Putting Aside My Prison Clothes


2 Kings 25: 27-30

27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach [a] became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. 28 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 29 So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. 30 Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived.

A few weeks back, as I was reading through my 90 Day turned to 365 day plan of reading through the whole Bible I stumbled across this verse. When I say stumbled, I mean stumbled. I have never read or heard a sermon preached on this verse before, but for me it became my new life verse. I tried to keep going, thinking it probably did not have any special meaning. I try not to read too much into text because I don’t want to take it out of context, but the Lord has been drawing me back to this verse since I read it. I honestly think it is my life summed up. Please excuse my new version: So Desiree put aside her prison clothes and for the rest of her life ate regularly at the king’s table.

I am just overwhelmed at the depth of this. This Jehoiachin guy was once king of Judah. Nebuchanezzar took him into exile and captivity in Babylon. Johoiachin was a prisoner in Babylon for thirty seven long years. I don’t know about you, but I am quite familiar with prison clothes. No, I have never been in the penitentiary, but I have been in chains to sin. For me, there are two ways of looking at this. When I became a new creation, I left those prison clothes and was adopted by the King into His royal courts. But as you and I both know, just because the King adopted me into His royal courts does not mean I live like it or even feel like a child of the King.

For me, even though the Lord Jesus has saved me from my sins once and for all and I am going to live with Him forever, I am still on a journey of living and walking as a free woman. There have been so many things that have contributed to my chains. Beth Moore has a book, Get Out of That Pit, where she says that there are three pits that we can be in; those that we are put in, those pits that we slide into without realizing it, and those we jump in.

You name it, I have been in all of those pits, just as Beth Moore talks about. I don’t want to be in that pit any longer, and however I got in it, I want to be released from those chains that are keeping me from living freely. I feel like my chains have grown weaker over the years, but they are still there. Where once my chains were 2,000 pounds and I could barely breathe for the weight of them, now I think they are more like construction paper chains that you make at Christmas and string on your tree. I think they are just barely hanging on, but I still feel the ever so slight weight of them around me.

I can only imagine how Jehoiachin felt. Having been a prisoner for thirty seven years and to take off those filthy, raggedy old prison clothes and trade them in for clothes that were fit to wear to the King’s table. What a feeling of leaving the cell, taking a shower, and going to eat dinner with the king. I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to put aside my prison clothes and leave that nasty cell doing whatever it takes.

We are no longer captives. We do not have to be bound by chains to sin any longer. No matter how heavy those chains are, whether you hitched yourself up to one or someone else hung that chain on you for you to carry, ask Christ to free you from it. The King is waiting for you at His banqueting table.

2 Responses to Putting Aside My Prison Clothes
  1. Leah
    October 5, 2010 | 8:38 pm

    I love it! What a good verse! Thank God that we are out of our prison clothes. 🙂

  2. Esther Feng
    October 6, 2010 | 7:33 am

    Thanks for a great devotional, on a not-often read verse. I’m setting aside my prison clothes 🙂