Kidnapped and Held Captive

     Horrified.
     That’s how we felt as the details emerged of the plight of those three young women who had been kidnapped and imprisoned in Cleveland for over a decade. And the details are just beginning to come out. They will worsen in the weeks ahead, no doubt.
     Will these young women ever be able to return to normal life?
     Many psychologists being interviewed on news television programs emphasize a need for lengthy and careful “debriefing”. I think it’s going to take a lot more than that. One woman who was interviewed in the wake of all this had been kidnapped herself and held captive. She explained how her return to normalcy took years and came about only because her parents protected her from media coverage and constantly gave her reassurance of their love and protection. She went through years of counseling and reentered life one step at a time. Even then, she was vexed with flashbacks and memories. As I said, it took years for her to overcome her time as a captive.
     That’s actually not altogether different for a new Christian. The Bible describes our salvation experience as a deliverance from captivity, and Jesus’ payment for our sin on the cross is called a ransom. The human race is in the mess that it is because it is under the captivity and dominance of Satan. When we are saved from that captivity, we are freed! But the memories and aftereffects of years in Satan’s domain continues to vex our thinking, our emotions, our spirits. Becoming a Christian does not mean that we immediately overcome all of the issues we struggled with because of our captivity. But it does set us on the road to recovery. But yet, that takes work, careful debriefing and years of reprogramming our thoughts, emotions, and memories, to fully enjoy the freedom we’ve been given in Christ. Just as we would not expect Amanda Berry to be perfectly normal next week, we should not expect new Christians to immediately be all that God intends for them to be. The trouble is, because many Christians never experience that time of reprogramming, though they have been saved for years, are still captive, in their own minds.
     For liberated followers of Jesus this necessary debriefing and reprogramming is a growth process the Bible calls, “Sanctification.” This weekend, we are kicking off a six week series that will help us understand just how spiritual growth takes place. We’ll be looking at five “catalysts” for growth. That is, five ingredients in our lives that produce growth. If you are going to grow, it will be through at least two or three of the mechanisms that God uses for growth. And they are: Practical Teaching, Providential Relationships, Private Disciplines, Personal Ministry and Pivotal Circumstances. In the weeks ahead, we will be exploring these catalysts and how God uses them, as well as how we can leverage these tools for our own spiritual growth.
     You are no longer held captive in the devil’s lair. You’ve been set free! So let’s seek to grow our faith to take full advantage of the freedom we have in Christ, and become the people God created us to be.