Escape Hatches 3: The Doors That Lead Back To Prison

                                                    

 

 No matter how attractive they may seem, or how much fake light may shine on the escape doors offered by The World, The Flesh and The Devil: Each door chosen will soon reveal you were just led deeper into the prison of darkness. 

 Each time you choose to try that door just one more time, instead of resting, waiting,  worshiping and yielding to The Lord, you add to the links of chains that keep you bound. You know in your heart that reaching for that handle will only lead to disappointment and shame, but over and over you yield to the false, perverted form of hope those cell doors offer. Somehow you believe , in the corridors of your consciousness that this time, will be the time that the escape door doesn't lead you deeper into bondage. 

 The Lord doesn't offer a door of escape that is made to look attractive and inviting to the flesh and the eye.  The door He provided is stained in His own Blood and is covered in the pieces of his flesh that the whip tore off and the nails penetrated.  He doesn't want to just offer you an escape from the cell you are in, He wants you to rise up in Him and walk out in The Grace and Power of His Spirit. 

  If we dont learn once and for all that The Lord doesn't work the way The World , The Flesh and The Devil work, we will always be open, in one form or another, to be seduced by those fancy, attractive, alluring and excited doors. Doors that only lead back into the prison cells of darkness. 

 He wants us so in touch with His Spirit and so repelled by anything that is not of His Spirit, that no matter what we see around us, or feel in us, our enemies will be setting thier traps in vain. No matter how much they play to our weaknesses and fleshly desires, we will not even look to the right or left, but continue to abide in The Lord , even as He perpetually abides in us. 

  It breaks my heart to see men of God , that I respect and honor, reaching for those those doors. They dont even realize how deep into the dungeon they trapped themselves until thier enemies pull back the veil to reveal thier sin and brokenness to the whole world. Leaving many mocking, many confused and even more hurt , wondering;

"If this mighty man of  God with such a depth of scripture and wisdom in him fell, what hope is there for me?"

  Somehow, someway, they allowed themselves to simply reach for an escape from thier appointed place. They looked around and heard something, saw something or felt something that whispered to them, "Did God truly say to avoid that, to stay humble, to be holy just as I am holy?"

 They allowed that question to linger as those doors of escape became more and more alluring, and more and more attractive. Until they got to a point where they saw something that was once profane and untouchable to them, as something they desired and needed more than The Lord. They gradually handed the ownership of thier mind and body to the flesh and the devil. They began to open door after door after door , until they were so deep into the prisons of darkness, they themselves were deceived. Though they were bound in chains, they professed they were free. Though privately they served The World, The Flesh and The Devil, publicly they continued the show. 

 This subject touches me in a deep and profound way, because recently I found myself back in the prison I once was free from. I found myself bound in chains I thought would never touch my "skin" again. I found myself reaching for those dammed doors over and over again, even though I know they only lead to pain and regret. 

  Like the dream that the wicked one sent to harass and traumatize me when I was just a toddler, that lasted years. I was sitting in the middle of  a huge expanse of darkness. I was always presented with a choice. There were two pin cushions, one with a short pin and one with a long pin. I had to choose. I reached for the same wrong pin, time after time, night after night.

 I knew I would choose wrong. I knew that the shorter pin was the wrong choice and it would pierce my hand and unleash a scream of terror and judgement all around me in the darkness. Yet as a baby, not quite even able to walk yet, I chose the wrong one each time. Still to this day, I can feel the piercing in my hand when I remember the dream. 

 The Good News is that Jesus is still setting the captives free. He never stops  calling out, because His Blood is on The Mercy Seat and perpetually cleansing those who are called by His Name. His Grace is Greater, His Love is Deeper and His Glory is Brighter than any prison of man or The Kingdom Of Darkness.

                                                                             

 But, we have to be honest with ourselves, our loved ones and with those we can give account to. When we fall, when we begin to reach or have already walked through the doors of temptation and sin, we must recognize it, repent, confess and rise up again. 

 The only prison The Devil can keep us in as believers, is the one we give him the keys to. He has no ability to stop us from standing up and walking out, right into the arms and light of Jesus Our Lord. 

                  

               

                                                             

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