Discipleship AFTER Freedom

Can someone really understand what Discipleship means if they are bound?

Can someone really be a Disciple of Christ if they don’t know FREEDOM from addiction?   (same principles but a different way of asking, huh)

These are some of the questions that have been rolling in my mind for the past few months and I really feel like the answer was given to me in Isaiah 58. (NLT) To get a complete understanding I suggest you read chapters 56-59.

ISAIAH 58

1 “Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.  Shout aloud! Don’t be timid. Tell my people Israel of their sins! 2 Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and seem delighted to learn all about me. They act like a righteous nation that would never abandon the laws of its God. They ask me to take action on their behalf, pretending they want to be near me. 5 You humble yourselves by going through the motions of penance, bowing your heads like reeds bending in the wind. You dress in burlap and cover yourselves with ashes. Is this what you call fasting? Do you really think this will please the lord? 6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free,

and remove the chains that bind people.

We are called, by GOD, to fast for the removal of chains that bind people. We can no longer be imprisoned and expect God to be happy about that. I look around and see the same people asking for prayer for deliverance from the same addictions and the same bondages.

WE MUST, stand up and come boldly before the throne and tell GOD specifically what we want Him to do for us.

If you read Isaiah 59, God warns us against our sins then if you kept reading through Isaiah 60 it shows glimpses of the future glory of His sons and daughters.

I still ask myself, “If we are bound by chains, can we be discipled?” Can there be a path of redemption that goes through discipleship and leads us to true repentance and complete understanding of God’s grace?

I see people in different walks of life, everyday. I am a bi-vocational minister, in every sense of the phrase. I perceive that the church is full of people who have head-knowledge of Christ but lack the heart-knowledge that it takes to be a reproducible Christian.

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