Leading People Out

In the 1980s there were several action movies based on Vietnam and they all had a similar theme. You may remember the titles, "Missing in Action", "Rambo", or "Uncommon Valor."  The idea was that there were still Americans being held captive in Vietnam after the war ended and we were sending in a person or a group to get them out.  So Sylvester Stallone or Chuck Norris go in against the odds, a great personal risk and with many explosions and a stirring sound track manage to set them free.

This is the call of Christianity, to set people free.  Most people have issues in our lives that there is no getting over on our own.  We all think of alcohol or drug addiction, but there are plenty more.  The chains that bind us are those things that keep us from God's purpose.  Ego, Greed, Lust, Insecurity....  They can all be prisons from which we need to be set free.

One difference between the action movies and the prisons that we find ourselves in is that the prisoners in those movies always wanted to be set free,  Chuck Norris didn't fight his way in just to be told, "No thanks. I'm good here."  Some people just aren't ready to be set free.  They don't see the problem.  They aren't ready to give it up and move on.  But God is waiting, and he will be ready when they are.

The tag line in the movie "Missing in Action" is The war's not over until the last man comes home.  And so it is for us.  The war continues as each of us is freed from what binds us and as we help those around us get freed from their own.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. - Galatians 5:1