(Picture shows Pastor Ralph Winans standing on right, with congregants at South Haven, MI 1946, including members of this writer's immediate family).
Bonds and afflictions neither deterred Paul nor dampened his enthusiasm. God’s blessings upon Paul’s life robustly exercised his growing faith and excised his assaulting doubts that would otherwise destroy him. Paul blessed the Lord with vigor, in spite of the potholes that pitted the highway he traveled. His daily experiences provided him assurance of God’s faithful and fortifying friendship (2 Timothy 4:17).
Thus, Paul assured fellow believers, “You know how I was with you the whole time serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials” (Acts 20:18-20 NASV).
“Bound in spirit” wrote Paul, “I am on my way to Jerusalem.” He did not know what would happen in Jerusalem, but he knew he was God’s messenger. He knew that he was on God’s call list and that his life revealed an extension of God‘s grace. Paul also knew he carried a significant offering for impoverished Saints in Jerusalem.
When I read how Paul carried good news everywhere he went, I sense his hopeful anticipation. In my mind, I hear Paul softly humming a familiar melody that renuinds me, “I’m going higher, yes, higher someday …”1 His encounter with Christ while en route to Damascus had revealed a Savior who never encountered a sin he could not forgive, a guide that accompanied him everywhere he went.
Paul’s example helps us assimilate others into God’s fellowship as our brothers and sisters in the his Family of Faith. When our leaps of faith stretch our abilities, as often times happens, we know we need not fail, for his Spirit reveals the way to us.
Paul modeled an informed life that reminds us that living for Jesus means more than simply singing the joyful music of happy hymns. Paul’s life revealed a God that personally fortifies individual lives and enables us to press forward on the high road of faithful service, while still trudging along faithfully in the worst of circumstances.
By following Paul’s example, we can face our own contemporary encounters victoriously and keep our relational channels free of extenuating hindrances. When faced with his most challenging circumstances, Paul nevertheless experienced the warmth of God’s presence and never lost hope.
“Bound in the Spirit,” describes more than a new doctrine, or a strange teaching; it reveals God’s Holy Spirit residing as an internal presence--a Comforter –a daily companion fortifying and affirming Paul’s daily witness.
After Paul discovered Jesus as the only ONE who never met a sinner from whom he willfully withheld grace, Paul spent his remaining days sharing Jesus as God’s eternal conduit. In Jesus, Paul had discovered God’s “only begotten” ONE OF A KIND—God’s eternal conduit of divine grace.
This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com
calling all of us to follow the example of Paul's life and ministry and invest our own lives in others by serving as extensions of God’s conduit of divine grace.
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1 Herbert Buffum, “I’m Going Higher,” Al Smith Collection of Best Loved Solos from Singspiration, Inc. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1956).
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