The Holy Spirit is an all powerful being and an extension of God himself, so all things are possible to Him. Barriers like addictions, attitudes, sexual immorality, perversions, lies, and unhealthy obsessions can be easily defeated when we have the Holy Spirit on our side. The only condition is we must want to be set free.
God respects our free will and our choices, so one of the few things He will NOT do is force us into something against our wishes. At any point He will give us a gentle nudge in the right direction, but whether or not we obey is always left to us.
In the next five weeks, my weekly devotional postings will be dealing with some barriers we put between us and God. The barriers described here are not really barriers for Him, because He can easily break them down. They are more like barriers we tend to put up in our lives that He will not interfere with if we do not want to be set free from them. For example, God knows if your body and brain are chemically addicted to alcohol or drugs, and He knows on your own, even if you try, you may not succeed in quitting. So He will fill you with His Spirit and then the Holy Spirit will help you overcome your weaknesses. However if you secretly like the alcohol or drugs, and don’t really want to quit, then God will not force you.
Similarly if you enjoy watching pornography, God may show you it’s wrong, but He won’t stop you from doing it, no matter how much you may wish He would. If however, you realize that it’s wrong and want to stop, He will then help you, and fill you with His Holy Spirit, and you will most certainly have victory.
The issue is usually that we just simply do not want to be delivered. We harbor the sin in our lives as if it is a refugee that we must protect. We may want to want to quit, but we really do not want to quit bad enough to actually quit.
The single greatest barrier we put between us and God is sin, because it directly separates us from God. The sin which has been confessed and repented of will be forgiven and will no longer separate us from God as a result. The good news is we can confess in a private place, between just God and ourself, and if we are sincerely sorry, God will forgive us.
Some common sin issues are discussed in the following five weeks postings that can help us understand how barriers are established and how we can overcome them. These next five weeks postings are not an exhaustive list by any means, but they are common enough that we should all be able to relate, and at least they are the ones that God has directed me to discuss at this time.
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