PASTOR’S CORNER: Get rid of the baggage

Some things are just too heavy for us to carry.

Emotional baggage from the past and present can weigh us down with bitterness, regret and hatred. But, God wants us to have freedom habits — forgiving people, and when possible, reconciling with them. The deeper the pain, the longer this may take. That’s okay. It may take time, but the only way to be free, truly free, is to get rid of the baggage.

We know what it is. The longer we carry it, the more damage it does to us physically and mentally. Folks who carry baggage are dead folks! Yes, they are! Walking and breathing, but dead. Baggage is something we don’t have to carry around. It’s not a mandate. Baggage takes the life out of an individual. It ruins lives, it takes your energy, changes your physical complexion and you find yourself just going through the motions! Folk have become good at faking it to make it.

In the physical we all know that when you carry something really heavy for a long period of time it affects your physical health; back problems, knee problems, hip problems, leg problems, neck problems can all be the result. Lifting weights is good and builds muscles. Carrying weight is not so good. It brings on issues; baggage leads to stress and stress leads to health problems.

If we did not know, carrying baggage is work. Holding on to things and letting them fester in our hearts takes work. You keep thinking about it, don’t want to let it go and it builds up on the inside, especially over a long period of time and it creates health problems and affects our spiritual health. You would be surprised church, at the people that have died from carrying baggage.

We can’t serve God effectively when we are carrying baggage. When we carry baggage, it affects everything that we do. It affects us mentally, in that it messes with our minds. Our minds become the devil’s workshop, but the question is “Why do we carry baggage, especially when it is not necessary?”

The truth of the matter is, we don’t have to carry baggage! Hear me this morning, we do not have to carry baggage! There is no requirement in the Bible that says that we have to carry baggage. It doesn’t pay off. Nothing good comes from it. There are no benefits attached to it. There is no reward in heaven for carrying it. It doesn’t make us look younger nor make us feel better. It doesn’t add to our 401k. It doesn’t make us grow any taller and it doesn’t add a string of hair to our heads. In fact, it can cause your hair to fall out!

Baggage stunts the individual who carries it. You get old before your time. If you don’t believe me look at somebody that you know who is carrying baggage, somebody that you know who is filled with bitterness and hatred. It takes control of them and they look like a corpse. If they are Christians, it takes their joy.

Community, I’m not insensitive to the fact that people can hurt you. They can stick a dagger in your heart, cut you wide open and leave you bleeding. The can make you cry, and I know it takes time for some wounds to heal, but there must be a conscious choice on the individual’s part with the help of God to root it out of our lives because we don’t want baggage to stop our blessings.

Community, people can be something. Christian people too. Cross their heart and hope to die and turn right around and tell you a lie! Kin folk are something too. If we hold the bad things they do in our hearts it will become baggage. We cut them off, and when we cut them off God cuts us off. The well of running good water will be cut off. Some things we have to just let it go.

We all have lost loved ones. That is the one thing that can hurt you like no other; especially when we are close. I know. It is a pain unlike any other, and we grieve, and good grief is therapeutic. We need to grieve, a healthy grieve. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 that there is a time to grieve. A good cry relieves tension in our bodies. We don’t need to hold it in and it doesn’t help when somebody ignorantly tells you that you are not supposed to cry; that somehow crying is not being spiritual. That’s stress by itself listening to ignorant people.

If God did not want us to cry, he would not have given us the capacity and emotions to cry! But if we don’t harness that grief, it will become baggage to us too and have us depressed. Friends, we don’t need baggage; we can’t win others to Christ if we are weighed down. See, baggage distracts from Christ and our mission. Baggage takes your joy so that you think more about the baggage than you do him. Baggage, it worries you, causes you to get tensed up and you can’t sleep good at night! Nothing good comes from baggage.

It took years for Esau to forgive his brother for stealing his birthright blessing (Genesis 27:36). When they are finally reunited, Esau graciously forgave his brother and embraced him (Genesis 33:4). Without saying a word, they both burst into tears. Over time, Esau had let go of the baggage. Friends, let’s get rid of the baggage.