Unbind.

What fear is limiting you from living fully into your God given potential? What unclean spirit has you?

Welcoming all types of people is part of who we, as Christians and members of the church, are called to be. It is not because it shows that we are good and accepting people, it is because of what it allows us to do. It puts us in a better position to follow the lead of Jesus. We can be considered "unclean" if we are bound by something, maybe in the spirit or affliction, or a social stigma that we need to be released from. Think of the homeless that we see on the sides of the streets? Don't we consider them to be unclean?

There are all sorts of things that limit us and bind us, things that hold us back, things that keep us from achieving the fullness of life which God desires for us. Some of us have some demons in our lives that bind us and constrict us from being everything that God hopes for us. Greed, self doubt, self centeredness, no matter what it is we have things that limit us from being all that God calls us to be. We all have our demons bind and limit us. 

This requires being in a relationship with Him, forming a community together, and loving one another enough to rebuke the things that are binding us and the evils that make our spirits unclean. Confronting the evils of this life that hurt people, like homelessness, hunger, prejudice, and any number of things that bind people up and distance them from society. We as Christians and members of the church are responsible for releasing people from these things that hold them captive and help them to overcome their demons. 

Jesus actively did the work of unbinding people. He strived to eliminate evil from the world. As the modern day Body of Christ, we the Church are called to do the same. Welcoming the homeless or those who society avoids is part of who we are called to be. We are called to name the demons of others and call them out of peoples lives and promote life for them in the face of their demons. As I mentioned earlier, we can't be arrogant or blind and think that we don't have these demons…Because we do, we all do. It's a harsh reality to know who you are on the inside, to feel the person you know you can become, yet you look around and your reality reflects the exact opposite. A lot of us are scared to face this. The thing that binds us more than anything else is fear itself (s/o FDR: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself). As followers of Christ, we're not only to help unbind others, but to unbind ourselves. We can do this by confronting and facing our fears, chase them out of our lives. 

If we are to live unbound lives, lives that are meant to help others, we must recognize and name our own fears. This will look different for every person. It might be educating yourself about something, talking about a fear that you've never talked about before, observe what others are doing, or maybe even directly confronting it. The point is to cast it out. Cast out that fear and tell that demon that you don't have room for it in your life. Most importantly, see that we must trust in God and cast our fears upon Him. We must trust in the face of our fears, cast them upon the strength and love of God. The thing that we fear will NEVER be able to overcome that strength and love. 

Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why." When you find out this "why" is when you become unbound. 

The only thing that we should bind up is a broken heart, everything else that we see that binds, we should be unbinding.
Courtney