Weekly Message: Unbind him and let him go (John 11:44) By Rev. Katherine Liu Bruce

 

Weekly Message:  Unbind him and let him go (John 11:44)

By Rev. Katherine Liu Bruce                                                                                            5/22/2024

Christian Arts Ministries:  Biblical precepts & Gospel Music; Pastoral ministry & counseling

 

  Jesus spoke life into the dead Lazarus and commanded him to come forth to a new life. Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth, Jesus said to them, "Unbind him and let him go.” (John11: 38-44) Although Jesus had spoken life into Lazarus, let him came to life, however, he was still bound in his grave clothes, with a veil over his face. So Jesus told the people who were there to unbind him and let him go. This is the condition of many believers today. They have received eternal life from Jesus, but they remain bound by the trappings of their dead life. These trappings may be old self, old habit patterns, old thoughts, and bandage of sins, quilt, fears and human traditions. Therefore, Jesus has to speak another word: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

  Today, Jesus calls us to come free from the limits and habit patterns of our old manner of life to walk fully into the new life He opens before us.  It is not enough simply to receive the new resurrection life within us. Jesus wants to give us a whole new way of living, and to open up an entirely new set of possibilities for us. How unfortunate when many who have been filled with resurrection life are unable to walk free and walk away from their past way of living into the fullness of their new life.  Jesus’ command however, gives us power not only to come alive, but to walk free from all the evil controls and influences of our old life.

 Christians, those who have received the resurrection life of Jesus into themselves, do not have to be bound and held by the sins, the traumas and the limitations of the past. We can simply leave those things behind and walk away from them. Today many struggle and wrestle with problems that held them bound in their old life. They spend their time exploring and comparing one another’s bandages, and in the process they get entangled with their old problems. Jesus calls us to drop our bandages and to walk away from the binding habits, patterns and attitudes of our old life. He has made us alive, when we were dead, so that we can walk free with Christ in a wonderful new way of living.

   Have you had some messy problems in your past?  Are there old attitudes from your past life that caused you trouble and vexation?  Are there influences in your past life that have caught you in a negative psychological chain reaction? Then remember you are a new creation if Christ becomes your life, and the old things need not hold you anymore or control you anymore. You are a new person; walk free from the old habits, and disadvantages, hurts, and sins, of the past. He has empowered you for a new life. Ignore your old bandages, walk away from them, leave them buried and covered in the tomb.  

          Christians’ life needs to be aware of Satan’s scheme which is to remind you constantly about your past old life, wrong, wound, hurt, mistakes, shame, regret and bondages of sins. It results in you living in the sense of a quilt. You need not to accept Satan’s reminding but declare that you are a new person in Christ Jesus, and received a new Spirit of God, and a new life of freedom. Old man has gone, new has come, you are a new man. As Apostle Paul urged Ephesians, “That you put off as regards your former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality.” (Eph.4:22-24)   

   There is a wrong methodology that the methods used in particular counseling of study and activity which is a caregiver (or minister) constantly remind a care receiver’s (or a person’s) past old life, sometimes, it results in that person bitter, regrets of life, and struggles of old bandages of sin. To those who want to learn to be a counselor, a comforter or a caregiver, you need to be aware of your care receiver’s past life, old bandages of sorrow, and sins. Some may have a hurtful past life, wound, or unpleasant past or youth life, and he or she does not want to dwell on the past, nor be reminded over again and again about the past. Remember Jesus commanded, ‘Unbind him and let him go.” (John 11:44) In another word, Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” When the dead man came out, his hands and feet were wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face.” The dead man “Lazarus” received the resurrection life, however, he needs someone to take off the grave clothes, unbind him, untie him, unchain him,  and help him to walk free from the bandages of old life, old pattern of thinking, habits, sins, attitudes, wound, hurts, and old ways of life. The Lord said in Isaiah 43: 18, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past, see, I am doing new things. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”   

My friends, perhaps, you just like Lazarus, have received the resurrection life of Christ Jesus, yet, your siblings (or friends) constantly remind about your old man, past, former manner of life that caused you feel trouble, irritation, annoyance, frustration, vexation, disgrace, guilt and misunderstood. You shall stand up for yourselves, say “no” and refuse to be reminded of the old man's past pattern of life again and again. And declare as Apostle Paul said, “I am no longer living, the life I live, Christ lives in me, I am a new man, old has gone, new has come.” 

Bibliography,

Bauer, Walter. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3^rd Chicago: The University of Chicago press, 2000.

Brown, Robert, Philip W. Comfort and J.D. Douglas, ed. The New Greek English Interlinear New Testament. Carol Stream: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.1990.

Friberg, Timothy, Barbara Friberg, and Neva F. Miller et al., eds. Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament.1^st ed. Victoria BC: Trafford Publishing, 2005.

Lee, Witness. The New Testament (R.V.) Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1985.

Ryrie, Charles C. The Ryrie study Bible (NIV). Chicago, IL: The Moody Bible Institute, 1986. 

 Strong, James. Strong’s: the expanded exhaustive concordance of the Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2010