About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them
Acts 16:25
Wherever Jesus is worshiped, there you will find the truth.
As Paul and Silas are in dank prison, they live in what everybody would agree is a horrible place. It is dark, it is dirty, and surrounded by pests and disease. The omen of death looms in that place.
Yet here they are praying and singing hymns to God with joy. They are unperturbed by the hell around them. It is as if they are an in alternate universe.
It is because they are.
Wherever Jesus is exalted, adored, and honored, a world is created that invades our own. A portal of heaven is opened. And in that space heavenly realities trump our own perceptions of the “truth”.
Where there was fear, there is now love. Where there was worry, there is now peace, Where there was hate, there is now forgiveness. These are realities in the courts of heaven and so when worship is conducted, those realities invade our own.
In that destitute prison, Paul and Silas sang their hearts out and heaven answered. It answered with joy, power, and then an earthquake (v26). His presence is the alternate universe which speaks only the truth.
The truth declares the God is King of the earth, that he is in control, that he reigns as lord over all, and that his love and his passion for the people are earth are still driving his purposes forward.
Yet It today feels our world is drowning in everything but the truth. Without access to it, it runs around like sheep without a shepherd.
But God’s people have the privilege of lifting up their voices wherever they are, to shelter themselves from the flood of untruths, and to instead bathe themselves in the truths of heaven.
So lift up your voices, people of God! Echo the sounds of worship from wherever you are!
For in every space where Jesus is exalted, every emotion, feeling, and promise released from that space is the truth. Golden as the sun. A truth for which a person will sell everything they have to hold it. In the desert that is our world, that truth is not a well, but a flood, a running river!
I am at home dancing in that river. What are you dancing in?
