What do we carry with us daily? Are we carrying just the necessities or are we carrying things we can do without? I have good news for you. All who are saved are destined for a place of growth and overflow. Imagine yourself when you were at your peak (endurance). You are at the starting line. You have to run a 100-yard dash. The finish line is at the top of a hill. You did it without problem. Now imagine yourself with a backpack on. The backpack is filled with 100 pounds of a substance called dead weight. It is common for many Christians to cling to the dead weight and carry it with them wherever they go. It is worn at home, work, church, etc. Dead weight can keep us all from thriving. Our focus, objectives, goals in life can be altered by the deadlift. The deadlift can be very heavy and become a burden. The dead weight can be your anger towards someone, unforgiveness, past relationships, current relationships, disputes with friends and family. It will weigh you down to a point where you feel immobilized.

In Luke 7:11-13, Jesus has just finished healing the centurion’s servant. He heads to Nain, Israel. Many people followed him because of the miracles, signs and wonders that were taking place. We must do the same when Jesus is in the image. We should all want to be wherever the Lord is present. He can get a blessing or two from being in the right place at the right time. Jesus went to Nain (now Nein, Israel). Israel is a blessed place since we are in a blessed place (Kingdom of God). When you are in that wounded place, you are covered by the blood of Jesus. Sometimes we have the frame of mind that there is nothing else we can do in dead situations. That’s right. There is nothing else we can do, but all things are possible through God.

As Christians, we have to see every situation as a test. This is how God sees it. On the other hand, the enemy sees it as an opportunity to trick you. We must see through the smokescreen put up by the enemy and look through it to see the blessing that awaits us in the smoke. We have to put on our spiritual protective masks that God has given us. That spiritual mask is the spirit of discernment. If we have that on at all times, there is no room for us to be fooled, fooled, fooled, fooled, fooled, fooled, and whatever other synonyms you can think of. We see in these scriptures that the widow and the pallbearers took it upon themselves to hasten and bury the dead weight. They did not come to God with this before making this decision. The burden of carrying the dead weight weighed on them every minute. It was at a point where they thought it was too much. When we are in the heat of the moment, we tend to make “not so good” decisions. When we are distressed and our emotions and feelings are out of control, that is not the time to make a quick and drastic decision about what to do. When there is emotional distress, we are not mentally there. We tend not to think clearly. The decisions we make at that particular moment usually end in error and lead us in the wrong direction. It leads us down a path of destruction. It takes us somewhere we weren’t meant to go. What happens afterwards is that we regret what we did after the fact. We said or did something out of the ordinary because we were in the heat of the moment. We must not act on emotions or feelings. We must take some time to collect our thoughts, put our minds in order, collect the necessary information to make good decisions. Once we have done that, we should present it to the Lord and wait for Him to instruct us on what our next step should be.

We are good at trying to handle situations ourselves. We have to give it to God. We find in the scriptures that the dead body (dead weight) is being carried out. Trying to get rid of dead weight is productive, but we are not able to do it without Jesus. Jesus hears our cries if they are sincere. We have to show him where the dead weight is so he can get it off of us. We must wait on the Lord to direct our paths. We must move when he says to move and stay still when he says to stay.

In Luke 7:14-15, it is stated that Jesus places his hands on the coffin and the son is raised from the dead. Everything that God puts in his hands is bound to change before your eyes. That dead situation has to come back to life. When you are a child of God, Jesus is always near and ready to act on your behalf. When Jesus is near, you don’t have to worry. Jesus appears and shows himself. Deadlifters stop short. They stopped and let Jesus take over. God has a destination point for all his people. We must stay put until he gives us instructions on where to go and when to move. We could miss out on a blessing if we continue to go where we want to go. The men were about to carry the dead weight out of the gates of Nain. We don’t want to move from that wounded place. If they had gone out the doors, the situation would have remained dead. But because they stayed inside the gates, a blessing came out. We must stay where the presence of God is. We must stay close to God at all times. Jesus, by his power, gives life to the dead situation. The dead weight has been lifted. God will give you your life back. We cannot allow our situations to dictate our lives and push us to a point where we act out of character and say out of character.

In Luke 7:16-17 we find something that we have learned through life’s experiences. Nothing has changed to this day. We don’t believe in God until he does something for us. Now people notice Jesus. He now he is a great prophet. Do we feel the same when he is not working miracles before our eyes? Have we forgotten what his capabilities are? The people said that God has come to help them. God will always help us if we get out of the way and let him do what he does best.

We must go to God for everything. We should not try to make decisions for ourselves, especially when emotions and feelings are running wild. He is the counselor and sometimes we need counsel in the midst of dead situations. When we make decisions ourselves and do not consult God first, we can be sure that there is a good chance that we will make a decision that will lead us down the wrong path. We must not continue carrying loads (dead weight). It will continue to overwhelm us to a point of immobilization. It will get in the way and everything God has for us will be delayed. We can all reach that goal if we depend on our Savior, Jesus Christ.