Let me explain to you what I mean by "saved yet stuck". You can be physically, outwardly saved or removed from a thing and nonetheless be mentally or inwardly shackled to that very same thing.
When I became a Christian I naively thought all of my negative beliefs, thoughts, bad habits and actions would immediately disappear after I gave my life to Jesus. That didn't happen.
By becoming all you were created to be and sharing your gift with others you will make the world a better place. I had been water baptized as well as baptized in the Holy Spirit. But, my drug addiction still held me in bondage.
Before I go any further let me warn the non Christian folks, you are not off the hook. You can also be saved from circumstances yet remain trapped in them. I will prove it a little later.
There are many people in the world today that have been saved from a condition yet remain stuck in it. You can rise out of the ashes of your past and take control of the things that previously wore you down and held you in bondage.
I submit to you that there are people who have been in abusive relationships. And although they are out of the relationship and the abusive individual physically lives hundreds of miles away.
They are mentally stuck in a relationship that has been over for years. They are still experiencing the pain, the angry and the fear as though they are still attached to their oppressor.
There are people who were told hurtful, humiliating, negative things as a child that they relive on a regular basis. They are now adults making evaluations based on something that may have happened ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years ago. They are making decisions today based on fifty year old emotional data.
While looking back on my childhood I came to a profound revelation. We are guided by our parents, by our teachers, by our jobs, society, the media, we become experts in our weaknesses and spend our lives trying to repair these flaws, while our gifts lie dormant and neglected. But in actuality they were stuck themselves.
So we now come to the million dollar question. How do I move from saved yet stuck to saved and free? My pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes has a wonderful, empowering recipe for dealing with failures, setbacks, mistakes or being stuck. Bishop Jakes's simply say that "you must admit it, quit it and forget it".
The setbacks and disappointments in life are not the real problem, whether they are self inflected or not. The problem is how we deal them. Today you must forget those things which are behind you and reach for those positive things ahead of you.
True freedom comes from the renewing of your mind. You must perceive it before you can receive it. You must see yourself as free before you can truly be free. It is you and you alone that will determine whether you will be stuck or free. The decision is yours! If you are like me your transformation may not occur over night. So don't become discourage with the process. You can do it step by step!
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. by Dwight D. Eisenhower