Daily Affirmations - Day 5 - Free Indeed - Break Every Chain
- Alisa B.
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Day 5: Break every chain
And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs... He had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces... Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones (Mark 5:2-5 – ESV).
God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas (Psalm 65:5)— no one is beyond the saving power of Your mighty arm. Your love extends to the lowest pit, Your mercy to the dreariest dungeon, the darkest tomb.
You alone are God at the limits of human medicine, human intervention, human capacity, human patience. You are the help of the helpless, the hope of the hopeless, the deliverer of the despairing, the seeker of the discarded.
O Lord, in the sophistication of our modern medicine, our advanced socialization, our progressive thought, and our twenty-first century sensibilities— much of which is important, and needed, and helpful— we have dangerously lost sight of the spiritual dimensions of many of our griefs, our troubles, and our infirmities. And even where we have some awareness, it is murky, imprecise, or tainted with ignorance, superstition, and mischaracterization by religion and entertainment.
But You, Great Physician, the One who took up our infirmities and bore our diseases (Matthew 8:17), were quite clear throughout Your earthly ministry about the assaults and invasions of external evil forces on human minds, bodies, and emotions. And You brought Your great power and compassion to deliver those invaded and assaulted, including this man the writer Mark describes, who lived among the tombs (Mark 5:3).
But His story, Lord, is not singular, nor is it merely an account of the past. Your saving health still extends to all nations (Psalm 67:2). Your grace still reaches to the outer limits of human esteem, to those excluded from value, visibility and acceptance; and to those tormented and tortured by the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12 - ESV).
You are always there, Jesus, coming to those who little know, or even care— that You entered a tomb to bring us out of ours; that You became bound, stripped, naked, and scourged, to break every chain— to remove our shackles, cover our exposure, clothe our nakedness, and restore us to our right minds (Mark 5:15).
Lord God, You know all the chains that bind. We are all desperately in need of Your great grace, forgiveness, protection, and defense. Have mercy O God, according to Your unfailing love, according to Your great compassion, blot out our transgressions (Psalm 51:1), heal our diseases (Psalm 103:3).
We especially pray today for the ones chained and fettered in the cruel maze of broken systems, structures, and institutions; the ones discarded and abandoned— lost in labyrinths of destruction and despair; the ones living among the tombs, crying out and cutting themselves with stones.
Deliver them—Deliver us— from evil, O Lord (Matthew 6:13)— within, without, and all around.
~ Uriah E. Hallman, pub.1907
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