Sunday: I Feel God Everywhere
WEEK 13
SUNDAY
I FEEL GOD EVERYWHERE
Romans 12:1-2
Before we leave this mastery of the material by the spiritual, by making them both serve the same ends, we must apply this lesson to ourselves.
Someone has said our greatest need is to have the “spiritual mind in the man of the world.” A Christian judge in India used to spend an hour in devotion from four to five, then still kneeling would write the court case judgments of the day. He tried to translate divine justice into terms of courtroom justice. When a Brahmin lawyer got out of hand one day, and the judge said, “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to fine you for contempt,” the lawyer replied, “Sir, if you fine me, I’ll take it as the very judgment of God; for when you speak, God speaks.” This same judge told me how the Spirit guided him to correct decisions. In one case the evidence was conflicting. He started to write in favor of the plaintiff when the Spirit whispered: “Why don’t you look at the similarity of that handwriting?” He did and found a forgery, and wrote the verdict for the defendant. And he found he was right. Don’t tell me that is a secular job; it’s sacred when done in this sacred way. The renowned British preacher, John Henry Jowett (1863–1923), told of a man who before conversion was a burglar, and when Jowett asked him what happened when he received the power of the Spirit, he replied: “I feel God everywhere.” That’s it. There is no more secular when one is possessed of the Holy Spirit. Everything is sacred, for we see and feel God in everything.
Stephen and his group of seven were not supposed to do evangelistic work, but to serve tables. They lifted the secular into the sacred and became more effective as evangelists than the apostles who were supposed only to preach the Word. “They couldn’t resist the wisdom the Spirit gave [Stephen] as he spoke” (Acts 6:10). His spirit and the Spirit had become one in a so-called secular job.
And the interesting thing is that the only person in the New Testament called an evangelist was Philip (Acts 21:8). He was not supposed to do evangelistic work!
O Lord, I thank you that you can help me to lift everything I do today with a new spirit—your Spirit—and then I shall make all things new. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall take the eternal and show it in every passing event of time.