Don’t Crawl Off the Anvil!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the popular songs these days is “Break Every Chain.” Here it is as sung by Jesus Culture.

 

 

 

 

Last week when we sang this song in church, our worship leader said that sometimes people who have bondage in their lives are immediately set free when they come to Jesus. But for others it’s a process.

It’s like Jesus is a blacksmith who puts the chains on an anvil and heats the chain until it’s glowing in the firey heat. Then He takes his big hammer and starts to hit it. The chain doesn’t break with the first blow, and maybe not even with the second or the third. He has to keep the chain hot and keeps pounding.

Often we are bound up by things that we experienced in the past. Rejection, choices to sin, hurts, addictions, abuse, and unforgiveness are some of the things that have put chains around us. After receiving Jesus into our lives, some of us hold onto areas of sin, pride, shame, blame, or false beliefs about God and His love. We often fail to believe how Jesus sees us – as free from sin and forgiven, as well as greatly loved. We might have chains that result from resentment that God didn’t answer a prayer in the way we thought He should, and we take that as a sign that He doesn’t care about us. There are more areas where we can be spiritually chained than we have time to mention here.

But the glorious truth is this – Jesus wants to break every chain. But will we let Him? It’s hot up there on the anvil with Him pounding on those chains. Sometimes we crawl off the anvil and shut down His work in our lives. (At least we think we do – the truth is, He’s still working!)

Walking with Jesus isn’t all fun and games. Sometimes it’s tough – especially when the Holy Spirit reveals an area of our lives that we’ve been clutching and not letting go of.  In His love for us, God may allow us to go through some tough times so that we will let go and let Him bring freedom into those areas. Sometimes He has to strip away from us the things that stand in the way of our drawing closer to Him. Sometimes those things are actually good things, but we have made them more important than Him, so they become not good for us.

We think the process of breaking those chains is painful, but it really is more painful to keep letting those chains bog us down spiritually. When we truly become free we can move on into the joyful plan that God has for our lives. Later He may reveal another chain that we didn’t even realize was there. If we could just learn to stay on His anvil, each chain can be more quickly broken!

Is the fire too hot? Do you feel like crawling off the anvil?
Consider these verses.

Hebrews 12:29 Our God is a consuming fire.

1 Peter 1:7
…the genuineness of your faith, which is much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tested by fire, may it be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ…

Awakening: Live from Chicago, with “Break Every Chain”