The Word tells us in Acts 4, that after the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, great boldness came into their lives as they spoke the Word of the Lord. We may get the idea that this boldness and liberty in the Spirit comes to everyone who has been filled with the Spirit; however, we find that many who are Spirit-filled still may find days in which they are bound and unable to worship or to function.
Their spirit is restrained and they are unable to cope with things, and so they say, “I need a deliverance.” It would be very difficult to define just what it is that they do need. Their spirit needs to be liberated. They have a certain restraint upon them.
In a walk with God, we are aware that spirits have varying degrees of liberation, that some are freer in focusing their consciousness or awareness some other place, even apart from themselves.
We may all have the feeling at times that someone is mind-numbing a hole in the back of our head, as he or she is concentrating on us. There may be no evil intent; they are just thinking about you. You may become uneasy and look around, wondering who it is that is thinking about you so strongly. they are focusing their consciousness on you so much that you become aware of it. This means that their spirit is a little freer in that particular aspect of activity.
What I am concerned about is that every Christian should be a free spirit as far as worship is concerned. No matter how you restrain your spirit otherwise, toward the Lord there should be a freedom, so that you can project your focus upon the Lord without anything coming in the way. We don’t want a heaven of brass, causing our prayers to bounce right back . We want a free access to the Lord.
There are several things that bind or restrain a person’s spirit or their contact with God. One is devil power, though it is not always the devil who does this.
We read of fallen angles interfering in the case of Daniel, when he prayed for twenty-one days. Finally, the angel broke through and said, “Your prayer was immediately heard.”
There was no difficulty there, but the answers were restrained because the prince of the power of Persia had withstood the archangel as he tried to bring the answer to Daniel.
This is possible; however, most of our problems, when it comes to our spirit being bound or our ministry or worship being restrained, do not come from devil power, but from other sources.
The bondage of spirit that can come from devil assault is minimal, I think. Because all authority in heaven and earth belongs to the Lord, the effect that demonic assault or witchcraft could have in binding our spirit would be minimal if everything else were all right.
We need to be aware of the things that are related to our spirit that tend to bind it, making it difficult for us to become free worshipers of the Lord.
We are all aware that there are times when we are very free when we come to the house of the Lord. Other times everyone else is free, but we seem to be bound, and we don’t know why.
First of all, we need to recognize that the bond we have with other people affects the bond that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ, and it affects our liberty of worship.,
There is a very positive aspect to this, as well as negative. If you have a bond with someone who is very spiritual, you will automatically have a greater liberty and less of bondage in your spirit.
But if you have a bond with someone that is not very spiritual, it can affect you in a very negative way. I have bonds with a lot of Christians that seem to be stuck on a certain spiritual level, because of their current belief system, that developed through the influence other ministries had in their life, which become strongholds of the enemy in their lives, building walls around them so that they cannot break through to higher levels in their relationship with the Lord, because of false doctrines that they have accepted as being from the Lord.
We have to spend time with the Lord alone, so that we can receive revelation from him, and not be influenced from someone else’s revelation which might not be from the Lord.
So I had to learn how to open and close my spirit to other believers, because if I leave it open all the time, I get hit because of the bond that I with another in the realm of the soul.
We can only relate on a spiritual level with someone who is hearing the same thing from the Holy Spirit at the same time as we are. That is why we have to learn the difference between our spirit and our soul.
Our soul has been influencing us all our life, taking the ascendancy, and has to come under the Lordship of Jesus over our spirit. The soul is a good servant, but a poor master, it will lead us into all kinds of problems- it is what we call soul-ties, and that is what we are breaking. We are breaking these bonds that our soul has with people, places and things.
The functions of our soul are our mind, will, emotions, imagination and our conscience. But in the new birth of our spirit, our spirit is directly related to our will, and our will has direct control over our spirit.
So what we have to do is to learn to live in our spirit, and not in our soul. Then learn how to join our spirit to the Lord’s, so that His life is flowing into our spirit, so that the soul is more aware of the senses of our spirit than the senses of our body.
Our first Scripture is II Corinthians 6:12–7:2: You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections. Paul is telling the Corinthians what is binding their spirits. He didn’t lay a restraint on them; they did it. Their soul (affections) blocked or restrained the life of God in their spirit to be flowing.
If they were bound in spirit, they had done something among themselves that had brought it about. Now in a like exchange—I speak as to children—open wide to us also. Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord.”
To be separate from them means that you must lose the bond you have with them. Do not be bound together with an unbeliever; you have to be separate from that bondage.
“And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a Father to you. And you shall be sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty.” Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Make room for us in your hearts… “Make room for us” would be equivalent to saying, “We want to have a bond with you.”
This is done simply by blessing each other, believing for the Lord to create a spiritual bond that will be a help and a blessing. The bond that you make with people is very important. We don’t do this just at random or any time, but only when the Lord leads in a particular way.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, “The two will become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. I Corinthians 6:15–20.
The bonds that people make with each other can be very effective. When a person comes to the house of God to worship the Lord, they may find themselves totally restrained, bound in spirit and unable to break through because of a bond they have with someone else.
These bonds can be created in many ways. Paul says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. What fellowship can the spiritual have with the unspiritual?”
He said also, “If you are joined with a harlot you are one body with her, for God said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’
The body was not made for fornication; it was made for the Lord.” When we are joined to the Lord, we are one spirit with Him; and because the Spirit is housed within our body, the body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit by virtue of the bond that we have in the spirit with the Lord. If you are the temple of God, He will live in you and move in you.
Just as the Holy Spirit can help us have a bond with the Lord, so that we are joined to the Lord, one spirit with Him, in a very similar way, a man who has a relationship with a harlot becomes one with her—one flesh.
That does not mean that thereafter they are never separated physically, that they are like Siamese twins. Siamese twins are actually one organism, but two individuals.
This is not true of a man and a harlot. He may have a relationship with her and walk away, with no evidence of a bond tying the flesh together physically; nevertheless, a bond is created that ties together what the Scriptures call “the flesh.”
Thereafter her flesh is bonded to his flesh; they have become one flesh. Whatever devils harass her, can harass him. Whatever she is open to in the flesh life, he is automatically open to. If she’s cut off from God, he will find himself desolate and cut off from God, and it will be very difficult for him to rise above it. The same bondage of the flesh that she suffers now comes through to him.
If young people only realized this! Many times the old standards and the old morals don’t mean much to them until they get into a walk with God. Then they suddenly become very careful because they have too great a struggle trying to walk with God when they have made a bond with someone through a promiscuous relationship.
Those bonds are so effective in transmitting spiritual restraints and bondages, harassments, and openness to demon power from one person to another, that in addition to repenting of the sin, sometimes it becomes necessary to have ministry to break the bond.
The harlot may have spent all her life getting into the situation of being harassed and oppressed, and after only one contact with her, a man could be in the same position.
Devil possession can easily be conveyed by sexual intercourse with a devil-possessed person.
This makes it very difficult when an individual is married to an unbeliever; and then only the grace of God reaches in.
The Word tells us (I Corinthians 7:12–15) that if a Christian wife is married to an unbeliever, and he is content to dwell with her, she should stay with him. The same is true of a Christian husband married to an unbeliever.
God will sanctify the unbelieving partner and the children through the believing partner. Thus the grace of God reaches in to see that the children are not harassed in the situation.
But it also says that if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. In such a case, the believer is not bound either by the law of marriage or in the flesh, and the bond will cease to be. This is a great promise of the Lord.
It is possible for a husband or wife to dwell with a mate who is an unbeliever—“unequally yoked together” is the phrase the Scripture uses—and find that he is so bound to the Lord, that he does not accept the harassment and bondage of the other person, even though they are living intimately together.
… Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. I Corinthians 6:18. He sins against his own body inasmuch as he makes a physical bond, creating the channel and open seed for everything to come through. It affects his soul life. It affects his attitudes. It affects his spirit. Everything is affected.
By his immorality he has committed a sin against his body and now his spiritual defenses are gone. A healthy person who restrains himself from such contact is not open to devil possession or to harassment as many people are.
It’s amazing how you can keep yourself clean from the things of the world and the contamination of the flesh, if you just follow the Scriptures.
I Corinthians 7:25–35 contains teaching about the bonds we have with others and how they affect our spirit, how they can either restrain it or set it free. Now concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. I think then that this is good in view of the present distress (the persecution that they were going through), that it is good for a man to remain as he is.
Whether people in a walk with God should get married or not is an individual matter, depending upon the will of God for each individual. If it’s the will of the Lord for you to get married, fine. If it’s not the will of the Lord for you to get married, then you’re not missing anything.
Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you should marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin should marry, she has not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you.
A relationship that exists between a man and a woman inevitably brings complications. The man can never really understand the woman, and the opposite is just as true. Their thinking is so entirely different.
But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on both those who have wives should be as though they had none. Paul is saying, “The time has come that you should not have an adverse bondage in any of these areas.” A relationship, such as that between husband and wife, can leave them bound and restrained toward God.
And those who weep, as though they did not weep (there are circumstances and experiences of your life that can break your heart, and they too can restrain you before God and create a bondage); and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess. Sometimes there isn’t anything that makes a bondage on you as much as apparent blessings, good experiences, and victories. They can be an actual detriment to you.
Have you ever noticed that when everything is going well with you, you have less contact with God than at any other time? You are being blessed too much and receiving more good things than are good for you, and they put a bondage on you and restrain you. You have to get rid of them.
Possessions, too, can create a bondage on you. This is certainly true at the present time. If you don’t think so, just find someone who has property and compare him with someone who has no property, and you’ll find that the people with property and possessions right now are worried. They don’t know what to do with them, and there is very little advice that is guaranteed to be absolutely correct. The Lord wants us to be free.
And those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the form of this world is passing away. But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord (theoretically, that’s true; although I’ve found that some unmarried people are only concerned about getting married); but the one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided.
And the woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
And this I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate, and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.
Paul was not opposed to marriage; he was just pointing out that all of these things—possessions, circumstances, experiences, relationships—can put a bondage on you, so that you do not have an unrestrained devotion to the Lord.
God wants us to come into that freedom of devotion, freedom of worship, freedom of liberty in the Spirit.
It’s in the negative, carnal, fleshly relationship that the bondage occurs. You can still be bound to a person who is not necessarily deeply spiritual.
There is also a positive, helpful aspect in the making of bonds. The Scripture says, “They that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak” (Romans 15:1).
It’s possible for us to reach in, in a good way to affect other people and be a blessing to them; the bond we have with them can be a mutual blessing.
This is often true of the bond that a mother has with her child. Through extrasensory perception, a sensitive person can suddenly have tremendous psychic insight into an accident or harm coming to a loved one who is a great distance away.
He or she is able to see it or visualize it, or get warnings ahead of time of such an event. Most of the time the bond in such instances is a very close one of family ties, such as a husband and wife; but most often it occurs between a mother and her child.
In bearing a child, a mother has bonded herself to her child more than she realizes. It has nothing to do with heredity or genes, which could make them somewhat alike, though not necessarily so.
The bond that is created is so real that they tend to understand each other and respond to one another’s circumstances.
The mother does that deliberately when the child is too young to reciprocate at all. In fact, if theirs is a healthy relationship, I don’t think a mother’s bond with her child is ever based on what the child can give the mother, but on what the mother can give the child.
If the mother tries to possess the child, she can become more of a curse than a blessing. If she tries to harass and hold the child down, refusing to let him or her come forth, she can create a bondage that can turn into an evil thing.
But if she reaches out to that child with all of her heart, if she loves unselfishly, desiring that the child develop his or her full potential and mature as quickly as possible, as she stands back and releases them into their own maturity and into finding their own identity, she will have the strongest bond with her child that is possible for a person to make.
Any woman, who is married to a good man who had such a mother, will acknowledge how difficult it is to create a bond with him that is equal to the bond between him and his mother. If it is a good bond, she is thankful; but if there is anything at all wrong in such a strong bond, the wife will have a very difficult time trying to create the bond of husband and wife equally strong.
All of these situations can restrain people and effect their unrestrained devotion to the Lord and their worship.
Sometimes I think we ought to go around and lay our hands on people and start breaking the bonds they have. Probably a breaking-the-bond service would be most effective in lifting a walk with God up several notches.
You may be surprised to know how many restraints you carry from childhood, from your parents or your family. You may be equally surprised at how many restraints you’ve been responsible for all by yourself without anyone’s help. And all of these affect your freedom of worship as you reach out to magnify the Lord.
We should establish one important fact, especially where immorality is concerned. This gets in the way, not only of worship, but in the flow of ministry as well.
In the Old-Testament times they observed the law of the unclean thing and in the New Testament we read of the leper standing on the hill crying, “Unclean, unclean.”
No one was to come near to touch him or have any close contact. They had certain quarantine laws, and if a person had touched a dead carcass, he had to wash with running water and was considered to be unclean a certain number of days.
And yet, today we have people who go out and have contact with the world or enter into a wrong relationship, and immediately they come back to the house of God. Even though their conscience is bothering them, they try to prophesy or sing a psalm, with the result that the service is harassed because the bond that they had with iniquity, with the unrighteous, comes through in their worship and prophecy.
They don’t realize that what they should do is to go into mourning and repentance and remain there until the bond and contact is fully broken.
It’s not a matter of time; it’s a matter of a work of grace. When they know that the bond they’ve had with the unclean thing has been removed and God has removed the sin; then let them come to the house of the Lord and prophesy and sing psalms.
Wait before the Lord. When the Lord has recreated a close pure bond with Him—which we tend to break by a bond with the flesh—then let the Spirit of the Lord flow through you.
Colossians 3:12–20 presents the other side of the coin with a positive truth concerning bonds. And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against any one; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity (the margin reads, “the uniting bond of perfectness”). There is a bond that we’re to have, which can be a positive uplifting influence.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you; with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
This passage speaks of submission, but for our purpose in this message, we want to place the emphasis upon the bond that exists.
A wife may say, “I’m submissive to my husband,” and yet have no bond with him whatsoever. She is not just giving a lip service; she is trying to reveal by her actions what is required of her in being submissive.
Yet she is refusing the bond, and this in itself may exasperate her husband. When a husband and wife live together and one of them refuses the bond and the unity or the oneness, it inevitably is so exasperating to the other partner that they often becomes furious. They know instinctively that there is a barrier, a restraint, a sense of withdrawal.
This passage in Colossians emphasizes the positive side, when it speaks about the love that brings a perfect bond between the whole house of God, the love that can cover a multitude of sins.
You can help a brother or sister, hating the garment spotted by the flesh, as Jude 23 describes it. You can help a brother or a sister who is in trouble.
When we move in love to help a brother or a sister, we receive nothing that restrains or harms us. It’s when we bond to someone in rebellion or in disobedience that the flesh becomes an open channel for these things to move through the body and then you have difficulty. But you can make the effect very positive.
I Peter 3:1 speaks about a woman’s spirit being perfect, so that it isn’t even because of what she says, but because of the submission in her spirit, that the husband is won without a word.
She is able to create a bond with him that goes beyond even his understanding of the Scriptures or of the truth, and so he is won and actually pulled in by the bond she has with him.
A wife may say, “I can’t make a bond with my husband because he’s unclean, he’s a sinner.” The fact remains that in the spirit she can reach through and claim her husband for the Lord.
We may have a brother or sister who is having a problem. We can reach out in the spirit and made a bond with them, which will trouble them day and night, until they enter into repentance. Our spirit can bring them right in to the humility and the breaking of their spirit or soul life before the Lord, where the Lord can meet them.
In a positive way we can literally liberate someone else’s spirit. There is a great deal involved in the apostolic ministry. It isn’t just a wisdom that has right answers; it’s a right spirit that reaches out to people in the right way.
I’ve seen people approach a problem and technically they had all the right answers, and yet they lost the situation.
Remember—we don’t win people by arguments; we win them by the way we can relate to them and lift them up, as we become one with them.
If you are weak, remember what the Lord says: “You that are strong bear the infirmities of the weak, and if any is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1).
If you go to help your brother or sister, be careful; you may make a bond with them that could open the door for you to be tempted with the same thing that has defiled and defeated them.
Before you make a bond with them and try to help them, be sure you are spiritual enough to handle it.
I’ve found that often when an individual goes to help someone else who is in rebellion, before long they are just as rebellious as the one they went to help. That is why the Word says, “Consider yourself, lest you also be tempted.”
Be careful what you tackle, because you may relate to someone and make such a bond with them, that you are sucked under with them. On the other hand, if you are spiritually strong and you have a good bond with the Lord, you can reach out in the Lord and become a channel of blessing to lift the person up.
How about our bonds with inanimate objects? Can they affect us? Yes, they can. I don’t know why, but oppression can also come through things.
Have you ever walked into a house owned by ungodly people and felt the oppression with which it was filled?
If you are sensitive to spiritual things, it is difficult for you to travel. You can feel the oppression in a motel or hotel room, particularly that conveyed from the pillow.
The oppressions left on a pillow from the back of someone’s head can result in nightmares in Technicolor. It disturbs you to the point that you don’t know how to handle it. It’s because you are open and susceptible to many things through the physical.
I can give you another illustration. Suppose you wore a certain garment at a time when you were particularly rebellious or disobedient to God.
If you wear that same garment six months or a year later, you will be hit by the spirit of the same oppression that was on it. The garment will carry the spirit.
I have heard that in the Philippines when a man is buried, all of his clothes are buried with him.
A sister, whose husband was a doctor in the Hawaiian Islands, said that when her husband died, she threw away all his clothes. She didn’t want any spirit of infirmity or affliction being conveyed to someone else.
Beyond any germs that might be adhering to the clothes, there are things that affect people in their spirit and in their attitude.
If you are sensitive to spiritual things you can be given a garment that someone has worn recently, you can tune into that garment and tell exactly what that individual has been going through, and what they has been thinking.
All of this gives us a better understanding of the story of the rich young ruler recorded in Matthew 19:16–24. He came to Jesus asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus reviewed the commandments for him, and the rich man replied, “All of these I’ve kept from my youth up.”
Jesus looked at him and He loved him. He saw that he had great potential and He wanted to make a bond with him. But he saw that he already had a bond with his possessions, which had put a burden and a restraint upon him.
So He told him, “If you would be perfect, go and sell all that you have; give it to the poor, and then come and follow Me.”
It wasn’t only that the Lord was concerned about the poor, or about the fact that discipleship requires a great price, but He knew that discipleship must be without any bondage, without any bond that supersedes the bond He has upon you.
You have to love everything less than you love the Lord. Nothing can be a bondage to you that will prevent your serving the Lord. The Lord has to be first. The rich man went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He was bonded to all of the things he owned.
Why is it that a miser or a rich ungodly businessman can never get enough money? He could make a million dollars a day for a year, yet he will kill himself working just that hard the next year. He couldn’t possibly spend all his money in one lifetime. Why does he keep striving to get more money?
His spirit reaches out and bonds itself to his possessions. It is the only thing his spirit has. That’s why it is so hard for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of heaven—harder than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, Jesus said.
You may protest, “I think a man can be rich and still be a Christian,” Only if he is rich toward God. He cannot have a bond with physical possessions. He must let them go.
When you come to the house of the Lord, the material possessions in your life can be causing a bondage to you. Conversely, what you do not possess can bother you, too. If you have such a restraint, get rid of it.
Come to the place where nothing of this world matters that much to you. I have noticed that when some material blessing became too important to me, God refrained from giving it to me. When the time came that I couldn’t care less, I could make just a simple prayer and I would receive it.
I don’t think God is concerned about money or how much money His people have. Wasn’t Job a very wealthy man of the East? Abraham was a wealthy man. David amassed unbelievable fortunes, as did Solomon.
There are many examples in the Old Testament of men who had an abundance of riches. God didn’t care.
Abraham was very careful not to let anyone prosper him; God was going to do it all. He wouldn’t even take a shoe latchet from the king of Sodom, lest he say that he had made Abraham rich.
There was no bondage to possessions. When he and his nephew Lot divided the land, Abraham treated Lot most generously, letting him choose the best pasture lands. He never thought of himself, and yet he had seniority and could have claimed the first choice.
Abraham had no bonds with anything he possessed. Even though God had promised him the land, he bought some of it so there would be no bond of the Canaanite upon the cave of Machpelah, where he and Sarah, his wife, were to be buried.
Abraham was not going to be bound to anything. Although he had many possessions, he didn’t want to become so attached to them that they would be a restraint upon his spirit.
God could give him things, but he didn’t want the things to possess him, with something evil resulting from it.
They that would be rich will fall into many hurtful lusts. The love of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:9, 10). Love of money leads to many strange bonds that can be destructive.
For most of us, being bonded to a lot of money is probably the least of our problems. But what about the bonds with circumstances?
The classic example of this in the Scriptures is in the book of Acts. Paul had ministered so freely, but finally the Holy Spirit witnessed too many, and also by Agabus the prophet who showed him by tying his own hands and feet, how Paul would be bound if he went to Jerusalem.
Paul said, “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself.” He refused to look at the circumstances, (Acts: 20:22–24; Acts 21:10–14).
You and I should never be attached to the passing circumstance. Back in 1929 when the crash came, many wealthy men blew their brains out or jumped out windows. They could not bear the idea of losing all their money. They were so bonded to their possessions and the lavish circumstances of their life that when they were taken away, life was unbearable, and they killed themselves. Their possessions had become their entire life, so when their possessions were gone, their life was over.
A person can live just for favorable circumstances, saying, “As long as the wind blows in the right direction, I’m happy and I’ll serve the Lord.”
A prosperous and apparently happy person may be very ineffectual in standing and worshiping before God. He may have a bondage and restraint upon him because he is bound to his circumstances, so attached to this world and to what is in this world that it is a restraint upon him.
I’ve noticed how God works in the lives of people who come into a walk with God. First of all, He arranges it so that you are not too happy when you come in; you have to be a little miserable.
The people who are well adjusted to the world will go right on their way, so restrained that they never see that they can have a walk with God.
They’re so busy making money, having family reunions, going here and there every Sunday, with everything so pleasant, that they couldn’t be bothered with the New Testament church; in fact they probably wouldn’t understand it. The favorable circumstances put bondage on them. Whom the Lord loves, He troubles a little bit, lest they be destroyed by their attachment to the world.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. I John 2:16, 17.
How many of the people in a walk with God have everything they want in life? How many have a mate and a happy home, with every circumstance just right, no problems, not too much money and not too little, but whatever they need?
Not many are in that particular situation. If they are, they didn’t find it so when they came into a walk with God. All of this became a blessing from the Lord to them, but it isn’t anything of the world bringing an adverse bondage to them.
II Timothy 2:4 tells us, “Be not entangled with the affairs of this life that you may please Him who hath chosen you to be a soldier.” If we get entangled, we have a bond; therefore we have to be separated from the world.
II Corinthians 3:14–17 tells us of one other thing that can easily create a cloud over your worship. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ (speaking of Israel in the Old Testament). But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
The freedom we want, that release from the bondage and the bonds on our spirit, comes by turning to the Lord. The hardness of heart is taken away, and the Lord can help us.
We need to understand that when we come before the Lord, our spirit is the key of removing all the bonds that would hinder us.
Suppose you come before the Lord with a bond that you made in a life of sin. Will God take care of it? Yes, for when the heart turns to the Lord, then the hardness of heart is taken away and the bondages and the bonds are removed.
But whenever people are set and their minds are hardened, nothing good happens to their spirit. It’s when they open their heart and turn to the Lord, that He starts breaking the bonds that are upon them. I’ve seen it over and over again.
If circumstances or problems are in the way, as we look to the Lord, the Lord heals them.
How many people have come into a walk with God with broken hearts? Really broken hearts? It is very difficult for you to get anywhere with a broken heart or with a sorrowful spirit.
You are so restrained in your spirit; there is heaviness upon it. But if you truly turn to the Lord, He comes and comforts you, reaching through the heaviness and sorrow that has you bound, and He sets you free of it.
When things are not going well, ask the Lord to show you what has restrained your spirit, what it is that is putting a bondage on you and keeping you from breaking through.
One thing that will do it is just a little bitterness or un-forgiveness in your spirit. When you stand and pray, forgive men their trespasses. That’s the first thing you must do.
You may not realize it, but even your hatred can bind you to another person. You can have such a hatred for another person that every time he or she reacts negatively, you will feel it. Every time he or she explodes in their emotions, you react too. The force of hatred can be so great, that as you stand with an unforgiving spirit, you will react back and forth with the person you refuse to forgive, the one who sinned against you.
If someone has sinned against you and you bring your gift to the altar, first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift (Matthew 5:23, 24).
Although he or she may have sinned against you, still you may have something in your spirit that is restraining you.
Even though he or she did it, go and make it right, so that you are liberating your own spirit, setting it free to seek God. Then come back and offer your gift and God will accept you. Let there be no animosity, no jealousy, no hatred, no vindictiveness.
Are you restrained in seeking the Lord, or is it an experience of pure joy? Is most of your praying and intercession for things that you want to see broken? Or do you really have a delightful bond with the Lord so that a joy, a communion, and fellowship comes through?
You’d better decide what you have. Is it a walk with God and an open communion with the Lord, or just a kind of frustration that means you are constantly bombarding God to get something broken or changed, as you intercede?
Even though we’re involved in spiritual warfare, don’t you agree that our worship ought to be the sweetest, most holy and precious fellowship and bond with the Lord, without any interfering static? If we’re missing that, we could be missing a great deal.
It is even possible for people to whom you are not bonded to influence you. The Lord says, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship has light with darkness?”
The Word tells us that Jesus could not do many mighty works at Nazareth, because of their unbelief. He laid His hands upon only a few and healed them.
He had been raised in Nazareth. These were the people who knew Him. In a sense, even with our Lord Jesus Christ, there were contacts and bonds of human relationships existing with a people whom He’d known from infancy.
Something came through even to the Son of God—He who had the Spirit without measure, who could heal the sick and raise the dead—so that He could not do many mighty works because of their unbelief.
This is the classic example of what can happen when there is unbelief. The ministries can be chained by bonds and contacts and relationships that exist in a church with unbelief.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, because we are so bonded together. Oh, how we ought to strive to keep the Body of Christ free and clear.
In case you are one who limps along, first up, serving the Lord, then down, going into sin, thinking that it doesn’t make much difference what you do, let me tell you—it does make a difference.
Because of the bond that you have with your brother and sister, the level of the worship will suffer. It may be just the smallest bit, but it still has an effect when you come back in with that defilement in your spirit.
That bond with the world, that defeat, that bond with a bad spirit, will go through the whole body. First go and seek the face of the Lord and come to the house of God with a blessing.
Then as you stand and worship everything round about you will be blessed, because of your bond with the Lord. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. You are literally bringing the presence of the Lord into the house of God.
You will bring into the house of the Lord either the presence of the Lord, or the spirit of Belial, or your own bad spirit. You’re going to bring something. If it isn’t anything more than a restraint or a bondage, you will still share it with your brother and sister, as if you were saying, “Here, come and be bound with me; be restrained with me.”
When you come with a freedom, you are saying in effect, “I’m free. Come, be free with me.”
The fear of man maketh a snare that will put you into bondage. Lord, loose us completely from the fear of man.
Let there be an open acceptance of anything God says, regardless of how it makes us appear in the sight of man. Let us despise the opinions of the world and loose ourselves from any conformity to this age.
Be not conformed to this age, but ye be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Set us free, Lord, from what our mind has accepted of the past in conditions and bondages.
You are bringing deeper worship to us, Lord. You’re showing us that deeper worship is possible for every one of us. Year after year we’ve been breaking people’s bonds, and now we’re going to go after them for real.
Nothing of the past is going to set us back even a step. A man is handicapped when he takes the chains of his past and welds them to his ankles, and then tries to run a race for God. We’re not going to do it.
Let the Lord bless thee, O house of the Lord, for to this hour did the Lord bring thee forth. Thou shalt not be a slave to the traditions of men, neither shalt thou be bound by anything that shall assault thee, but the Lord looseth thee, and whom the Lord setteth free, he shall be free indeed. Amen.