What part of your life do you need to let go of? Are you worried about where your life is headed? Maybe you feel like you don’t have the right job or your finances are a wreck. Maybe you need to forgive someone and you’ve been holding on to the pain they caused for far too long.
It is a common practice among churches and youth groups to occasionally offer these types of things to God in a metaphorical and even ceremonial way. Maybe you write them down and nail them to a cross on Good Friday. Maybe you throw them into a bonfire on a youth retreat. I watched as people wrote the things they needed to sacrifice on flash paper and then lit them on fire before being baptized. However it is done, there is significance in the act of physically letting go and offering them to God.
While I have yet to find anything in the Bible that says you should do those things I listed, God does speak clearly through His Word that we do need to let things go. Christ already paid the price for our sins. Everything that holds you back from the power of God was taken to the cross by Jesus Christ.
If you are still holding on to sins, there is a way to let them go.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
James 5:16 (ESV)
If philosophy, traditions, or the ways of the world are holding you back from experiencing the Glory of God in your life, you need to let it all go and know that God made you alive with Christ. Don’t carry the baggage of your past sins with you because Jesus Christ “canceled the record of debt that stood against you” on the cross.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 2:8-14 (ESV)
Maybe it’s pride that is holding you back. Remember that as a member of the redeemed, you have been set apart from the world so that you can only boast in the saving action of the cross. What you do, short of accepting the gift of life through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, does not matter in the story of your salvation. Your status in the world does not amount to anything because you were made a new creation through the blood of Jesus.
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.
Galatians 6:14-16 (ESV)
If you have been struggling with something and cannot seem to shake it, I’d like to recommend that you share it with someone. Just like I shared in The Brightest Ember, you cannot do it alone. You need to be a part of the Church. Confess what you are struggling with. Take it to the cross. Ask others to help you though it.
