i am not my own

Slavery.

It has existed throughout all of time, and is at its peak in our culture today.

A slave is defined as: "a person legally owned by another and having no freedom of action or right to property."

In the Old Testament, the people of God were held in captivity in Egypt. They were displaced and forced against their will to work for the Egyptians. For centuries, all they knew was slavery. They had never tasted freedom and did not know that it was even possible. They got so used to living in captivity and being slaves, that when they were set free they wanted to go back to Egypt!

Imagine how you would feel being set free from captivity. If you were locked in a cage, forced to do things you did not want to do, received beatings and abuse, were starved and daily mocked and persecuted. Then one day, someone comes and says, "You're free. Go live free."

I imagine, at least for me, that would wreck my heart and I wouldn't know what to do or how to feel. This has happened for me. The past twenty years I have lived in captivity to the lies of the enemy and have been living under the weight of the shame and guilt he has placed on me. Then, when I moved to Alabama 7 months ago to do Highlands College, Jesus gave me freedom from absolutely every lie I have ever believed. Gone. The power of those lies is gone, but it is still a daily choice to live and walk in the Truth of God's Word and not what I have gone on believing my entire life. I have to choose, everyday, to believe that I am good enough and have what it takes to walk in all that God has called me to be and not to believe that I am a failure and not worthy of love or the call of God on my life.

Slaves do not have a say so. They don't have their own opinions. They don't have their own rights. They don't know who they are because from the point of being enslaved, they are told who they are. They don't know what to do because they are constantly being told what to do.

The Israelites did not know what to do or how to live, because they had never been taught! They were so dependent on their captors that they did not even know how to treat a wound. Therefore, the law of the Old Testament was given so that they could have direction and guidance on how to live, even in the smallest details of life. The Law was God's way of taking care of His people and teaching them how to live!

They didn't know how to be Israelites. They did not know how to be the people God created them to be in His original plan. All they knew was slavery and Egypt. They had to be taught who they were and how to walk in the life God destined them for.

When you live your whole life as a slave, you develop what is called the Slave Mentality. You depend on other people to tell you what to do, who you are, and what you are worth.

We are all born into the sinful nature. Sin is slavery. We all, to one degree or another suffer from a slave mentality.

The journey to freedom is not found in the journey out of Egypt, no, God has already brought His people out of Egypt. The journey of freedom is to get the Egypt out of you.

Egypt is seen in the hooks of the enemy and the world that have dug themselves into our hearts, minds and spirits. Eventually, as with the body, if something is embedded in the flesh for a long period of time, scar tissue will begin to grow around it and it will become more deeply embedded and harder to remove.

The same is true for spiritual hooks. Take one little lie that the enemy whispers to your mind one time. Just once. All it takes is one thought and the door is open, you either choose to leave it open or to slam it shut. If you open the door and begin to think about the original thought, eventually they become your own thoughts that you believe, and not the enemy's one tiny little thought he started out with. It becomes a belief. Your beliefs determine the way you think, feel and live. If the enemy can get us to entertain his planted thoughts, he throws the ball in our court and we play his game. But we must slam the door, lock the door, lock the deadbolt, and put up the chain the very second he comes knocking, leaving absolutely no room for the enemy to enter our thoughts.

Some of us believe things for so long, that even if it was originally a lie, it masquerades itself as being truth. I have lived in fear my whole life. Fear is a lie, but it feels like reality. When I got my first taste of freedom from fear, I didn't know what to do with myself! I thought, "Wait, I'm not afraid. My life is good. Things aren't going wrong for once....There is something wrong with this! What is going on?! There is no way there is nothing going wrong! Something is always going wrong!"

I got comfortable with my cage of fear. I believed every lie of fear the enemy had fed me since childhood. When my cage was unlocked, and I stepped outside, I felt like I needed to immediately run back inside and shut the door. Why? I was comfortable. Fear gave me an excuse to not live up to all that God has made me to do and to be. Fear was my reality. It was my Egypt.

Every step away from the cage I take God taking one more hook out of my heart and mind. It is taking the Egypt out of me. God has already taken me out of Egypt, and it is a never-ending, lifelong process to get the Egyptian hooks out of me.

Every time I get up to speak in front of a group of people, every time I say no to the enemy's lies, every time I speak up when something isn't right, every time I pray in front of people, every time I look in the mirror and can see myself the way God sees me as altogether lovely. Every time I take one more step away from Egypt, God takes more of Egypt out of me. I am walking out the process of being free. I am free, and I am learning to walk out that freedom.

I am learning and discovering each day more of who God is, and in turn, He is showing me who I am. I am no longer a slave. I am free. I am dead to the flesh and the worldly, sinful nature. I have no rights when it comes to captivity. I cannot live in the captivity that Christ died to set me free from any longer.

We are dead men, alive because of the Spirit of God and the power of Christ that raised Him from the dead that is breathing and causing our hearts to beat for His glory. Dead men don't look back to the past, but their eyes are always looking up - eyes locked on God.

What are the hooks of Egypt that are still stuck in your heart and mind? What pieces of Egypt are still dwelling in your heart? In what ways are you still a slave? Ask the Lord to search your heart and show you the areas you are still allowing yourself to be kept in slavery to, and then ask Him to free you and take the hooks out. The process of deliverance is lifelong and constant, just be like the dead men and keep your eyes locked in with the eyes of God and He will guide you and walk you completely out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.