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| Trees, 2013 |
A Spiritual Kingdom
“On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind
me a loud voice…” (Rev. 1:10 NIV). Thus began the revelation of Jesus Christ to
his servant John. Sometimes, the Spirit will use the sense of hearing to catch
our attention before the Lord reveals his will.
I began my daily walk from the
office to an Episcopal cathedral a few blocks up the street, where I usually
spent my lunch hour in prayer. Suddenly to my left, I heard a loud gun shot
coming from the roof of a parking lot. As I looked up, I saw a Caucasian man in
blue Bermuda shorts. He was intently looking over the edge of the rooftop to
the street below. Then he jumped!
Somebody called the police. They
covered his lifeless body with a sheet. In church that day, even though I was
traumatized by the incident, I cried and prayed for this stranger. Yes, he was
dead; but obviously God wanted somebody to pray for him—and that somebody was
me. Regardless of what we’ve been taught to believe—that once death comes it’s
too late to pray for that person—God is God, and he makes exceptions. For this
man, God had “mercy on whom he will have mercy” (Rom. 9:15 KJV).
God lets us hear the future so we can perform his will.
I’ve learned that the more we trust God as his Spirit leads, the more we come
to realize that words like “mercy”, “patience”, “kindness”, and “love” are less
like feelings or ideas—and more like actions!
Next time: Hearing in the Present with Cultural Roots in the Past
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Scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984
by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing
House. All rights reserved; and from the Holy
Bible, King James Version, Cambridge
1769. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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