Tim Clark’s Blog

This morning in my devotions I found myself wrestling over Jeremiah 34. Here God’s people had made a decision to obey His directive to set their slaves free. But, like many of us, after they made the decision to walk in obedience, they went back on that promise because it wasn’t convenient. They went back and re-enslaved their brother and sister Israelites.

In response, the Lord says the following: “Therefore, this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. So now I declare ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine…”

“Freedom” to be destroyed…I don’t want to walk in that kind of freedom! I don’t literally own any slaves, but it’s not difficult to see how I can enslave others though unforgiveness. When I hold a thing over another’s head and bitterly declare that “they owe me one”, I’m not letting them walk in freedom, and in a sense, I ‘own’ them.

I must bring freedom to others by forgiving them. I have to let go of any hold I may feel I have on someone else. If I won’t forgive—or if I say I will forgive but actually don’t—then I will find myself in captivity and will be destroyed by things from which I am currently being protected. This passage seems to indicate that God is preserving me from things He will stop protecting me against if I don’t extend freedom to others. That’s scary. It reminds me of another potentially scary thing Jesus said in Matthew 6:15 “If you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins”. It’s pretty clear in the Old Testament and the New: A life of forgiveness for others is an absolute prerequisite to living a truly free existence.

My prayer today is that the Holy Spirit would show me where I have not forgiven others and may have allowed a bitter root to take hold in my life. “Lord, let me honestly ‘free’ others from what they may owe me so that I can walk in your true freedom!”