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VOL VII  NO. 12  DECEMBER  2006

REV. ROBERT KELLEY

 


Spiritual Reality Is The Reality! - Part I

 

Rev. Robert Kelley is the founder and president of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and pastored the St. Mark Baptist Church of Portland, Oregon at the time this was published.

  

(Editor´s Note: This article is a post-script to the recently concluded May-November article, "The Renewing Of Our Minds.")

 

If experience serves, I know that a number of men who read the article, The Renewing Of Our Minds, blew it off as so much "religious talk."  Some were even highly offended that I dared to suggest that God would use any aspect of the black experience as punishment of our sins and somehow let responsible white folk off the hook for the evil things done (and being done) to our people.  I understand that no matter what I say, some will never accept the Bible Christian worldview.  However, out of love, I write this article to be sure that after over 140 years since slavery´s end, the interested, but not yet convinced get a little more information with which to make up their minds.

 

Genesis 1:1 reports, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," (NKJV).  Among many powerful truths, this passage teaches that God exists outside of physical reality for He created the physical universe!  Jesus Christ declares, '"God is Spirit,"' (John 4:24a, NKJV).  Indeed, He is the great "I Am," the eternal Spirit whose natural realm is the invisible (to us now by His design) spiritual realm.  Ok, so what´s my point?  Strip away this present physical creation (which can and will be done in the not too distant future, II Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 21:1-8) and the living God in His eternal spiritual realm remain!

 

Tell me then, whose reality is more real, our temporal physical or God´s eternal spiritual realm?  If you answered God´s eternal spiritual realm is the more real than present physical reality, you have also agreed with the teaching of Scripture (II Corinthians 4:16-18).  For this cause, it stands to reason that the reality of God and His purposes for humanity ought to transcend anything we might think or want!

 

As a result of God´s purpose to save, He has called condemned humanity to salvation through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, and the renewing of our minds by the inner working of the Holy Spirit!  By refusing to come to Christ in rejection of God´s will, a man retains his judgment to temporal and spiritual consequences.  One of the spiritual consequences is remaining blind to spiritual reality and truth.

 

This is why you, whoever you are, that reject the Bible Christian worldview cannot see it.  God in His wisdom has put its knowledge and truths out of the reach of your natural mind.  But the knowledge and truths of His will are revealed to "born again" believers in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 2:6-16)!  Just because you reject Christ and the spiritual reality concerning Him, does not mean He has to or will (I Timothy 3:16; II Timothy 2:11-13)!

 

It is amazing how close we are to spiritual reality and truth but do not perceive it.  A few Bible cases in point.  A wayward prophet was on his way to curse Israel as he had been hired to do.  Along the way, the donkey he was riding made evasive moves three times on the path they were traveling.  The prophet had struck the donkey all three times, but he was livid on the third time.  Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey who inquired about the violent blows she had suffered.  Eventually, the Lord opened the prophet´s eyes to see the Angel of the Lord with his sword drawn for a fourth attempt to kill him (Numbers 22:22-33).

 

The servant of the prophet Elisha had a similar eye opening experience when he was overwhelmed by fear because the Syrian army surrounded he and his master.  But Elisha, seeing into the unseen declared, '"Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them,"' (II Kings 6:16, NKJV).  Then Elisha asked the Lord to open his servant´s eyes '"that he may see."' "And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha," (II Kings 6:17, NKJV).

 

Finally, on the day Israel´s religious leaders plotted to kill Jesus, the high priest had blurted out, '"…it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish,'" (John 11:50, NKJV).  He had no idea his words carried such spiritual weight of truth as John explains in John 11:51-52.  Interestingly, in the same way, according to his autobiography, James Weldon Johnson had no idea his song, Lift Every Voice And Sing, conceived in what he describes as "the poet´s ecstasy," was so fully pregnant with spiritual discourse and truth.1

 

1 James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way, The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson, (New York: The Viking Press, 1933/1961), p.155.

 

To Be Continued Next Issue

 


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