Musings:11/30/09, On Being Sealed, by John

Ephesians 1:13,1400

"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory."

I remember my mother explaining to me why a pint jar of home-canned green beans spoiled. The top of that jar swelled and looked like it might pop open any minute. She told me that when she canned it, she must not have sealed it before some bacteria got into the jar, or maybe the top wasn't tight enough to begin with. I've thought a lot about how things are sealed since then, and I wondered a lot about canned goods because I've seen cans swollen and looking as if they might explode. Periodically we have removed cans from our community food pantry because they were swollen and leaking. We certainly did not want the food we gave to people to make them sick!

I read about how the canning business was wonderfully changed when a man in the Campbell Soup Company started sealing the soup cans before they were cooked. That insured no living bacteria would be in that can. I'm sure that has to be done under tremendous pressure, and pressure-cooking revolutionized the business of canning.

I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful if no bacteria could get into canned stuff anyway? Food would last forever, I guess. Then it occurred to me that there is one seal that keeps all pollution out. It's God's Holy Spirit. The difference is our "Seal" is living! He's the eternal Spirit of God, and He is constantly protecting us from the pollution of satanic powers. No matter where we are, or what's going on around us, He keeps that seal perfect! It will carry us all the way into the very presence of our Wonderful Counselor, the Almighty God!

All of that passage of Scripture is wonderful, but I think too often when we read it we don't even think about the Spirit as our Seal taking us into the heavenly realms in Christ. It's wonderful to be "included in Christ." But it is equally wonderful to be kept by the Spirit! I think there's a difference in being "sealed" and in being filled with the Spirit. We do sin, and while we sin, I'm sure we aren't filled with the Spirit, but we are still sealed by Him. On occasion, we may be aware that God's Spirit is empowering us in a special way: We know we are filled with the Spirit when that happens. Those mountain top experiences are nearly always followed by valley experiences, but on the mountain, or in the valley, we are still sealed to the very day of redemption!

Paul was beaten and left for dead. He was shipwrecked and barely escaped with his life. He was jailed once, imprisoned at least once, maybe three times and in it all, he could say, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Ephesians 4:13. Many people think that means any good Christian can move mountains whether he has the faith to do it or not, but that idea does not fit the context. Paul was talking to Ephesians about being in need of physical things, and being surfeited with physical things. He was simply saying he was content in the Lord no matter what his earthly situation was. All of us, whether we have great faith, or not, should be able to say the same thing because God's Seal, the Holy Spirit, is with us every moment of time as the saying goes, "24/7!"