What The Spirit Says … 01 Prelude

He’s my brother in Christ for real and he’s my Captain. I refer to him as my captain because I’m impressed with the way God has granted him wisdom and insight to galvanise others in the faith as he pursues others in the faith. So you’ll go with me that he’s my Captain.

So, my Captain was looking at the state of affairs in this country during the last year or so. He looked at how indivuduals responded. He looked at how families responded. He looked at how the state responded. He looked at how businesses responded. He looked at how communities responded. Then he carefully considered how the church responded.

Situations like the ones that have happened over the last year or so has given a good opportunity for the church to understand its identity and live it out more than ever before. Did it do that? different people will have different experiences based on their interactions or lack thereof. The different experiences come from different perspectives that people can have about the church. Yet there can be no doubt that events and developments have challenged the church as to its identity, its purpose and its function.

This same Captain was led to consider what the Spirit was saying to the churches in the time when John made a note that we know as the book of Revelation. Not because the circumstances are similar as such. The churches that John were writing to faced very different challenges to the ones of today. External pressures and internal pressures that we read of that perhaps some can relate to, but isn’t the universal definition of the state in which the church exists. Yet as we listen to Jesus speaking to those seven churches there is something that still pertains to the nature of church today.

There is something worthwhile in appreciating what the Spirit said to the churches then and how we hear that today. It is the opening of an ongoing unveiling of what God is saying to the world through Jesus Christ. That is certainly a search worth going through on another occasion, but for the time being, the intention of this Bible exploration is to listen carefully to what the Spirit says to the churches – and not just listening to confirm our ears functions, but listening to humble ourselves and respond in the way pleasing to the One speaking.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden