We are all broken to one degree or another. But, when we have faith in Christ, when we turn our lives over to Him, we are transformed by the Holy Spirit. Paul says we are freed from the shackles that sin binds us with. Now we don’t always live as if we have been freed, we run back to those shackles because they feel as if it is safe. It is slavery but in our brokeness we don’t realize that life leads only to death.
I watch a couple shows which do wild animal rescues. It is interesting how every so often after the wild animal has been nursed back to health and is released back into the wild the animal doesn’t want to go. The humans keep saying “You’re free!” But the animal looks at them like “are you crazy, it is hard out there, it is easy here in captivity.“ Although we are set free by the Spirit we tend to be like these animals and don’t want to leave our comfortable lives before Christ. Living for Christ is hard!
There is a difference between those wild animal releases and our release into freedom by the Spirit. The Spirit doesn’t just free us and shoo us away saying “You’re free!” No, the Spirit sets us free then takes our hand and walks with us, guiding us, teaching us, changing us. As we face a new life, God is right there with us. We are slowly transformed by the Holy Spirit, moving closer and closer to the center.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. -2 Corinthians 3:17-18
