One word pops like corn from the pages of Scripture.
This is Day #11 of the #lentchallenge and we’re diving into the power-packed chapters of Luke 13-14.
(NOTE: Click here to download a FREE one-page reading guide of Luke and Acts. or upgrade to the downloadable ebook called The 40-Day Live Lent Challenge: A Color Method Study for Luke-Acts for only $8.99. This 200-plus page booklet includes: a welcome letter, the reading plan, instructions on how to use the Color Bible Study Method, ideas on how to get the most from your study, creative artwork, and space to journal and doodle.)
Back to the one word.
Loosed.
But let me back up.
The color method helped me recognize some patterns in the text. Luke 13 with gruesome stories. The slaughter of Galileans. Then the 18 crushed in a freak accident when a tower’s foundations crumble.
“Do you think that they were worse sinners than all other me who dwelt in Jerusalem?” Jesus asks.
In the process, Jesus confronts a common ancient belief that disasters was a punishment for sin.
Jesus teaches that none of those who lost their lives had been hand selected for horrible deaths—but apart from turning wholly and fully back to God, all people will likewise perish.
Soon the number 18 appears again, but this is no gruesome story but an encounter with grace. A woman with what some scholars believe is spondylitis deformans, bones of her spine fused into a hardened mass, enters the temple. She’s been hunched in chronic pain…wait for it..for 18 years.
When Jesus sees her, he declares, “Woman you are loosed from your infirmity.”
This woman is bent. Her body unable to raise.
She encounters Jesus who sets her loose.
The woman is made straight. She glorifies God.
The religious leaders scoff. But Jesus draws on agricultural terms to open their eyes to the gift of Sabbath. Just as ox and donkeys are “loosed” from their stall and led to water on the Sabbath, so, too, should this woman be set free.
Jesus uses the word loose, not once, nor twice, but three time highlighting its importance.
The word echoes in my heart. What do I most need to read but least want to hear?
Be loosed. Be loosed. Be loosed.
The declaration awakens my heart to the areas where I am not loosed.
Where I’m…
held back in fear.
constrained by anxiety.
believing false narratives.
stuck in the past.
aching in pain.
To those areas of brokenness—both mine and yours—Jesus says, “Be loosed.”
Disentangle from fear.
Unbind from anxiety
Extricate from false narratives.
Untangle from the past.
Be loosed from pain.
Jesus does more than invite us to Live Free, he demonstrates his power to set us free—from that which ails our bodies, our minds, our souls.
Where is the are that you most need to “Be Loosed” today?
My prayer for you and me is that will be a people who walk in greater freedom each day.
If you haven’t seen the new best-selling Live Free; An Adult Coloring book, check it out here.
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Amen and amen. I am recognizing a need for loosening of guilt and shame – they keep randomly showing up like 2 stray dogs trying to be fed. Jesus I receive your loosening!
Be free, sister! Hugs!
Loving this post with the reminder that Jesus always frees us from guilt, lies, and fear. We can all rejoice in Jesus’ words, “Woman, you are loosed!”
Haven’t commented on your blog for awhile. I really like this “loosed” idea! I need to be loosed from fears and doubts! Yep, they hold me back big time. Although I have managed to get into ministry more, this is my weakness. This tells me what to add to my prayer time — “God, let me be loosed from fear and doubts that are holding me back”. I also know of some people who need to be loosed from pain, so for them I will add this prayer — “God, let them be loosed from the pain that has them in a strangle hold. Let them be free from pain!”
Thanks, Margaret. You are still in my prayers daily.