Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. Zechariah 9:11-12
Lord Jesus, all the promises of God find their “Yes!” in you (2 Cor. 1:29), including these imagination-expanding, heart-overloading, makes-our-feet-want-to-dance words from Zechariah. We begin our day daring our hearts to believe the gospel is really this good, this complete, this compelling.
Because of the blood of the new covenant—the sacrifice you made for us on the cross, we are set free from imprisonment to a wide range of “waterless pits.”
You set us free from the waterless pits of moralism and legalism. Many of us have lived way too long in the graceless hole in the ground of gospel-less Christianity. How arrogant we were to believe that we could ever fulfill the demands of the law by our own efforts. How dark and ugly it is to believe that we can supplement what you have done for us by what we do for you.
You set us free from the waterless pit of idolatry. O, the delusion to think that there is something or someone more worthy of our heart’s adoration, affection and allegiance than you. Only the gospel is powerful enough to free us from the multiple expressions of false worship to which we are drawn, and by which we forfeit the grace that could be ours.
You set us free from the waterless pit of the fiefdom of self. Left to ourselves, we build straw kingdoms of pride and control, personal peace and affluence, acquisition and self-indulgence. But your grace sets us free for missional living and loving in your kingdom. You have made us co-heirs with you of the new heaven and new earth. And you have called us to join you in gathering your bride form the nations and making all things new by the gospel. What a privilege! What a life calling!
Indeed the gospel is the stronghold to which we are to return over and over and over. For only the gospel frees us from destructive enslavements that we might live as prisoners of hope. Prisoners of hope… that is what you have made us, Jesus! We don’t have the capacity to imagine the double-portion restoration for which we are redeemed and destined. Enable us to live this day in the hoosegow of hope, chained to gospel-sanity, wearing the shackles of true freedom, as your beloved servants and slaves. So very Amen we pray, in your merciful and mighty name.
S
