good rendition to my vision, so excuse me if I lack the talent to explain myself well enough. The point I believe it was illustrating was that of an 'Earth Dweller', or someone that is attached to this earth, physically and spiritually attached. Of all the things Pastor Bryan was trying to get out this last Sunday, the point about God being three Persons and man being three, body, soul, and spirit, was more about what should motivate us, then I think many people in the church really understood. This body that we have is only one third of our existence; the other two thirds are our soul and spirit. If that has anything similar to God's existence, then the body part is no greater than either of the other two, and the other two together are greater than the one; or something like that. My point is about what Jesus was going through the night He was arrested; how it was that He gained the strength to deny His will and lay His life down, He was out-numbered! The Father and the Holy Spirit gave precedence over the Son. I know it sounds a little strange, and the whole "All Three in One" thing is really hard to grasp; but Jesus was also a Man, which meant that He was manifested in a temporary body, just like you and I have our temporary bodies. These bodies we move around in are attached to this earth, just like the illustration given above; but our soul and spirit, they are not; they should have precedence over all of the choices we make, just as it was with Jesus and His choices...

"Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:19-23) NLT