Tasha Cobbs Leonard - Break Every Chain Lyrics

Video

Tasha Cobbs Leonard - Break Every Chain (Live At Passion City Church)

Meaning & Inspiration

I spent a long time thinking the noise inside my head was just the price of admission for being alive. You pick up things along the way—guilt, a temper that flares up when you’re cornered, the way you settle for half-truths because the whole ones hurt too much. By the time I crawled back, I wasn’t looking for a transformation. I was just looking for a place that wouldn’t throw me back out into the cold.

When Tasha Cobbs Leonard sings "There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain," she isn’t offering some light, airy promise you’d find on a greeting card. She’s singing about something violent. That’s what it feels like when you’re truly let go. It isn't a gentle loosening of a knot; it’s a jagged, ugly snapping of iron.

I’ve lived with the weight of my own wreckage for years. It’s a heavy, cold feeling, like rusted links dragging behind you, hitting the pavement every time you try to move forward. But that line—I hear the chains falling—that hits different when you’ve been the one tethered to the post. It’s the sound of liberation that you didn’t earn. It’s the sound of the prisoner standing in the rubble of his own cell.

In the book of Acts, when Peter is sitting in that prison, chained between two guards, he doesn’t have a plan. He doesn't have a loophole. He has the expectation of execution. Then, the light hits the cell, the chains just fall off, and the gate opens. He didn’t pick the lock; he just walked out because someone stronger than the Roman guards decided he was done being a captive.

That’s the scandal of it. I’m still standing here with the soot on my clothes, and I look at my hands—hands that have done things I’m not proud of—and the chains aren't there anymore. They’re on the floor.

People love to talk about "rising up" like it’s a shiny, organized parade. But when I hear that part of the song, I don't see an orderly battalion. I see a bunch of strays, people who look like they’ve been through a war, stumbling out of the shadows. We’re shaking off the dust, still breathing hard, still unsure if we’re actually awake, but moving anyway.

It doesn't always make sense. My life is still messy. I’m still figuring out how to live without the weight, which is harder than it sounds when the weight is all you’ve ever known. But the sound of those chains hitting the floor? That’s the only thing that’s real right now. That’s the only thing that matters. The rescue happened, even if I’m still figuring out how to walk upright.