Devotion by Pastor Dan McQuality

Send a link to a friend  Share

"

“As Jesus spoke these things, many believed in Him. So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
+ John 8:30-32

“FREED TO FLY”

Sometimes, God allows small things to happen that speak to you in a special way. Such a thing happened to me earlier this Fall. It was just around that time of year when all of the big, giant spiders come out and start making their webs everywhere. One day I came around the back of our garage and this beautiful, black and orange monarch butterfly was caught all entangled in a nasty web. He was stuck and couldn’t go anywhere. Very gently, I was able to take him down and pull the webs off that were hindering it’s flight. As he flew away it seemed a surreal experience.

God’s people are like this too. Like a caterpillar to a butterfly, we are transformed from sinner to saint. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And yet, even as butterflies we sometimes fly into Satan’s spider web and it hinders our freedom and our flight as Christians. Such snares that Satan lays are the reminders of our past that we cannot shake free from and they paralyze us. Other times the old Spider catches us in the web of sin that Christ came to free us from. That Spider comes “to steal, kill, and destroy”.

If you are God’s beautiful creature who is stuck in some web of lies or have become entangled in sin, you have Someone who frees you! His mercy and kindness has been that He has gone against that old evil Spider. He has taken the poisonous bite meant for your destruction. His body was wrapped up as death’s prey and He was taken into the Spider’s lair of death. But He overcame the Spider’s ways, his painful bite, and the web of death! He has been raised victorious from Satan’s snares, and “if anyone is in Christ”, then we also have been set free! His Word to you is grace, forgiveness, and mercy, which is found in the power of Christ’s life and resurrection. These Words are God’s fingers that pull back and remove the webs that entangle us. He came to set the captives free! Continue in His Word! His Word transformed you and made you beautiful; fly in His freedom.

Grace Lutheran Church, 201 S. College St., Lincoln, IL
10:30am Sunday Worship; 9:00am Bible Study

Back to top