May 04, 2012
The Voice
Sometime back there was a story in the media about a dog that was put
up for adoption because the owner, a Korean, could no longer care for him. The
dog found a new home, but appeared to be struggling with depression. No matter
what the adoptive family did or said the dog just moped around. Four and a half
years later the original the owner reappeared and the dog was immediately
transformed when he heard the Korean language spoken. As the Good Shepherd
Jesus says, “When he has brought out all
his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know
his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they
will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” (John
10:4-5 NIV)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----What would be so distinguishable about the Shepherd’s Voice? A voice is a voice. Some are high pitch; some are low. Some are smooth, and some are course. So you don’t know the sound of a particular voice until you’ve heard it. The disciples knew the sound of His voice, then He left. So what’s our chance?
-----Nor am I much given to magical and mystical things. And I don’t like referring to the things of God’s spiritual existence and what He does outside the guidelines of physical laws and constraints of time and place as “supernatural” or “miraculous”. He is more natural than is our physical existence. We are the ones chained and locked into a set of restrictive physical laws. I would rather refer to our conditions as sub-natural and to His as natural than to ours as natural and His as supernatural. I would rather refer to the workings of our universe as feckless and to His as normal than to refer to ours as normal and to His as miraculous. Yet the Bible enjoys the term “miraculous”, and everyone else relates better to supernatural. So I’ll be drug there too, but not kicking and screaming. There is something about that voice.
-----Our bodies will be raised into the imperishable existence. I love the reality Paul hangs upon this truth in I Corinthians 15. We are remiss to think of that spiritual existence as some ethereal place of vague mists were there is nothing but intermixing meaning. It has its own substance that is as interactive as is our physical substance. It delights me to think that our spirits are of that substance, and that the spirits of the reborn are of that place. And although there is no empirical way of knowing whether or not our spirits have any interaction or contact with that place directly, we are told by the reliable source that our spirits are in contact with His.
-----I don’t know the physics of how our spirits effect our thinking and feeling. But I know they do subtly, at least. Then those spirits having interaction with His Holy Spirit are equipped with all the recognition devices necessary for hearing that Voice. As the spirit is part of the soul, what effects the spirit can effect the mind, then the body. John the Baptist jumping inside Elizabeth’s womb at the voice of Mary comes to mind. He had not learned a word of language. He‘d not learned a concept outside the womb, yet he knew Mary‘s voice as Jesus‘ mommy. With the Lord, this kind of stuff is natural.
-----I think a recognition of the first crackle of the Shepherd’s Voice will rise into our minds from our spirits. After all, it is the spirit that is alive. Maybe we will have to acclimate to the pitches and tones of His voice, but the first developing concepts its sounds deliver will also be recognized. Truth has awareness like magnets have nails. Those concepts we’ve already learned will skip across our minds with the messages of His voice, and those we haven’t will flash into there like aha-experiences. He conducts the orchestra of truth and love, and we will go on knowing His voice by the symphonies of truth and love it makes within us.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment