Essays in Ephesians #17

I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles . . . Ephesians 3:1 – 2

Can you identify with imprisonment—for any reason? If not in jail, have you ever felt caged in by illness or depression, a limiting job or a controlling system? Do you know what it’s like to feel bound, blocked-up and inhibited by others or by your own thoughts, feelings and habits? I do. Recently, many of us felt imprisoned by covid isolation.

Quite often our awareness of feeling trapped is the Holy Spirit’s alert to make a change and seek God’s freedom. Countless men and women, however, are like Paul. They willingly accept imprisoning circumstances on behalf of others. Think of the husband or wife who chooses to care for a chronically ill spouse, the parents who opt to care for their challenged child, the breadwinner who sacrifices his or her interests and skills to provide for others. They all remind me of Richard Lovelace’s poem “To Althea, from Prison”.

Stone walls do not a prison make
or iron bars a cage

Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free. . .

Lovelace found freedom in imprisonment by centering his mind on his love and loyalty to his sweetheart, Althea, and to King Charles I. But Paul found a far more stable and enduring freedom in his love for Jesus Christ. That same freedom is available to you and me today. Sadly, we don’t always know how to access the confident freedom that Jesus died to secure for us. Telling myself that, “Stone walls do not a prison make” or repeating

 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

didn’t always help me when I worked in a filthy factory for money to feed my children or when trauma and losses knocked me off my feet and I fell into a cage walled with grief. Coming out of that season, I was shut-in by unseen enemies—gossip, judgments, other’s expectations and my own damaged thought patterns. I needed emotional healing and Bible truth to renew my mind. As I learned to depend on Jesus, the Holy Spirit began to give me tastes of the grace that saturated Paul. God gave me moments of freedom through difficult circumstances—never by my own willing, but always by His grace alone. Can anyone relate?

A look at Paul’s life can build our faith and hope. It can lift our vision to see the greatness of our freedom in Christ Jesus. His thoughts were centered on the Lord. His calling, to bring Jesus’s freedom and love to the Gentiles, was not stopped by his imprisonment in Rome’s pagan Caesar-worshipping culture. He lived and died to share the good news that

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day. 1 Corinthians 15: 3b-4

God is calling us to follow Paul as he followed Jesus. He is calling us to live in freedom. By our identification with Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection we can show others that, by God’s grace, we are

justified by faith. We know peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Abiding in Jesus, we receive His vey own faith and grace. We stand in that grace and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:1(adapted)

Paul accessed this amazing grace of God by faith. He stood in his circumstances with his mind set on Jesus. He rejoiced in God’s blessing, glory, grace and inheritance. In the first part of his letter to the Ephesians he wrote that we are

blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.  Ephesians 1:3

Paul didn’t ignore his chains, but he didn’t focus on them. The blessings, power and glory that lived within Jesus mattered to Paul far more to him than imprisonment. God’s glory had struck him blind on the road to Damascus; it opened his eyes to eternal truth when the Spirit lifted him up into Heaven. Jesus’s glory-life lived within the temple of his own human heart.

Paul’s victory is not beyond our reach; we have very same Holy Spirit that once filled Paul. The Holy Spirit calls us, like Paul, to live in

the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. Ephesians 1:19-21

Twenty centuries later, in a materialistic culture that historians call post-Christian, we’re surrounded with those whose thoughts and feelings are far removed from the greatness, the power and the glory of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. “Oh,” we hear, “I don’t feel or see this glory. How can this be real?” In a culture where the validity of feelings is exaggerated, some trust in their doubts more than in reasonable evidence and others confuse a short-lived euphoria or emotional high for the totally-other life-sustaining glory of God. Trusting their deceptive thoughts and feelings, hungry seekers turn to faith in science and faith in themselves. The more spiritually minded seek meaning in pagan spirituality and occult religions.

Many in our frightened, hungry world are ripe for the full freedom found in God’s glory. The Holy Spirit is urging believers like you and me to grow-up, to show the world God’s loving grace and power. Jesus wants His Holy Spirit to fill our human lives. He promised that He would never leave us or forsake us. His presence can go with us always. Our longing for this reality is not just an American ‘show-me’ instinct; it’s a God given desire. Jesus died to give us  Himself in the power of His Holy Spirit.

Lord help us listen! Your Holy Spirit is stirring within the Body of Christ—calling us to wake-up and grow-up. Urging us to turn off our televisions, computers and gadgets, to let go of all that is hindering our walk with the Lord and to include Him in all our wandering thoughts and desires. The Holy Spirit wants to fill us to overflowing with God’s love. He wants to lead us into joyous, glorious union with Jesus and our Father in Heaven. He wants us to show His love to the world He died to save. After all, Jesus said,

I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one—I in them and You in Me—that they may be perfectly united, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them just as You have loved Me. John 17: 22-23

God’s plan is uniquely fitted to each one of us. He wants us to ask His Spirit to work in and through us regardless of any and all limitations. Hie is with us today through all the constraints of our human condition. Safe in His love, united with our Father through union with Jesus, we can always, like Paul and Jesus, live in overcoming freedom and love.

Lord. Help us live in Your love today.
May it be so strong and real that the world might see Jesus.