August 14: UNSHACKLED

It was a sad sight at the funeral that day; a young man in handcuffs and legs in shackles. He was a nice looking fellow, dressed in a three-piece suit, his hair neatly combed. But one step behind him walked a deputy sheriff with a gun on his belt..
The young man’s family had petitioned the warden of the prison to allow him to attend his mother’s funeral. They had paid the cost of his transportation and the deputy’s salary. It was sad and embarrassing and added pain to an already painful situation.
The shackles identified him as a prisoner of the state but the shackles also symbolized the greater imprisonment of the young man. He was shackled to a sentence that would keep him locked away from society for twenty years. He was shackled by many chains, including spiritual blindness, for he was not willing to repent and return to God.
You know many people like this, you see them daily. They look good but their attractiveness is marred by the things that shackle them and take away their freedom.
Jesus came to set the prisoners free. (Luke 4:18) David described God in Psalms 68:6 as the one who leads those in chains singing from their prisons. Certainly singing is the opposite of the sadness of being enslaved to something.
Paul had a long list in Galatians 5:19-21 of the different kinds of shackles that tie people down and take away their freedom. Some people have been enslaved so long they have forgotten what it was like to be unfettered and free.
The message of Christ is about freedom. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand free! Do not allow yourselves to be enslaved again.” (Galatians 5:1) Free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last!

“It is so wonderful, God, that young men and young women, old men
and old women are finally able to step out of the chains that bind. Amen”