by Pastor Douglas Brauner

God’s Word Cannot Be Bound

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“Always remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead. This is the Good News I preach. And because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal. But the word of God cannot be chained.”
2 Timothy 2:8-9 New Living Translation

Not far from the newly built US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, at the corner of Vermijo Avenue and Sahwatch Street in Colorado Springs, is an overgrown field fenced in by a chain link fence. The gate of this fence must have been chained for a number of years.

This tree grew through the gate and looks like it has been here for years, long after its death. There’s no way to open the gate except to grind out the stump and remove it.

Paul was at the end of his life when he wrote his second letter to his friend Timothy. He was in a dungeon, soon to be executed for his faith in Jesus Christ.

He was in chains, chains that would not be removed, but the word of God cannot be chained. The word of God breaks the chains of fear, hopelessness, and unbelief.

Sometimes we feel imprisoned by fear. Fear can act as a barrier to experiencing the freedom we have in Christ. It keeps us from freely using the gifts we’ve received in our baptism.

At other times we feel imprisoned by hopelessness. Our hopelessness deepens when we’re told to create our own reality. How do we create a new reality when there is no understanding of the foundation on which this reality is built?

And still at other times we feel imprisoned by unbelief. We are held in chains by our doubt that God cares for us. If God cared, my life would be different. If God cared, I wouldn’t have this kind of pain.

No matter the chains that we experience, the word of God cannot be bound. Jesus, the Word of God in human flesh, has broken our chains. His cross has made mince meat of our chains that we might have hope that no matter what happens in life, Jesus is stronger than our chains.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado