Yesterday as my wife, Dorothy, and I were talking with a brother in our back yard, the Spirit brought to mind a verse I have read for years in a whole new light. We were talking about how people’s actions and reactions are often governed by pains, abuses, and sins from their past. It was then that this verse was given new life for me:
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14 KJ2000)
Sin as a principle seeks to have dominion over our lives. Sin in many forms wants to rule over us and dictate to us how we act. We are all familiar with the sins of drug addiction or adultery, anger, hatred, and such, but there are other sins that no church would list that we might not be aware that we are in bondage to. For instance, I remember many things that my mother said and did to me from my youth that were not always kind. So what happened? I married my dear wife and I was loaded for bear. Without thought I was looking for her to do or say anything that reminded me of my mother and when I thought I recognized something, I squashed it without mercy. On the other hand, she was watching in me for anything that reminded her of her father’s old habits and would react against that. The sins of our parents still had dominion over us and were taking dominion over our marriage as well.
We were both projecting our fears on one another and if we do that long enough, guess what? That person will finally start acting like we are expecting them to! It is a form of witchcraft—soul projection. The stronger our soul (what Paul called “the natural man”) is in us, the worse it can be and the more damaging to our relationships. It got so bad between my wife and I that she finally started to lose her personality out of fear of my reactions to anything she might do or say. She was becoming a non-entity. When I saw the damage I was doing to her and our kids, God woke me up. I finally had to repent of who I was and ask God to change me and give me a new heart. I had a great change immediately after that and it saved our marriage, but He keeps bringing more things to the surface for me to repent of as well. Thank God that He has given my wife and kids much grace to put up with me while these changes have taken place.
Sin desires to rule and take dominion over us. We start saying things like, “You always blah, blah, blah!” Or “You never do what I tell you!” We start formulating laws in our minds we hold other people to. We even formulate laws that we hold ourselves to. Laws like, “I will never let that happen to me again!” Or, “I will never trust another woman (or man) again!” Or, “I will never be like my mother (or father) and do thus and thus.” Laws come in many forms besides the ones written in law books. The ones we write in our hearts are often the hardest to be free of.
If we are the saints of God and walk by the Spirit, we are no longer under the law, but under grace. You see God’s grace frees us from law. It heals us and then frees us to follow the Spirit wind of God wherever it blows. There are no longer any “nevers” or “always.” To walk after the Spirit is to be free to go with His wind wherever He leads us not where we or law leads or forbids us. Don’t take me wrong, I am not teaching lawlessness, but freedom that is our as we abide IN Christ! There is a higher law that covers all God’s laws and that is the law of love. The love of God provides us with an inward motivation that empowers us to do right. In Hebrews we read about Jesus being our new High Priest of the New Covenant not after the order of Aaron, but rather after the order of Melchizedek, the King of Salem.
If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law… And it is yet far more evident: that after the similitude of Melchizedek there arises another priest, Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For He testifies, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For there is verily an annulment of the previous commandment because of the weakness and uselessness thereof. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by which we draw near unto God… The Lord swore and will not change, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better covenant. (Hebrews 7:11-22 KJ2000 – emphasis added)
Did you get that? We are not under the law of a carnal commandment, but now, like Christ, are under the power of an endless life! So what is this new law that we are under in the new Covenant, this better Covenant? Jesus gave us a very simple answer. “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another” (John 13:34-35 KJ2000). When we are under the grace of God, He takes our stony hearts out of us and puts in new hearts. His new commandment, the law of love for one another as Christ loves us, is written on our new hearts. The ravages of sin in our lives are dealt with by His great grace and His love is inscribed on our hearts as He heals us.
Dear saint, if you find yourself under many laws because of the ravages of sin in your life, ask Jesus to heal you and make you whole, a bride that has been made ready for the coming of her Bridegroom, without hang-ups binding her. Let us all go forth with our lamps filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit and our wicks trimmed of all their dead, fleshly ways to meet Him at His coming.
With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not your own judgment. Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow. (Proverbs 3:5-6 CEV)
A Wilderness Voice 
That is such deep stuff and so early in the day-I’m just now sipping on my first cup of coffee..I will need to go back and read it again and again.
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Thanks, Kenneth. Deep calls unto deep it would seem. The depths of God’s love just keep mining our depths and removing all that is not of Him because He loves us so much.
Love you, my brother!
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“To walk after the Spirit is to be free to go with His wind wherever He leads us, not where we or law leads or forbids us. Don’t take me wrong, I am not teaching lawlessness, but freedom that is our as we abide IN Christ! There is a higher law that covers all God’s laws and that is the law of love. The love of God provides us with an inward motivation that empowers us to do right.”
Amen, Michael. That says it all! 🙂
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Amen, Susanne, and what a wonderful life we have as we abide together IN the Father and the Son and share in His great grace and love!!! Our heavenly experience starts even NOW!
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YES!!! 🙂
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I had never considered Romans 6:14 as you mined it, but now I have a new gold mine – for what you said about it is so very true. I am amazed at all the stuff that we need to be set free from. Thank you for sharing, and encouraging us your readers.
Love in Him,
Pat Orr
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Pat, God just keeps revealing more and more of what He wants to set us free of, doesn’t he? And we have this promise…
May the God who gives peace make you holy in every way. May he keep your whole being-spirit, soul, and body-blameless when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
(1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 GW)
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Ok now it’s the end of the day and I read it again and man that is very good…it’s either your dominated by sin/satan or by the being of agape love…the flow is the show.
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Hello brother!
It’s so interesting to read your thoughts on how our parents affected us. It’s very true how we carry this set of expectations around in us for how people are treating us, will treat us, should treat us, etc. Then we can easily project those thoughts onto the actions of others and act as if we know for a fact what their motives are.
Sometimes there motives are bad, and sometimes we guess what their motives are, accurately, but other times we are seeking out the people who will live up to our expectations… such as they are. I mean, I have found people who will reject me because I expect to be rejected… and then I can find people who don’t reject me and make them reject me by acting in a way that is “rejectable”.
Oy. I wish we could go back and get parents who were more balanced and less dramatic and perfectionist, mean, selfish, etc. I wish I could go back and be a parent who is less dramatic, mean, selfish, etc… though I think, as a parent myself, I wasn’t nearly as crazy making to my kids as our parents were.
But it all gets better if we pray to get the fruitage of the holy spirt, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faith, mildness and self-control, and also pray to do God’s will. I also pray daily for Wisdom, Humility, Insight, Courage and Honesty. I remember them by the acronym WHICH.
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Wow, Camille!!! 🙂
I didn’t know that Michael has such a wise sister! What a great comment you wrote on here!!
Every blessing to you and yours ❤ ❤ ❤
Susanne from Bavaria
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Thank you, Susanne. 🙂 That’s very kind of you. I’m Michael’s younger sister in California. Nice to meet you.
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Hello, little sister! (Well, I AM older, taller and weigh quite a bit more.) :-p It is so good to see your two comments on our blog. I say, “our” because I feel that it belongs to all who participate on here. We are kind of a little loving community that has formed around the love of the Lord for one another.
Yes, this thing of projecting our expectations from old wounds on others is something that we all can be guilty of. Just today, I found myself doing this very thing again with my dear wife of 48 years, Dorothy. I think the key to getting free of these things is in really forgiving the person that hurt us in the first place that made us reactive to anything that reminds us of that original wound and pain. In my case, without going into the details, I have had a boat-load of issues that came up from the way we were raised and the fallout from our parent’s fighting and divorce. I think I was 16 before I had a clue that the home we were growing up in WAS NOT NORMAL! I had a friend there in Davis who invited me over for dinner one evening and I was there when his dad came home from work and his mother met him with a kiss and they were all respectful to one another and loving the whole evening. I had never seen that before and it was a REAL eye-opener for me.
Like you so well pointed out, we were treated in a certain way by our father or mother or both and we grow up thinking that this is the way we should be treated or we react against it and end up falling victim to it all over again in our future relationships. Dorothy was in a counseling class with a group of abused women and the teacher said, “An abused woman can walk into a room with 29 good men and one abusive man and she will be drawn to that abuser every time.” Why do we do this? It meets our expectations of what we deserve which is often dictated by how our parents treated us. Even if we DON’T marry an abuser, we will set out to make them abuse us with the way we treat them! In my own case I grew up with low self-esteem… I was never accepted and could never do anything good enough, so what did I do? I married a woman that loved me the way I was and I felt that I was not lovable or acceptable and deserving of such love and subconsciously set out to MAKE her reject me and find me unacceptable. I thank God that He has given Dorothy great grace to stay with me and keep loving me through all my thrashing around. He has given her a love and loyalty for me that goes beyond all reason and I thank HIM for it. Thankfully, God has been changing my heart and getting to the root of many of these issues and bringing me to the place where I can forgive our parents and see that they were also victims themselves. Jesus’ words on the cross are finally starting to make since and I am coming to the place where I can ALSO say them with understanding and conviction, “Father, forgive them, they did not know what the were doing.”
Camille, it is SO good to see that you are making progress in your life as well and in the lives of your two kids. Thanks for openly sharing your own struggles so honestly with us and also the things you have found that bring about the needed changes in your life.
I love you, my sister!!! ❤ ❤ ❤
Michael
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