Bound by Sin

I have often times said that living on a farm is where I am in my element so to speak, this is where I feel closest to God and where he speaks to me in some profound ways...there was a time not so long ago that I totally lost sight of why we are doing what we do here on our little farm, but it was again God that spoke to me through this little farm that set me back on track...I give him all the praise and glory....

While it is a bit late in the season I have a hen setting a few eggs and a duck setting so chicken eggs, she became broody but we have no male duck so she decided hen(chicken) eggs were the next best thing...anyway when I was out there the other day doing my daily chores, talking to the Lord as I went along(makes my chores so much easier) I began thinking about sin and how it is like a chick in an egg....

In the first stages of a fertilized egg there is a tiny speck...not even visible to the human eye...if that egg is fertilized, tended to and incubated it will grow...it will began to take on the form of something totally different than its beginnings if it continues to be tended to...it will grow until it out grows the shell and at that point it must come out from it....I have often thought how freeing it must be to that little chicken to finally come forth from that shell where it has been so cramped, restricted and bound...when it is finally free from that shell and looks around it is in a whole new world and a in a whole different condition than where it started some 21 days earlier....in the early stages it was just a speck, but soon it became bigger...a life all it's own

So it is with us with temptation and sin...in it's beginning stages it is innocent enough...it is barely visible to anyone, maybe not even us....but as we foster the sin by giving into the temptation it acts as an incubator...that sin begins to grow and take shape...it takes on a life of its own...before we realize it, we are bound by that sin...we no longer feel our freedom in Christ....we are restricted in our fellowship not only with Him, but our fellow Christians as well.... our prayer life becomes stale and fruitless...we must free ourselves from that sin by repenting and turning from whatever it was that had us bound...when we have a truly repentant heart and get things right with God again, when our eyes are opened we, like a little chick will be in a whole new condition than we were bound in our shell of sin...

Not so long ago I was bound by sin...It started so very small and seemed so innocent and I could justify my involvement...I had others around me cheering me on....However; for that entire year the scripture "There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death". Proverbs 14:12 weighed heavy on my heart and mind...I had become bound by mans way of thinking and price I paid was high...I had lost my fellowship with God...sure I prayed and was still a believer, but I had put other things first...I had made an idol out of something other than our Lord and Savior...I had become so bound by mans way of thinking that I felt at the time the only way out was death...But God is a great and mighty, powerful and merciful God....He picked me up out of that miry pit and set me straight....Praise the Lord!!....I am now more mindful of what I allow in my life and who I allow in my life....I listen more intently and pray more fervently and stay in the word daily....I am like that little chick....I broke from my shell and found a whole new world....Sin is like that little chick in his shell....it is dark, no light can get in...it is restricted and that little life is bound...when we let it all go, turn from it and break free....we come into the light...the glorious light of Jesus and all he has to offer us....

If you are bound by sin today...Repent....time is short...Free yourself by asking for forgiveness....