The Prisoner of God

 

The Prisoner of God

 

1 John 1

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

² (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

³ That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

I always find verse 1 very interesting where John says we have handled Him as a strange thing to say.  Do we handle people?  The original in Greek means that it is taken from the root of that of playing an instrument.  The heart of it is that John is saying this Word that which was from the beginning, was so close to us, we could handle Him.  We could touch Him. How we long for just one touch from Jesus!  And strangely we have a better promise and that is Christ in us.  This was one of the great mysteries of Paul, the fact of the Mystery of Christ in us.  Every day the disciples were with Him and walked with Him.  Every opportunity they took to be with Him and walk with Him wherever He went.  In the same way that the Word was with them He is now with us, not to walk with Him, but that He now lives in us. 

Did you get the difference?  Walk versus live.  Does He live in you?  Or is He tucked away in the cupboard of your heart?  Do you have the key to the cupboard or is He free to be God in you and live in you and through you any time He so desires?  Does He have all of you to His disposal?

In Ephesians 3: 1 - 5 Paul starts with this following beautiful statement:

Ephesians 3:1-5

3 For this cause I Paul, the PRISONER of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,

² If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:

³ How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,

⁴ Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

⁵ Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

Is He your prisoner or are you His?  Because being a prisoner means to give up all of your rights.  All your rights to speak what you want to speak, when you want to and how you want to.  Has your mouth been circumcised and consecrated, that is to say set apart for Him?  To be used only by Him or do you share joint custody?  Paul is the continuation of the risen Christ as the full stature of what it means to be a Christian living from out of the Resurrection life. This is why he could say, follow me as I follow Christ.  The thought of his thoughts and the speaking of his speaking, so much so that Paul could say, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”. 

Is this the reason why God cannot trust us with the greater things, the mysteries of Christ?  Is it that we have not sufficiently seen how the seemingly insignificant in our lives, like what we speak or listen to has eternal consequences and therefore we have not died to our wills in these areas?  How much of our compromise pollutes the pure water of the Word of God coming from our mouths?  When we consider the role Paul plays as thé Apostle, we should consider that whatever formed the foundation of his life, will be necessary for our foundation so that we may be sons and daughters of the resurrection.  Or are we ascribing to what Paul stood for doctrinally, holding it as true, but it is not true in us? 

So much more is at stake than to just get it right.  What is at stake is the glory of God through His Body.  But the question is, are we willing for Him to do in us what is needed so that we may become His prisoner and for Him to become the life of our life?  This is part of Apostolic understanding that there are mysteries of God, secret hidden things that are revealed at a point of time.  To whom?  To the holy men of which Paul is the guardian and the steward of the mysteries of God.  Through the teachings of Paul we understand that He wants to make mysteries known to us, but there is a requirement.  The requirement is holiness.  We read that Paul is the guardian and the steward of these mysteries and from that mere statement it is clear that trust and faithfulness lies at the heart of receiving these revelations and mysteries.  An Apostle has a sense for the mystery and that which is hidden and we have to develop the same sense.  The holy things that are hidden and concealed to be revealed to those who respect mystery. Those who have a disposition for the yet unrevealed mysteries of God. This respect is shown in the degree that you show guardianship and stewardship over that which is shown to you as revelation.  So that you do not share it on any occasion to show how clever you are or how spiritual you are, but it is the moment that God opens your mouth to speak it, to be the speaking of your speaking.  It is at that moment that you receive such revelation that you show it the reverence, devotion and intention that it deserves before you communicate it, only to communicate it at His time.  There is a disposition of knowing the holiness and sacredness of this revelation, which comes with the grace to communicate it when the time comes.  This is a vital component of the Apostolic and Prophetic foundation and personality.  This is communication not from the earthly realm, but of a heavenly realm by the Spirit.  The milk and honey spoken of that those who have come through their wilderness experience, now live from in Canaan, just as Jesus said that man shall not live from bread (manna) alone, but from every word that comes from the mouth of God. 

Mysteries are revealed to those whom He has prepared to be Apostles and Prophets, who holds this disposition.  Why would you share your secrets with those you cannot trust?  In the same way, He builds in us that disposition to which He can trust us with His secrets.  Unto His HOLY Apostles and Prophets the hidden things, the mysteries of God is revealed to (Eph. 3: 1 – 5).  Our true disposition towards words in general is an indication of whether He should trust us or not with His mysteries.  If we are not guardians and good stewards of our idle words, how then can He entrust the mysteries of THE WORD, which is himself, to us?  He has to build that in us.  But the question is, are you willing to pay the price to become that which is needed and for as long as He deems necessary?  Even His voice is compared to many waters and by His voice He does wonders!  So that when He speaks through those chosen ones the word comes forth not only as sound and declaration, but as an event.  Something happens in the spirit and it becomes an event.  ‘As He said to Samuel that not one word of his will fall to the ground. 

Unto them who are holy the sacred things of God are revealed.  How can one be an Apostle or Prophet if he is not holy?  For one cannot separate the office of Apostle and Prophet from Priestliness.  The key to the mysteries and deep things of God is found on the Highway of Holiness.  It is by the Holy Spirit we receive these mysteries and He is Holy!   

Paul who usually starts his letters with the words, Paul, a servant of God, writes now as the prisoner of Christ to the Ephesians.  As if the stripping of being a servant is not enough, he was brought into the place of humility of being a prisoner as well.  The mysteries of God is not only found on the Highway of Holiness, but in the valleys of humility.  For how long?  Only God knows what He has prepared such a one for and how long is necessary to work in him the character of one that can be trusted, so that he can be sent.  Paul died, not behind a stage on a pedestal, but in a prison.  He carried with him the sense of being the least of all saints, not as a show of humility, but a disposition that was forged in him to be the Apostle of Christ.  Great authority is founded on great humility.  This is not something we can choose, but something that God has to work in us as we focus and daily take up our cross and be about that which He is doing in us.  And this which is forged in us is the nature of Christ.  Jesus said, learn of Me for I am lowly and meek.  This humility is also rooted and grounded in the soil of God’s love.  This is something that you are immersed into to the degree that you are immersed into God.  As Jesus prayed in John 17, “Father, that they may be one as we are one”.  This unity does not come cheaply, and it may even mean imprisonment in whatever way you are given over unto Him. 

How can He send us if that essential character is not part of us?  If he is to send, which is the root meaning of the word Apostle, to send out, if that essential character is not part of us and who we are?  If He is to send, it is not to represent ourselves, which we will inevitably do if we do not have this worked into us, but we are sent to represent the Godhead, which we are vitally united to.  He said, “Who will go for us?”  If the King came down lowly on a colt into Jerusalem, how then shall the Kingdom come?  Do not confuse meekness with weakness.

I have to interject here that this issue of being a prisoner of the Lord is a very personal issue for me as He has revealed to me on various occasions that in the time to come that I will be in prison for 3 years during the tribulation to come, in the concentration camps.  For me it is truly an issue of life or death that I consider the above because I know, just like I wrote in Backbone Foundations, that what He has worked in me in all these years, is for that purpose He has apprehended me for. Paul says the following in 

Philippians 3:10-12

¹⁰ That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

¹¹ If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

¹² Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

You see, I will have a “prison ministry”.  But where I now out of the comfort of my home can minister and be part of giving to those in prisons, I will be the one ministering in the prisons  as a prisoner in this time to come, but as a prisoner of Christ.  And those I will minister to will not just be strangers, but they will be my brother and sister, and those I now know.  There He will use me to be spent and poured out and lay my life down for those He loves so dearly.  For even in this day He is making me a Prisoner of Christ.

Where others may see doing great exploits and miracles for God by supernatural powers as the pinnacle of the time to come, there is a power that is greater than all…the power of the Love of God for the lost, the broken, the bound and the sick.  Where those who find themselves in prisons during this time, will in fact become free in Christ.

When He send out those chosen ones, they will be those who have been prepared and forged under the hand of God, and it will be the greater work Jesus have spoken of, even if it means within the confinement of walls and behind bars.  For a prison does not make the prisoner, but his disposition.  And will I be free in the liberty of Christ when in fact I am still bound by compromise and have not sufficiently given up all my rights now? 

Father has been faithful to show us types and shadows continually of those called out ones that was His prisoners both in the Old Testament and the New Testament.  We read of Samson who was captured, Joseph and the persecution His prophets endured.  In the New Testament we find John the Baptist, and His disciples that suffered the same fate.  And then there was Paul, the prisoner of God.  Not just a prisoner, but the prisoner of God.  In the same way we have our more modern prisoners like the Richard Wurmbrandts and Dimitri Dudumans, Brother Yun and Corrie Ten Booms.  There are thousands more that have found themselves as prisoners of the Lord.  Not prisoners of this world or its system, but of the Lord.  These He has sent before us to teach us that as the sent out ones there is an ultimate price to pay.  The price you pay starts now and it finds it maturation in the prisons of God.  I am not saying we are all going to prison.  I am saying just like those who have gone before us, it may very well be.  When they come to get me, I will willingly go, not as their prisoner, but His.  For I am already a captive of Him.  There to speak the mysteries of God to the broken, the bound and sick. 

This is why Father repeatedly say that we are to focus, because now is that which He is working in us, so that we may be sent out.  Jesus said to His disciples, as My Father has sent me, so I now send you.  Once again I ask, “Are you a Prisoner of God?”

A quote from Richard Wurmbrandt, Author of the Book of Tortured for Christ.

"Christians are meant to have the same vocation as their King, that of cross-bearers.  It is this concscience of a high calling and of partnership with Jesus which brings gladness in tribulations, which makes Christians enter prisons for their faith with the joy of a bridegroom entering the bridal room."

"God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love."

Please Read:

Isaiah 61: 1 - 4

61 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

² To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

³ To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

⁴ And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.