The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

Devotion based on Isaiah 61:1

When we try to guess what God is thinking, we don’t usually get very far. We don’t know what he will bring into our lives tomorrow, much less next year or the year after. But there is one area of life where we can begin to guess what God is thinking with great accuracy, and that is when we’ve messed up. Maybe friends were depending on us, and we let them down. Maybe we said something we regret and wish we could take it back. Maybe it was something bigger than all that, something that eats at us. It’s not as though God has given us something complicated to do—just love. But we get this wrong again and again, and we can sense that God is angry.

But God anointed Jesus to preach God’s mind, and to tell us something we would never have guessed on our own. Jesus preached freedom. Not political freedom. Not financial freedom. The freedom Jesus preached is a release from the darkness of sin and death, forever. And he did more than preach. He rescued us. On his cross, he put himself in our dark dungeon and released us into the light. Jesus didn’t just talk about freedom; he set us free.

You are fully and eternally free from all punishment for your sin. Jesus signed your pardon papers with his blood and sealed them with his resurrection from the dead. Have you ever found yourself caught in a web of guilt, buried under a burdened conscience, terrified by the darkness of death? The message of Jesus is as breathtakingly wonderful as it is simple: freedom.

Prayer:

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.