ENGAGED!

ENGAGED!

When a boy and a girl are serious about their long-term relationship, they get 'Engaged'!

The ring is round, it has no end: So is my love, to you dear friend!

Imagine a baby in a pregnant woman's womb. While it is growing, it keeps moving around with the amniotic fluid in the womb. As the baby grows, the movements gradually get restricted. Then when the pregnancy is full term, the baby gets in position, moves towards the birth canal and the head gets partly into the top of the bony birth canal. Once in this position, the baby cannot move around other than moving its limbs. This positioning is referred to as 'Engaged'!

When the head of the baby in the womb is engaged, the signal is that labour can begin anytime! It is as though the baby says to itself, "Now I am going to be serious about the direction I am to take. I am plunging head down, down the narrow path, on a difficult journey, until I am released into space and liberty!

Therefore, 'Engaged' means, 'Committed and No turning back.'

For the baby about to be born, it is an upside down travel - head down, heart higher and feet up! It is truly a journey of faith. When the process of labour begins, the strong uterine muscles start contracting. There is progressive increase in frequency and strength of the contractions. It almost appears that the uterus becomes a hand, squeezing the baby and moulding it into shape while dilating the birth canal and pushing the little child out of its comfortable temporary home of nine months! 

The baby simply has to be relaxed and yielded to be delivered. It is important that it is not entangled by the umbilical cord. The very cord that sustained the baby's life can become the greatest danger during labour and delivery, entangling and ensnaring and hindering the baby's safe birth!

The very moment the child is born, its environment around and its respiratory system within, is dramatically changed!

We will imagine this same child grown and making a decision to accept the LORD JESUS. At that point his or her spiritual journey begins. The individual's spiritual growth is like the growth of the fetus in the womb. JESUS increases in his or her life. 

As the end of his or her life approaches, it becomes like the baby's difficult journey down the birth canal. There is accelerated moulding, squeezing and pushing towards refining and perfection. The earthly things that gave sustenance and comfort shouldn't be allowed to become snares. There has to be a letting go of earthly things and yielding to the Holy Spirit and resting in Him. We were born empty handed and we have to die empty handed. At the time of death or rapture, there is a sudden release into a completely new life, unimaginable, unrestricted, and immensely glorious!! If birth is beautiful, for a Christian, death is glorious!

 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, "Peace and safety!" then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.
1 Thessalonians 5:1-6

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
1 Timothy 6:6-10  

No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
2 Timothy 2:4 

 
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."
1 Corinthians 15:50-54 

'In that day,' says the Lord of hosts, 'I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel,' says the Lord, 'and will make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you,' says the Lord of hosts."
Haggai 2:23

 You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, as you please, in the king's name, and seal it with the king's signet ring; for whatever is written in the king's name and sealed with the king's signet ring no one can revoke." 
Esther 8:8 

 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. 

Isaiah 43:1