This writing is taken from a Spiritual Foundation’s class assignment that I recently completed. I apologize for any confusing references. The assignment is in response to Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s essay Life Together reprinted in Richard Foster and James Smith’s Devotional Classics.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of the existence of Christian community in and through Jesus Christ. A key aspect of that community is its interaction and communication within itself. Christian writers often discuss communications in terms of evangelism, but edification is another important (though oft times ignored) facet of communications. Communications within the community may be taken for granted as something that we know just happens. However, the writer of Hebrews suggested a more deliberate approach when he wrote “and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds…”[1] We should take time to purposefully consider how to share Christ’s good news to other members of our community as a means of encouraging one another to continue to run the good race.
The infrequent nature of Christians purposely encouraging Christians is suggested, perhaps unintentionally, in the reflection questions that we were asked to consider in this reading. Reflect on the assignment again, “Describe a time when God used someone else to speak to you.” The tone of the statement suggests that one must think back through one’s personal experience and search for an example. However, this should be such a natural part of our community’s environment that it would be difficult think of anytime that God had not spoken to me through another. As we tune our hearing to the sound of the Shepherd’s voice, I believe that we will recognize that God is speaking to us through others.
Personally, I have been blessed over the past few years by God working on my life to cause me to desire to hear His voice. My wife introduce me to Kay Arthur’s book Lord I Want to Know You, a devotional study on the names of God. God spoke to me through my wife and Kay, and reassured that He is God of every situation that I will ever encounter. He renewed my thirst for knowing Him more deeply. What followed was the opportunity that God delivered to grow my relationship to Him. I received an e-mail advertisement for seminary studies and enrolled in a Spiritual Formations class. The first assignment was to work through Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God. Once again, God revealed the importance of His Word, prayer, people and circumstance. Henry explained how God speaks through those things to reveal Himself, share His purpose and show His will to His children. God continues to communicate through people during our conversations, through letters and messages, and through newsletters and books. Should we shut ourselves off from community, we would miss a major avenue to hear the voice of God. However, through community we experience His great love by loving one another. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis described a lady spirit who reflected the Father’s love through Christ to the community around her. He wrote “Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”[2]
In Him,
Dan
www.noblepurposeministries.org
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[1] Hebrews 10:24, (NIV).
[2] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, (San Francisco: Harper, 1946), 120.
