“Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!” (John 11:43-44 NLT)
Jesus calls many from death to life; calls many from darkness into the marvelous light; calls a multitude of people from a life where they have been wrapped up in misgivings, mistakes, messed up living, and a multitude of failings.
Like Lazarus who had died and was wrapped in strips of cheap white linen cloth and a large handkerchief over his face, people who come out of the caves of past sins as they answer the call to come forth given by Christ, they are wrapped with various strips of guilt of past ventures in the wrong direction where they got into stuff one ought not get into; grave, errant ways of living previously. They need to experience the unwrapping and we need to be like the people who were told by Jesus to unwrap Lazarus and let him go.
What I’m saying is that we don’t need to keep people who have rebounded to life, bound in their old wrappings by reminding them of their sinful ways or when they were living as dead men with no hope of life. In the text, Jesus did His part in the resurrection of Lazarus, and then he says, “Unwrap him and let him go.” So, after Jesus does his part in bringing about rebirth in a person, where they have experienced being born again; bringing about their ability to experience abundant living, we need to help by unwrapping him or her and letting that person go on and living a new life.
How can we help? We need to resist bringing up what they used to do and are seriously trying not to do anymore. We must cease from digging up memories of past failings and faults and find joy in the fact that they have come out of darkness and can now walk in the beautiful life. They don’t want to travel down memory lane, a thoroughfare filled with iniquities and we should not be the ones guiding them to that lane. We have to do our part in unwrapping him or unwrapping her! When that spiritually resurrected person comes forth, we must help him…help her…keep that saved and changed individual from revisiting the past. For you see revisiting the past just puts things in their present consciousness and this it becomes cloaked in radical misbeliefs that Satan will try to use to lure that person back in to their wrapped up state.
Admire the change in folks and stop admonishing them from the cave life that they have been called out of! In the words of Jesus again, “Let him go!” Compliment the change and circumvent avenues of discussion that lead to the past and do exactly the opposite. Center your conversations on the fact that they are a new creature. Applaud their change. Acknowledge they are getting better. Assist them with a Biblical basis to motivate them to stay on the narrow path of righteousness. Don’t keep them wrap up in the life that once was! Let them go! Help by being involved in the unwrapping. Now, don’t say you have not been told, alright? Have a good start to your week and be blessed!
“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” (Isaiah 43:18 NRSV)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King
P.S. Don’t keep yourself wrapped up in could have, should have or would have. Through the wrappings away! Be blessed again!