Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

For some, deliverance is an ambiguous word as it conjures up many different images in the mind. One of the synonyms of deliverance is liberation. Liberation is to be set free. This is a true definition of what liberation is. When Jesus started his ministry at the age of 30 he initiated it by reading from the book of Isaiah 61:1-2a. This was his manifesto and the blueprint of what he would aim to accomplish during the next 3 ½ years of ministry. Not only was Jesus’ mission to usher in the kingdom of God, it was also to initiate a spirit of deliverance, that would set all those who were captives free. To be delivered then, is to be set free. The question that we must all ask is, what am I being delivered or set free from? Furthermore, what happens to me after I am set free?

During Jesus’ ministry, his first and most important task was to set people free from a slavery mindset. People who are controlled by a spirit jealousy and envy exhibit this mindset. Although at the time of Jesus the people of Israel had been set free from slavery for well over 400 years, they were still under the rule of the Roman Emperor. They were free to worship the God of their choice, but they yearned for self-government and their own land. This preoccupation with physical liberation only pushed them further into ascetism and religious bigotry. Jesus set about his deliverance ministry by using word pictures to present the working of his kingdom to his hearers. As people received his message and implemented it, they saw miracles, signs and wonders. As the kingdom of God spread, it was left to the apostle Paul to crystallize how we receive and maintain our deliverance. This is his methodology as outlined in Romans 12.  We must be transformed [ delivered] by the renewing of our minds. For an individual to be transformed, that is, change the way they think, live and operate, their minds must first be renewed. They must be delivered from the old and rigid ways of thinking and acting.