Jailbreak!

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You are reading the daily devotion from Notreligion.


May 23, 2007
Key Passage: Acts 16:16-40
Topic: Salvation; Faith/Trust
Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household" (Acts 16:30-31, ESV).

There are a lot of sounds you'd expect to hear in prison in the middle of the night, and none of them are good. So you can imagine how surprised the inmates and guards of the Philippian jail were the night Paul and Silas showed up. Instead of moaning and groaning, cursing or wailing; these men sang!

Maybe the other prisoners deserved to be there, maybe not. In any event, life probably wasn't fun anymore. They may have been bound like Paul and Silas, unable to move. Deep in the "inner prison," they were shut away from any light. Perhaps they had reached a point of despair.

But the songs and prayers of Paul and Silas must have brought renewed hope. For the first time in a long time these men thought of freedom and the good things in life. They wanted to be saved.

Here we see a physical example of a spiritual process--being saved.

Before we meet Christ, we're all bound in chains, unable to experience life the way it's meant to be.

But just as the prisoners set free when the jail in Philippi was shaken by an earthquake that night, so Jesus is waiting to set your heart free.

If the jailor's question is yours, "What must I do to be saved?" the answer is still the same.

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31, ESV).


© 2008 NotReligion |

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This morning as I read this I was impressed that there is another aspect to what was written. There are many kinds of jails or prisons in the real world and there are just as many within me. It never ceases to amaze me just how effective and practical God's word is. In a recent post by IO Storm, she said:

I was afraid. I was reminded

tonight by a sermon by Deborah Dukes about Job..that God inhabits

the praises of His people, to praise regardless of the circumstances,

and "you can't take a worshipper out!"
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"God holds me still in the eye of the Storm"

Prayers of supplication when I am asking for something are fine and necessary. God wants us to ask Him for help and for thing we need or want, but prayers of humility, confession, surrender, praise and worship offer benefits to me that I find lately I cannot do without.

The kind of praise & worship described in this devotion requires some faith and a good dose of trust- but it really does break me out of my prison of self-pity, sadness, grief or whatever thing that can keep me imprisoned at a particular time.

Today, I am thankful to know that God wants to release me from my own prison, and with His help and by following His ways I find serentity and freedom!