“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles” (Psalm 2:1-3).

When I was younger, I didn’t understand this dialogue in Psalm 2.

Chains and shackles? That was how the nations and the peoples, the kings and rulers of the earth in the psalmist’s day thought of God’s rule?

Is that how people today think?

Perhaps an even more pointed question, is that how you and I sometimes think of God’s laws and his will for our lives?

Well, yes. Because the sinful nature wants what the sinful nature wants—and whatever it is, that desire is always contrary to God’s law and his will for us. That desire is also always deadly because sin kills.

Thanks be to God who has rescued us from these bodies of death through Jesus Christ our Lord, who gives us the victory over sin, death, and the devil!

We’re no longer held by chains and shackles. We were—but they weren’t God’s. They were sin’s chains and shackles. We just couldn’t see them for what they were. We couldn’t see what God’s law and his will for us actually are.

Sometimes, we still struggle with that.

God’s law and his will for us aren’t confining. They aren’t restrictive. They’re freeing.

Yes, God’s law and his will for us are contrary to what our sinful nature wants. And the devil is so good at getting us to think that what God asks of us as his children is keeping us from enjoying life to the fullest. He wants us to think that God is holding out on us; that what God asks of us is ridiculous, non-progressive, and backwards thinking—no longer applicable for the modern world we live in today.

The devil has been trying to get God’s people to think that way since right before humankind’s fall, offering freedom from God that really isn’t freedom at all.

The devil’s lies always lead to captivity to sin, not freedom. They lead to death for humankind, not life. From the very first bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden all those long years ago, all the way down to you and me.

Again, thanks be to God, who has made us alive in Christ and has given us eyes of faith to see that he rules for our spiritual, eternal good. He rules over all things and is in control of all things—even when the world we live in seems to be doing everything it can to throw off God’s so-called chains and shackles.

Dear Christian, as God’s people, we take refuge in God. We see him for who he truly is.

He’s the loving God who sent his anointed one, his Son Jesus, to save us from our captivity to sin and death. Jesus kept God’s law perfectly and came to do his will in our place. By his perfect life and innocent death, Jesus set us free that we might live our lives in thankfulness to him for all he’s done for us.

Jesus rules in our hearts. Through his Word, he shows us what God wants for us—how he wants us to listen to him and to obey his commands, and how he wants us to show love and respect to our neighbors.

And now?

As we live our lives in thankfulness to God, we get to go and tell others about the God who loves them so much that he came to break their chains and throw off their shackles to sin and death as well.

Let’s go.

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