Experience your independence (unrestricted content)

A compelling movie of the 1980s was “The Mission” with Robert DeNiro as a slave trader who in an act of repentance put all his slave-trading gear into an overstuffed net that he dragged behind him as he climbed a mountain.

His progress so slowed the people traveling with him that one in anger drew out his knife and cut the rope.

DeNiro watched his burden fall all the way to the bottom, then silently and without resentment climbed back down the mountain and reattached himself to the unwieldly net that so completely hindered his progress.

The good news of the gospel is that when we put our lives in God’s hands, He shoulders our burdens for us.

The more we trust Him to have the strength to carry our burdens, the more of our burdens He carries.

Experience your independence from the burdens you carry – past mistakes, missed opportunities, damaged relationships. Give them all to Jesus.

Let His strength free you to be the person God had in mind when He created you. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,” God says in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah 1:5.

And in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Here’s how to experience your independence: Admit you’re a sinner – Romans 3:23; Put your faith and trust in Jesus – Romans 10:9-13; and apologize to God – Acts 3:19, for the wrong you’ve done first of all to Him, who loves you more than you can imagine – John 3:16.