“Loose Him and Let Him Go!”
“Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Loose him, and let him go.’” (John 11:43-44)
We who are in God were once like Lazarus: dead in our sins, “sleepin’ in our grave” as the old saints would say. Yes, we were very much dead. Oh sure, we had bodies of flesh, but our spirit-man was dead. We were a hopeless case and even if we thought we were pretty decent human beings, we were deceived because outside of God, all are dead.
But then a voice echoed in the distance: LAZARUS, COME FORTH!!!
And as the Spirit of God called to us, we were made alive, born anew of the Spirit and the will of God and not of the flesh (John 1:12-13).
But sadly, this is where many of us stay. There are some old saints who die and go to Heaven never having made it out of infanthood, toddlerhood, and childhood in the Spirit. They never grew, never matured, never became the person God meant and made them to be.
The problem is, many of us have been SAVED, but not to many of us have been LOOSED.
God is our Saviour. He truly lifted us out of the miry clay and set our feet on a rock to stand, yet we still have the mire clinging to us. We still have those old habits, that old, unrenewed thinking. We still have those nagging illnesses. We still have those addictions. We still have those generational curses. We have been SAVED, but not LOOSED.
If we are to minister like Jesus, then we must do what Jesus did. And Jesus didn’t tell Lazarus to come forth and leave him to stumble around, bound up by his grave clothes. No. He commanded for him to be loosed and let go.
This is a concept that is all but lost on us modern, new-fangled saints, but I’m old school. I grew up in the grand old Church of God in Christ (COGIC), where you couldn’t join in, you had to be born in! (Y’all COGIC folks know what I’m talking about!) And if you know anything about COGIC or related denominations, then you know when the Spirit was high and the altar was full and deliverance was breaking forth, you’d hear an old church mother yell, “LOOSE HERE!!” And I don’t care how much education I have, how fancy I get, how many theological books I’ve read, or how many prolific sermons I’ve heard, when a church mother says, “LOOSE HERE!!” You know someone’s about to get free!! And I’m sure you felt a simultaneous “quickening” in your spirit too! And the Church said ‘amen!’
For those of you who are perhaps unchurched or just churched in a different tradition, allow me to translate. “LOOSE HERE!!” is an authoritative statement from that old mother to the devil and any demon present. Upon issuing said statement, drenched in oil and carrying the authority of the name of Jesus, that old devil knew he had to leave!!
Those whom he had bound, he had to let go! Those whom he fettered had to be set free! Those whom he captured had to be released! And those whom he inhabited had to be vacated! Those demons couldn’t find an exit fast enough!
You see, that old mother may not have had much education. Perhaps she was “only” a mother, housewife, widow, and or some sort of domestic worker. But in the spirit, she was a decorated officer. Her authority in Christ was tried and true. And those demons who might not know your name or mine, knew hers and knew that any order she issued was made in Blood and cloaked in the power of God! They knew to get gone before they got got! They’d sooner deal with their demonic ranking officers and Satan himself than this bent over church mother wielding the Sword of the Spirit!
My spiritual padre, who is from Honduras, and his wife, who is from Colombia, say “LOOSEN!!!” And even though it is the absolute cutest thing to me to whom that phrase sounds completely foreign unless we’re talking about a shoe string or corset, it still carries the same authority in the spirit! You do NOT want to be a demon on the other end of Papi or Mama Maldonado’s “LOOSEN!!!” You will ABSOLUTELY hit the ground running!!!
Whether you say, “Loose him, and let him go!” “Loosen!” or “Loose here!” it doesn’t matter. The wording doesn’t matter. Correct usage of grammar doesn’t matter. Even the level of your voice doesn’t matter. Only the authority and the intent behind the words matters. And the intent is DELIVERANCE.
So examine yourself. Have you been made alive by Jesus, but are still walking around in your grave clothes? Are you still reeking of your B.C. (Before Christ) issues? Are you still bound by your past? Jesus can save you all He wants to, but you have to CHOOSE to be free and CHOOSE to make Jesus the Lord over EVERY area of your life. If not, your bandage here and bandage there will be little footholds that Satan will continue to have in your life until you finally get free.
Some things God will release you from simultaneously when you get saved. Other things we have to make a concerted effort in to see freedom. I’m not sure why He chooses to do things the way He does. But however He prescribes our personal freedom is how we must get it. Don’t lament that it appears harder for you than for someone else. You never know what they’ve already been through or what they will have to go through one day. Whatever happened, however you have to deal with it, whoever is or isn’t there to help you in the process, don’t choose to remain blind, bumbling, and stumbling around in your bondage. LOOSE HERE, IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!
