“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them!”  Matth.18:20

“The Lord is there!”  (Ezek. 48:35)

”Are you closing up well?  Or shall I help you?”  I put this “sociable” question to several new faces that showed up yesterday for our open, weekly Bible reading and free talk – and “close fellowship”. 

What a blessing to see some religious indifferent people, some church goers and non-church goers, catholic people, traditional denomination friends, etc. coming to our very modest home.  A new neighbor, a lady with some frailties, suddenly  showed up too.  “Oh, let me give you a neighbor hug”, I warmly welcomed her. 

With my wife as the sweet hostess and her Christmas cookies in a Christmas decorated sitting room we had a perfect setting for a fine, informal gathering, but the centre of gravity was the living word of God under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, whose aim is always to glorify Christ. (There´s no such thing as a “social gospel”.  Sociability and the free course of God´s word go perfectly together, don´t they?)

We don´t have a big mansion anymore, nor do we gather in well-appointed parlors, and yet we don´t want to change places with the queen´s castle.  I remember I often joked about that to an old widow I used to see at an old age home.  Her room was extremely modest, but we couldn´t help laughing when we talked in those terms, for we often felt the presence of the Lord and the room filled with his glory.  We even had communion together.  As I showed up one day, she was not there anymore.  She had been promoted to the eternal glory to the glorious parlors of Heaven in the presence of Christ.

A lady said in the phone, “My husband and I want to visit you!”  I said, “You are more than welcome, please come along together with other visitors every Thursday.” -  “But we want to have you for ourselves”, she said. “Well, I´m afraid that´s not possible, but why don´t you come for our Bible fellowship, and then afterwards we may talk.”  But that wasn´t attractive enough to them.

The atmosphere is calm, respectful, receptive.  My opening prayer is always a quiet, but heartfelt invocation for the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit, and it´s so interesting and exciting to see how He and He only can open up the word and thoughts centered around the gospel, and I hope to learn the Pauline principle of a dialogue ministry (Acts 17:17 – the Greek word used here has to do with “dialogue”), for a learner I am only.

Because of the Christmas and the New Year soon coming, our next gathering will not be till Jan. 5, 2011.  Oh, how we look forward to that, and how “empty” and desolate our home will be till then!  

What about going to church on Sundays? You may ask.  Indeed, the various church buildings are there.  We go there and participate in the singing of our old treasured hymns.  

But still it´s true what a brother in the States once pointed out, “The first Christians met in the homes and they will probably end up there too…”

I believe he had a point.

Dec. 16, 2011 – jn