Breakout! You have the key

Breakout! You have the key

How God helps overcome the seemingly “powerful” forces poised against us. 

DIGNITY WITHIN is a Powerful force within us often unrecognized or used! Sometimes, we have to stand up for the God given dignity within that he built in us as basic for our very existential being. He said we are created in his own image and God the creator of that dignity is greater than the circumstances or bully in front of you. 

A member on our high school WhatsApp closed group posted a video that amazed me. I had been up early to work on this blog and Africhrist podcast with a different message when I saw the video. Immediately the Holy Spirit prompted me to replay that video several times.

I poked the friend who posted it so I could gauge his thinking. The video showed different kinds of animals escaping from cages, fences and opening doors in ingenious ways leading to their freedom. These animals  were tired of being denigrated and told "we gotcha, what can you do about it?” They knew inside of them that they didn’t belong in cages or locked up. Many times we are put down or so beat up that we fail to realize the fact that we were born free and wonderfully made by God. He put his all in us. ( Psalms 139:13-14) 

I thought about the many ways, circumstances, people, systems and indeed the devil deprives us of our God given right to freedom, liberty and peaceful existence. God wants you to know that  those visually powerful barriers, erected by people or circumstances are not as powerful as they are presented. They are nothing but paper tigers compared to Him and what He put in you! They are temporal and will disappear when tested. The Pharaoh and his forces were drowned by “drinking” water. ( Exodus 15:21, Jeremiah 51:21)

In the video, one day each one of these animals and birds realized who they really were and used the power within to escape. It starts with the mindset, the one area we should never secede to anyone especially the tormentor Satan or his agents.

The parrots worked to help each other. The first one to get out, didn’t just selfishly fly away but held the cage door up for the other one could also escape!

Study the “cage” around you, mental, spiritual or otherwise. That’s what the Bible tells us in I Peter 5:8-9. Do your due diligence the Faithful God you trust will come through for you. 

Do not let your circumstances or people bent toward doing evil against you (concupiscence) outsmart you according to 2 Corinthians 2:11, be watchful and wise.

Think and plan of your way out and the God who makes crooked paths straight will guide and protect you. He will give you strength to cut the iron bars and shutter the “bronze” doors that were slammed in your face. ( Isaiah 45:2 )

Sometimes what you have been depending or standing on may be the very deterrent to your free existence. Move that “floor”, quit that job or get out of that house. To free yourself, you may need to throw out some old thinking, the Bible says that all things will become new. After you have done all you can do, freedom may only be possible after you move that “comfortable floor” that you are standing on. 

One of those dogs in the video did just that. Shake it off, like that dog shook itself upon coming out as if saying “I’m top dog again!”. It struggled to bend the cage but still could not get out. Then it realized that the comfort padding on the floor had to go! It pushed it out first then it had enough space to slide under the cage to freedom. That was false comfort. Many times we’re imprisoned by our conformity to the false comfortable status quo. Get rid of it first.

(II Corinthians 5:17 NKJV)

Impact prayer

Our Father God, we come to you in thanksgiving by acknowledging your plan and intent to have us live free because we’re born free. We thank you for your Son who paid the price for any encumbering circumstances in our lives. 

We thank you that our faith in you can move the so called immovable mountains.  As with David, Dow us how to use Goliath’s own sword against him. Whatever that sword of life maybe and whatever Goliath may be.

Thank you for the freedom and power that dwells in all of us even as we saw in this simple animal example.

In Jesus’s Name, so be it. Amen

Listen to our companion podcast on this and other blog posts at www.africhristpodcast.com

Impact scriptures referenced 

II Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

I John 4:4 NKJV

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

II Kings 6:16 NKJV

“So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.””

James 4:7 NKJV

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

I Peter 5:8-9 NKJV

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”

Isaiah 14:16, 20, 22-23 NLT

“Everyone there will stare at you and ask, ‘Can this be the one who shook the earth and made the kingdoms of the world tremble?

You will not be given a proper burial, for you have destroyed your nation and slaughtered your people. The descendants of such an evil person will never again receive honor.

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: “I, myself, have risen against Babylon! I will destroy its children and its children’s children,” says the Lord. “I will make Babylon a desolate place of owls, filled with swamps and marshes. I will sweep the land with the broom of destruction. I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!

2 Corinthians 2:11 NLT

“so that Satan will not outsmart us. For we are familiar with his evil schemes.”

Isaiah 45:2 NKJV

“‘I will go before you And make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze And cut the bars of iron.”

Psalm 139:13-14 NIV

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

Exodus 15:21NKJV

And Miriam answered them:

“Sing to the Lord,

For He has triumphed gloriously!

The horse and its rider

He has thrown into the sea!”

Jeremiah 51:21NKJV

 With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider;

With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider;