After viewing the music video "Chain Breaker" by Zach Williams yesterday, I began to think about the meaning behind the words being sung. I suppose we all do that subconsciously, for when we like the message of a song, then we can fully appreciate the song in its entirety. We hear a song, we like it and we find our identity behind a song. In the music video, Zach Williams is playing "Chain Breaker" to a whole room full of prison inmates.
Seeing Zach play to this room of inmates made me have a deeper meaning with our faith in God.
No, we are not convicted felons, but each and every person has their struggles, their "chains" so to speak. These chains can be different things like depression or even drug and alcohol addiction.
Because we have these chains, we are as bound and hopeless like people who are in prison, unless we turn to God for hope and strength.
While I have never been to prison, I know people who are or were in prison. They have described it to be a terrible place. Things happen in prison that are hard to take in, like "shivving" (stabbing someone with a shiv, a knife made from things like toothbrushes), solitary confinement (being thrown into a dark padded room for days and weeks at a time, with no one to talk to) and sometimes even group fights (people taking turns beating you up).
Prison inmates need God's love and mercy like we need it.
No sin is too severe for the Lord to forgive. In God's eyes, we are no better than people who are in prison. God loves us all the same. In the music video, I saw prison inmates shouting and worshipping the Lord, hands extended up in the air in worship.
In the Bible, Jesus Christ Our Lord called Matthew to be a disciple of Him. When the Pharisees (people who were steadfast and unwavering in the Mosaic law) saw that Jesus called Matthew, a tax collector (tax collectors were highly despised at the time and was known to forcibly take money from people) and was accepting of Matthew eating with Him, they criticized Jesus for it. Jesus heard this and replied "Those who are well, have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17)
Jesus came to heal and love the broken, the people without hope, the people who were looked down upon by the Pharisees.
Reading about Jesus healing and loving people who were sinners (like prostitutes) gives me hope that He can love me. I view myself as no better than people who are in prison or people who like to do evil. We all are sinners. We all will have to answer to God for what we have done in this life. My answer will be "I entrust my heart and my soul to Jesus Christ, My Lord."
