Freedom is a gift from God.

Likewise, when God’s people have rebelled against Him, captivity has been His discipline.

The prophet Isaiah wrote these words of freedom to encourage God’s people who were under siege by the Assyrians. One day, he promised, their captivity would be over. One day, their repentant hearts would bring back freedom. In 681 BC, it did.

700 years later, Jesus spoke these same words. Luke 4 tells us that Jesus was invited to read the daily scripture in the synagogue. He opened to this very passage and, after reading, closed the scroll and declared, “This day the scripture is fulfilled.”

How could that be? Isaiah had delivered this encouragement hundreds of years before. This prophecy, spoken for the captive Jews, also contained words for a captive world. “God has sent Me to deliver all from the chains of sin,” Jesus was saying.

Jesus offers the same thing to us.

Repentance leads to God’s forgiveness and God’s forgiveness leads us to freedom. Whatever it is that holds us captive — bills, time, homework, physical limits, jobs — Jesus can free our hearts.

We can have peace, too, as we trust God to deliver from those things that chain us.