Sand Mountain Sermonette 68
Revelation 22:17 ;John 6:44; Acts 16
Wedding Surprise!
“And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” Revelation 22:17
My mother once told me of something I said in the presence of she and my father and a company of other folks in Nashville, Tennessee, a long time ago. I was about four years old and my parents, who loved the Grand Ol’ Opry, took me with them to the original Opry house for a special weekend together. I still remember sitting in the back of the old Opry house eating Borden’s vanilla ice cream from a little plastic cup with a wooden spoon; the pull-top lid featuring “Elsie the Cow.” And I still remember my mom purchasing a package of plastic sea creatures such as an octopus and a shark that I played with in the hotel bathroom sink.
But what I didn’t remember was something my mom told me about many years later when they were window shopping one evening in downtown Nashville during our trip. At one point we found ourselves in front of a bridal shop and the three of us stopped so mother could browse over a beautiful wedding gown on display in the store’s front window. And as she was doing so, she said I said out loud so everyone walking down the sidewalk or standing near the bridal store could hear, “Mother there’s just one thing about it, I hope you and daddy never get married! And mother said she told my dad right then and there she didn’t know what in the world made me say that! She was embarrassed, but she loved me!
Today, God is still calling people to enter and serve in His kingdom! And the apostle John who is revealing to us the revelation He received of the Lord on the island of Patmos in the first century, is very clear when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in the Twenty-first Century. It is the work of both the Holy Spirit and the bride (the body of Christ upon the earth, the church): the Inward and the Outward call of God upon the heart.
The question you must answer as I have had to answer, is: “Is my heart open to the work of the Spirit?” For although a Christian pastor or someone else may share about the real hell and the wonders of the real heaven which are described in the Bible for example, you will not truly come to Christ until the Spirit is drawing you; until the Spirit says, “Come.” Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me, draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” In Acts 16, we have the beautiful story of a businesswoman named Lydia to whom Paul shared outwardly the message of the good news of Jesus, and re “whose heart the Lord opened” resulting in her embracing the gospel as a free gift, as “living water” via of God’s grace, and her life was transformed for Christ that day.
Has your heart been nudged by the Spirit and by the outward call to come to Christ? I urge you in love and prayer to keep your heart open to the still small voice of God who loves you so! He will receive you as the old hymn reads, ‘Just as I am.”
Pastor Louie