Paul: Prisoner to the Will of the Spirit

An effective and disciplined soldier is a product of disciplined training which includes the proper use of weapons, submission to authority and obedience to command. Then after training he is entrusted with weapons. God always had the power necessary to defeat the enemy we face, and He is not weak. He has not, however, had a people ready for His power.
As the consummation of all things draws near, God in His great mercy is doing a work with an ordained and predestined people. He is bringing them into complete submission, digging out every bit of rebellion, every spirit that opposes God and exalts itself. He makes us prisoners of Jesus Christ. Let us stop fretting about the confinement, the wilderness testing, and submit to the dealings of God for the hour (Hebrews 12:1-6). We cannot be the tool God will work with to bring the world to submission if we are not first broken, perfected and matured for use.
The Apostle Paul sat in his prison cell working carefully on the scroll as he penned a letter to his friend Philemon. This was a special letter for it was being written under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit and would eventually find its place in the Scriptures as part of God’s inspired written Word. The first few words of greeting from this Apostle of God were simply: “Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ”. These words, coming from Paul himself, had a great significance. Paul had learned what it was to be a prisoner of Jesus.
He knew what it was to sit on the backside of the Arabian desert for years with the light of the Truth burning in his heart like the noon day sun, while a lost world perished in darkness. He learned to be disciplined under the ministry of a local church in Antioch until the Spirit gave the word through them for him to “Go”. He had felt the harness of the Spirit about him to the extent that he was “forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6). He had been through the training of being bound to the will of God to the extent that when “they assayed to go into Bithynia; …the Spirit suffered them not” (Acts 16:7).
He had become so disciplined to speaking only the word of the Lord that, when in Acts 16 a young demon-possessed girl followed them day after day crying out after them, Paul answered not a word until the Spirit moved upon him to speak and deliver the girl. On his way to Jerusalem in Acts 20:19 he tells how prophecy came to him from prophets in every city telling of the bonds and afflictions that were awaiting him in Jerusalem. In response he said, “None of these things move me” for he was committed to the will of God. He was a prisoner of Jesus Christ and could no longer make his own decision or choose his own course or run his own life. He was disciplined to the will of the Spirit.
Each hour of the day we must choose to obey God. When we submit to God, we shall have to submit to those around us who are in authority over us. Only in this way will we show that we are really submitting to God. What people do to us to hurt us are things God uses to break us. In this way He will make us even deeper channels for the life of Christ to flow out to others.