The Walled City
I like to think of the kingdom of God as resembling a huge walled city with one large gate. This gate is the entrance of salvation. At a far corner of the city is God's throne room. This is the place of greatest blessing, power, peace, anointing and the place where we can have the closest and most intimate relationship with God. The distance from the gate to the throne room is the path of sanctification. This is the path that God leads us over to find freedom from our emotional chains and old nature. It is God's intention that every new arrival at the gate be assisted down the path by the Holy Spirit who does the work of breaking our chains and setting us free. The problem is that each believer has the choice of whether or not they want to go on this journey to freedom.
It has been my observation that there are many Christians who huddle around the inside of the gate. Yes, they are saved and inside the walls of the kingdom but they never progress past the entrance area. It is as if they are unaware that there is a path to freedom which leads to a closer more liberating relationship with God. They never show any interest in progressing past the entrance. There they are, huddled as close to the gate as possible, not wanting to get too far away from the world they just left. They clutch tightly to the bag of the old nature which they are securely chained to. They never lose their old ways of thinking, feeling and relating. They stay in their old sinful habits and attitudes. They remain bitter, angry, vengeful, dishonest, dysfunctional, fearful and unable to have satisfying relationships with anyone including God.
Emotionally Free
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Have your own Christian guide to emotional health!
But they are saved.
God is calling to them to leave the gate, get on the path, walk with the Holy Spirit and allow Him to cut off the chains and release them from their old natures. The crowd at the gate doesn't seem to hear God's call. In fact, if one of them does ever recognize God's voice calling them to the throne room, the others try to talk them out of it and convince them that they didn't hear anything and to ever consider a change from their present state is just religious fanaticism. The bondage becomes so familiar to them that they consider it to be normal and fear any change. The prospect of freedom is just a myth to them which is not worth pursuing.
Their state is much like a caterpillar who knows only crawling on leaves and refuses to enter the cocoon since he fears any changes to his familiar lifestyle. He is so unfamiliar and frightened by the prospect of flight that he chooses to avoid it.
This crowd has become so established at the gate that they have built large towns all around the entrance area. These people deny that there is anything more to Christianity than to enter the gate. They get angry at anyone who points out that there is a path of change that leads to a much more satisfying relationship with God. They see no need for the Holy Spirit to do miraculous deeds to set believers free since they are so comfortable in their towns near the gate. They have even become so accustomed to the bag and chain of their old natures which torment and contaminate their minds continuously, that they have redesigned their religious clothing to make room for the huge bag underneath. In this way they have a wonderfully religious exterior covering a huge bag of sin and pain.
But they are saved.
We have a choice, to stay at the gate or walk to freedom.
They like these outfits so much that they make fun of the Christians who are on the pathway who no longer carry their bags and don't have such a large bulge under their religious clothes. They accuse the believers on the path, of being too preoccupied with "that touchy feely, navel gazing, inner healing, new age, religious extremism."
Next month we will look at the problem of "Infant Christians."
This article is excerpted from "Emotionally Free" by Dr. Grant Mullen
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