NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

July 25 - Name the dead end

Scripture focus: So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing--not caring about others, not caring about God--the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. Romans 6:15-21 (The Message)

When we ask God to take control of our lives, we take a crucial step toward freedom. But that doesn't mean we automatically acquire all the skills, knowledge and discipline to live a free life. Our decision to trust God provides us with the capacity to experience freedom -- an act of grace and a gift from God to us. But the giving doesn't stop with that single act of acceptance. God continues to give us the grace to experience transformation. I've realized after years and years of studying the transformation process that sometimes we get stuck along the way. Sometimes we don't even know we're living in bondage to something -- so therefore, we aren't looking for a way out of our cage. Even though we suspect sometimes that our life experiences aren't the best, we may not have the necessary information to know that some things we call normal are definitely not normal nor are they healthy. One form of abuse that we might minimize or fail to recognize is sexual abuse. Any sexual activity that we engage in without consent is sexual abuse. It doesn't have to require a physical touch. It can be visual or verbal. Remember that children are never able to consent. It is never okay to expose a child to conversations that include sexual content -- even innuendo. It's not right for children to have access to any observation of sexual activity -- whether it is in print or video or person. When children are exposed to sexual content it has serious consequences. Most sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by a family member or someone known to the child. 80,000 of these cases are reported each year. But I must hasten to add. In my many years of hearing people's narratives of their own abuse, and I've heard plenty, I've never heard one single story where the abuse was ever reported. Can you believe that? Thousands and thousands of life-altering sexual encounters are never reported. Is it possible that you have either been abused or have abused someone? In order to be done with the old tyranny, this is an area where we must seek out help for healing.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 16-18

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