In this message, we’ll delve into the concept of bondage, particularly through the lens of addiction, exploring its impact on our lives and moral judgment.
We’ll examine how addictive behaviors, such as excessive engagement in certain activities or adherence to false ideologies, can inhibit our potential and lead us to deceit and abuse.
We will discuss how to break free from bondage with a focus on four key steps: daily engagement with the Word of God, prayer, repentance, and forgiveness. We’ll also cover three community-focused steps: confessing your bondage, removing temptation, and finding support.
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Transcript:
What is Bondage?
There are several ways that we can experience bondage in our lives. One of the most prevalent types of bondage is that which comes from addiction.
Addictions can impair agency and take control of our lives. Addictions can go against our moral judgment and beliefs and even harm or destroy our health.
Addictions that can destroy productivity can also be a form of bondage. For example, activities that are not necessarily morally objectionable, but can make us numb to living our lives. These activities may include excessive social media, Internet browsing, games, sports, TV, and movies. When done in extreme excess, these activities can take us away from being productive citizens and even distract us from our walk with God.
Addictions overall can cause cycles of behavior that foster deception, lies, and abuse to ourselves and others.
Believing in an ideology that is opposite to God’s Word can also lead to bondage. By propping ourselves up in falsehoods that are the norms of culture and society, we can limit our ability to truly experience the full life that God has in store for us.
In this message, I am going to share my own fight with bondage; Bondage that was in the form of addiction that lasted for almost 30 years. An addiction that caused me to lie, deceive and mislead. In this message, I want to share the steps that I took to break free from my bondage, and I hope and pray it will help you or someone you know that is in the throngs of bondage to find freedom.
4 Steps to Breaking Away from Bondage with God’s Help
Let’s cover 4 steps to breaking away from bondage when it comes to your day-to-day walk with God’s help.
#1 Stay in the Word of God every single day. The Word of God should serve as our guide as to how God can help us when we are in bondage. More generally, we learn in God’s Word the importance of repentance, forgiveness, and faith. Staying in the Word of God every day keeps our minds and hearts close to His instruction. Be it a verse a day or a chapter a day, it is so important to keep our hearts and minds immersed in the Word.
When I was in the throngs of addiction, I was reading the Word most days but not all days. When I did read the Word, I was reminded that despite my reality, God was with me even though I felt I didn’t deserve it. God’s Word helped to keep me anchored in the idea that despite what I did or didn’t do, God was not abandoning me.
#2 Pray. Prayer keeps our hearts and minds focused on God. If you are struggling with behaviors that leave you in bondage, pray every day for strength and guidance to lead you toward freedom. Pray to be strong when you are in circumstances that leave you paralyzed in temptation. If necessary, make a reminder or alarm to pray at several points throughout your day. Find the frequency and rhythm of prayer that keeps you strong and equipped to face your temptations.
I have learned that in order for me to live a life where I am not struggling with temptation, I set an alarm on my phone to pray 2-3 times a day, every day specifically about being strong to resist temptation. I genuinely feel that these prayers have allowed me to be tempted very rarely. Additionally, when I am tempted I am able to shoo it away more easily like an insect vs falling into thoughts of temptation. Perhaps for you, 1 prayer a day is enough. Find a system of prayer that works for you that keeps your temptations at bay.
#3 Repentance is key to us making progress. Repentance is when we decide to turn away from our behaviors and towards God. Human nature would have us feel as though when we fall into sinful behaviors, turning towards God, even if in the middle of our activity that keeps us in bondage, God could not possibly be still welcoming to us. In fact, He is waiting for us with open arms.
When I was in bondage from addiction, I remember feeling how ashamed I felt every time and how I felt it might be hopeless and useless to turn back to God. The truth was, He was welcoming me with open arms each and every time I decided to turn back to Him.
#4 Forgiveness is absolute with God. Forgiveness from God is promised when we ask for forgiveness. What can be even more difficult is being able to forgive ourselves. In our society, we have ideas about forgiving in a limited fashion. When we are deceived over and over again, it can become more and more difficult to forgive. How can we possibly learn to forgive ourselves when we fall into sinful activities over and over again?
When I was in bondage this was one of the most difficult things that kept me in bondage. As time went on and the years went on, I felt the situation was more and more hopeless. As I lacked forgiveness for myself, I festered judgment and hatred toward myself. The most difficult thing for me to process was when I read in God’s Word that if I ask Him for forgiveness, it would be as if He wipes the slate clean in complete forgiveness. I remember thinking, how will He not account for my past sins when I feel the guilt and shame from my past sins? This was one of the most powerful thoughts that kept me in bondage. How could He forgive me when I can’t even forgive myself?? In time I would learn to trust that God has indeed forgiven me for the 1000th time, even if it seems inconceivable.
3 Steps to Breaking Away from Bondage with Your Community
We have covered 3 ways that we can break away from bondage in our faith and in our walk with God. Now let us discuss 3 ways to break away from bondage within our community. I admit, when I was struggling with addiction, these ways were among the most difficult things to do because they involved interacting with others – in most cases, face-to-face.
#1 Confess your bondage. This is probably the most difficult step in moving from a life of bondage towards a life of freedom, admitting your struggle to someone else. When you are in the midst of your bondage, depending on the activity, you can be isolated in your own world. Your struggle is met with four walls. The misery and hopelessness lie within the four walls as well.
Confessing the bondage to another is like breaking down one of the walls of your chamber of isolation. Exposing the bondage can have a profound effect on the hold the bondage has on you.
When I was in bondage, the beginning of the end of my addiction was confessing my addiction to an elder in my place of worship. It was the most difficult thing to do after 30 years of addiction, but God’s Word indicated to me that confessing my sinful acts to someone I trust was key to starting the road to freedom. Additionally, the pain inside of me compelled me to act. The chains inside of me that kept me bound to my addiction were broken, I believe, when I confessed. When I got back in the car after my confession, I will never forget that I felt a sensation in my body from my head to my feet. I truly believe that God imparted that sensation to me so that I knew the significance of what I had done. That the chains were loosed and that I was on my way to freedom. It would be a matter of weeks from that moment that an occasional activity every week or so would come to a stop.
#2 Take steps to remove temptation. This is an important step in your path to break away from bondage and it may involve the support of others to help you remain accountable. Depending on the form of bondage, steps should be taken to help you when you are tempted to pursue the activities that keep you in bondage. If your bondage involves too much social media, perhaps you delete social media apps from your smartphone so that there is not such easy access. Perhaps you use an app blocker such as ‘Freedom’ to limit access to social media apps to a very limited window of time. If your bondage involves pornography or gambling addiction online, perhaps you enlist the help of someone you trust to install software such as Net Nanny on your computer and/or smartphone and not give you the password to disable or uninstall it.
When I was struggling with addiction, I admit I did not have the courage to share this struggle with someone I trust. I was too ashamed. In hindsight, there were people in my life I could trust, but shame consumed me. I was only able to gain the courage to ask for help once I confessed the addiction in my place of worship. Once measures were taken to help remove temptation, it was much easier for me to walk toward recovery. When temptation did come, I was simply unable to proceed with the addictive behavior.
#3 Find support. The key to finding long-lasting outcomes of breaking free from bondage is to find support. There are numerous support groups available around the world to help people fighting addictions. My recommendation is to seek help in your place of worship as you also seek to confess your bondage. Also, use the internet (or ask for someone’s assistance) to find resources for recovery from the behaviors that keep you in bondage. For example, searches such as ‘drug addiction recovery’ or ‘gambling addiction recovery’ can lead you in the right direction.
When I was struggling in bondage and had taken steps to confess and then place obstacles in the way of me pursuing my addictive behaviors, I then found myself taking part in a program through my place of worship called ‘Celebrate Recovery’. This recovery program brought together other individuals, also struggling with various types of addictions into a supportive atmosphere of discussion and group support. Over many weeks, this support proved to be invaluable in exposing my addiction. I was able to get to the root of the issue which led me to seek out this behavior in the first place. Most importantly, this group provided support that could only come from a community of others around me.
Wrap Up
In today’s message, we discussed ways of breaking away from bondage. God does not wish for us to live in bondage or the pain and destruction that can come from it. God seeks for us to have a full and robust life.
If we find ourselves caught up in the pleasures the world has to offer, especially when we seek to use these pleasures to mask or deal with pain in our lives, we can often find ourselves at risk of losing ourselves in bondage.
Thankfully, we serve a loving and forgiving God, one who is there with us and ready to receive us when we turn away from our addiction and towards Him.
If you or someone you know is in bondage, I pray you will seek out the steps I have listed today, I consider my success story as an example of what can happen to break free of bondage and towards a life of freedom.
Are you interested in discovering more about the guidance offered in this message? Learn more in the companion article Going Deeper with the Word: Breaking Away from Bondage.
