I was once the guest of an evangelist and his family in England. They invited me with the words, ”We like to hear what the Lord is doing with you”.  Those words have often recurred to me because of their relevance. So what is the Lord doing with you? 

It´s pretty sad when the question to Christian friends, “What is on your heart at the moment?  What are you burning for?” – is usually answered with this one word of chilling laconism, “Nothing!”

After the church service we have coffee and goodies, but very few self-experienced testimonies are given.  The “coffee fellowship” is often confined to polite exchange of “How are you doing?” phrases.  Our hostile  opponents would often charge us with apathy and idle minds.

The Spirit-filled life with Christ is different.  The soldiers´ diaries from the battle fields are not idle, empty pages, nor is that the case with the soldiers of Christ.  Oh, the wounds are many, their defeats too, but by His grace they are still enabled to witness of “all the travail that had come upon them by the way, and how the Lord delivered them!”  (Ex 18:8).

The German Bible rendering has a fascinating feature.  In the prophetic books we read again and again, “the word of the Lord came…” In German it says, “Das Wort des Herrn geschah!”  which means, “The word of the Lord happened!” – Indeed, our relationship to the word of God is not a dry theological, mental process, but rather exciting ongoing events!

From his prison in Rome the apostle wrote, “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out unto the furtherance of the gospel!”  (Phil. 1:12).

In his personal testimony to his Jewish friends he said “And it came to pass”, i.e. it happened. (Acts 22:6).  And it went on happening with this simple objective, “The furtherance of the gospel!”  May our lives, too, be eventful gospel happenings!

October 2, 2015 - jn