The Unseen Guest
You have probably asked, where do pastors get the inspiration for their sermons, week in and year out, having something different to serve their audiences? Well, I guess everyone has their own ways and means, but I can tell you about one of my sources. And I can assure you that it is also available to you.
The inspiration for many of my sermons and spiritual writings have come from my morning coffee time. Most mornings, as my wife and I sit to breakfast, our conversation would move inexorably to matters of life and spirituality. She, being an able psychotherapist, and me, well, just someone trying to hone my craft as a writer and pastor, will talk about routine matters, and before I know it, spiritual revelations will begin to flow. So abundant and frequent have these spiritual downloads been, that we often joke that we should bring a notepad to the breakfast table.
But it is only recently that I began to question the source of this inspiration. Then it occurred to me that when my wife and I get together for breakfast, or for an after-walk break at our neighborhood coffee shop, there are not two, but three persons in the conversation. The third person, unseen but vitally present, is the Holy Spirit. He lives in my wife, and he lives in me, and when we get together and begin to talk about heavenly matters, deep begins to call unto deep (Ps.42:7). This is how the Spirit joins the conversation. And thus, we have fellowship in the Spirit (Phil.2:1). We hear his thoughts and speak them out, and while it may appear that these inspiring bits and bites are coming from our intellect, they are in fact his voice being projected through our thoughts and lips, in similar fashion to when he gives us utterance through gifts of tongues, interpretation, and prophecy.
Most of us love get-togethers with friends and family, and God does too. Unfortunately, he is often left standing on the outside, shut out from the party.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me (Rev.3:20).
Mostly, we use this verse as an evangelistic call out for sinners to open their hearts to Jesus. But here Jesus is speaking to the churches.
I like this presentation of Jesus because it goes contrary to that which the church has taught us. We were made to believe that God is this old man who wears a frown and waits for us to mess up so he could drop the hammer on us. Theologians couch this ghastly idea under the doctrines of the inscrutability and transcendence of God. It is not possible to know God because he is so far removed from us, shrouded in secrecy, and that it is impossible to know him because his ways are higher than ours. But the picture of Jesus standing at our doors and asking for an invitation to dinner destroys those depictions. Dinner conveys the idea, not of a business setting, but of a familial, let-down-your-hair type of gathering. Think of Jesus dropping by unannounced at the home of his friends Mary and Martha for a sip and chat and you get the picture. Remember, he is a friend that sticks closer than a brother (Prov.18:24).