NOT Living—Compartmentalized
“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,”
(The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians 4: 1 NASB)
Last night (or rather in the wee hours of the morning), I had a dream. Faithfully, my tired and hurting back called me from my bed to my favorite blue chair where a heating pad and blanket awaited me. Once there, I dozed back into slumber, and that’s when a dream came to my subconscious.
Walk with me into custody. Yes, feel the handcuffs tightly surround your wrists behind your back. That’s where I found myself in my dream. Now, I have been one who commonly is known to exclaim: “Jail scares me,” so to dream and feel the pressure of the handcuffs surrounding my wrists should have awoken me with a fright, but I was not fearful, for in my dream, I remembered why I was taken prisoner, and I realized that I had become a prisoner—By My Choice!
Now, maybe you are reading and think I have truly lost my mind, but stay here just a moment, and I will explain.
When a prisoner is taken into custody, there is a reason, a crime that has been committed. This crime always leads to a court date with the judge who then rules upon the case. After that, the prisoner is released or incarcerated. This is the process in our justice system.
In God’s Justice, the ‘system,’ the ‘way’ works quite differently.
Yes, there is still a crime committed—AGAINST GOD—OUR SIN!
Yes, there is still a judge—ALMIGHTY GOD IS HIS NAME!
Yes, there is still a decision to be made—WILL WE RECEIVE GOD’S AMAZING GRACE? or WILL WE REMAIN LOST, STUMBLING IN THE WILDERNESS OF OUR SINS?
MAKING THE CHOICE TO ACCEPT JESUS CHANGES EVERYTHING!
The Holy Spirit led the apostle Paul to write—“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, . . .”
When the Lord caused me to awake after my dream, I was reminded of ‘WHO‘ I BELONG TO, ‘WHO‘ IS MY MASTER & of ‘WHOSE‘ I AM. That brought me GREAT PEACE.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, the LORD provides His Commandments to lead us to turn away from the evil one and turn toward Him—Almighty God.
Then, in the New Testament of the Bible, the Lord Jesus provides two Commandments to sum-up all that the LORD commanded to us. The first and greatest commandment & the second like unto it.
That’s it. God provides us a way to walk, to live, to strive within this world. God sent His Only Son Jesus to walk upon the earth in the form of a man, into the ministry God led Him to do, to call His chosen disciples, to heal the sick, to raise the dead to new life, to feed the hungry, to preach the Good News, to teach us the way we are to walk.
Jesus Christ accomplished so much within the brevity of time He walked—
- Providing the Only way to receive God’s Amazing Grace, through Him.
- Calling us to know Him in Salvation.
- Sealing us with His pledge, His seal of Salvation—His Holy Spirit.
- Preparing us for the tasks the LORD was leading us to do.
- Leading us daily toward the tasks we are to do in His name.
- Walking with us.
- Interceding for us to the Father.
- Promising to come again for us.
Never could a list be created to reveal ALL THINGS OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!
When the apostle Paul begins with the words: “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord,” he then follows up with this directive—“implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,”
As “the prisoner of the Lord,” who has called us to His Salvation, we are “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling . . .” My dream early this morning reminded me—WHOSE I AM, WHO HOLDS THE KEYS, & WHO I AM TO LIVE FOR—as I walk throughout the remainder of my life.
Christian brothers & sisters, we cannot live our lives, compartmentalized, walking spiritually throughout this situation, and walking secular throughout that situation.
So the question becomes: If we trusted God to accomplish in us what only He can accomplish, what would that kind of trust look like in us & how would others see us ‘differently’ as we walk this day as “the prisoner of the Lord, . . .” ?
How do we reach a life such as this?—NOT Living—Compartmentalized
The Word of God explains how with clarity.
“For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down,
(The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 5: 1-9 NASB)
[our earthly bodies]
we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
[our spiritual body]
For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,
inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.
For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
Therefore,
being always of good courage,
and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—
for we walk by faith, not by sight—
we are of good courage,
I say,
and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be home with the Lord.
Therefore
we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.”