Author | Speaker | Encourager

Sherri'sBlog

Freedom is for Us

alone-62253_640What does freedom look like?

I watched a friend get free today.

The enemy had her believing lies. About her parenting. About her child. About the future.

How often do we fall in the trap of believing the reality the enemy is feeding our minds?

Letting fear and hopelessness dictate our outlook and determine our next steps…to quit on the relationships closest to us. To fight back when we’re hurt. To believe the worst as if that’s our only option.

At the marriage conference my husband and I attended a few months ago, I received healing and deliverance for some core areas in my life. It changed my perspective in ways I didn’t anticipate.

At Christmas this year, I fell in love with my husband’s family in a way I hadn’t in the twenty plus years we’ve been a part of each other’s lives.

Prior to the freedom I received at the conference, I would have said the issue lay with them. But that wasn’t true. I was the one who changed and it gave me new eyes. More love. Acceptance and joy.

We are flawed, damaged, wounded and oppressed in a variety of ways. Some seen, some hidden.

But as victory and love come in and extinguish the rights the enemy has been given to our lives, we are changed and become a conduit of love to the ones who desperately need it.

So how do we know where we need freedom and healing in our lives?

Years ago, I knew there was something broken in me. Fear and control ruled my life. I’d lay in bed at night and catalog my every failure. Reliving the moments I’d reacted harshly to my children’s behaviors, hurting their hearts with angry words.

Guilt and condemnation would envelop me, as I longed so badly for a do-over for my out-of-control tongue. I could move from love to harshness so quickly when they disobeyed. Shame over my reactions tormented me.

I knew the Bible well. I knew shame, guilt and condemnation were not from God. And eventually, I realized the torment came from the enemy.

Shame is a darkness that presses in and weighs us down. It steals our hope and our esteem. I hated how it made me feel and I hated that my failures took me to such a pit of regret over who I was and what I’d done.

Shame takes our failure and tells us that we are the mistake.

youth-570881_640Today, my friend walked through prayers of deliverance and freedom, breaking off areas God revealed that had given the enemy the right to cloud her vision and perspective.

It was beautiful to see freedom come in and regain what had been stolen from her. Deliverance isn’t something the body of believers talks much about, but it truly changes lives.

What if we pursued everything God has for us in the Bible?

When Jesus lives in your heart, freedom shouldn’t be an intellectual concept, or accepted as something we’ll arrive at when we get to heaven. But instead, understood that it is something we can actually live from.

Prayer

Father, show me the areas You desire to free in my life. Reveal the path to freedom in my life. Help me to become aware when the enemy is influencing my thinking, skewing my perspective about myself and others. I reject his plans for my life and receive Yours. Help me to grow in intimacy and freedom with You. In Jesus’ name, amen.


Pictures via Pixabay

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