Nothing can stop prayer (Part 5)
Verse of the day: Acts 16:32 “Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house”
Today, we end the teaching of the week and I prefer not to finish without showing by a biblical example how God can realize His perfect plan in a prison.
Some Christians can easily judge someone who passes through a period of trials as if he is in it because of sin. We tend to believe that if someone has a good relationship with God, everything must be successful, he is supposed to not face opposition on his way, the spiritual prison is not for him, he cannot be sick…but my experience with the Lord helped me to understand that God can allow that we can be in a spiritual prison in order to transform us and realize His will in our lives. The devil can hope to bind you in a prison for later understand that he contributed to the fulfillment of the will of God. That’s what happened when he thought he crucified Jesus although it was the way by which the world would be saved.
The biblical illustration that I will give you tells us about Paul and Silas who found themselves in a prison because they were proclaiming the good news of Jesus. Not only they were in prison but they were severely guarded and their feet were fastened in the stocks (Acts 16:23-24). The bible tells us that while they were praying and singing hymns to God, the prison doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose (Acts 16:25-26).
Still in the same prison, they preached the jailer by telling him about the love of God and Jesus who’s the way to salvation and finally he got converted (in the prison). The same jailer received them at his household, he washed their wounds and the verse of the day tells us that Paul and Silas spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house and on verse 33 it’s said that he and all his household were baptized (Acts 16:33).
For those who didn’t know, that’s how the church of Philippe was born and we can see how Paul praised them in the book of Philippians. In God’s plan, Paul and Silas had to go to jail and be bound so that the jailer and his entire region would discover Jesus-Christ.
Therefore, do not ask God why you are in a spiritual prison, but ask him what to do for the chains to fall and how you could pass through the first and the second gate so that the iron gate could open by itself.
Chris Ndikumana
