Right now ministerially we can find ourselves thrust into an inner prison like Paul and Silas.

Paul’s enemies were not the non believers it was the Jews. They hated him with a passion because he was intelligent rabbi who knew to demolish a religious argument. They hated him because they were fighting a reality in which the physical Temple had been transcended from physical to spiritual.

Yesterday I published a message concerning the change of priesthood between the Abiathar and Zadok. 

Change is never smooth. There is a resistance from the so called “establishment” who want to keep things as business as usual. 

Paul and Silas were not just imprisoned but they were taken to a prison within a prison. And for many of us in ministry the current system of Church has done that as doctrinal and Biblical Christianity is being replaced with a experiential and superficial expression where meetings have become shows than spiritual liturgical movements that bring a divine response. 

We know that our situation is impossible. We know darkness and isolation. But I think their solution of the high praises was not merely a exercise but more a process. 

I have had circumstances personally where hospital was my daily abode. Where sickness and crisis were my daily expectation.  It seems I am thrust within my inner prison where instead of flying around doing what is perceived as being successful. I am in the inner darkness of chains and restriction.  

I was on route to a meeting with a consultant when on a busy motorway where I was doing 120kph on a busy day when my wheel come off. Even in that situation I must draw on my “inner tabernacle ” to make sense of it all. This being a sequence of events which had lasted in 2013 being a summer of hospital.

So the high praises that drew divine response is not merely a mechanism but a culmination where we draw upon the deep cultivation of union with God. We come into high praises because we climb up into a greater understanding that despite our inner prison we are sustained by God who has all the answers. 

Our focus turns away from ourselves to Him and we minister to Him not paying attention to our pain or our darkness. 

Paul did not blame Silas nor vice versa. They both understood that to continue they must together draw upon supernatural resources. Their focus was not escaping prison but that God be seen and Glorified. 

The response was shaking and chains fell off and doors opened. So much so that all who were in the same prison also were freed. 

God is about to open our inner prison. But our high praises is not just a mechanism but a lifestyle. 

Shalom!!