In the Spirit on the Lordâ€™s Day (1) - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

The LORD is near - Saturday, September 4, 2022
by Jacob Redekop, Brian Reynolds, John van Dijk, Eugene P. Vedder Jr

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In the Spirit on the Lordâ€™s Day (1)

I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last."
Revelation 1:9-11

In the Spirit on the Lord's Day (1)
The aged apostle John had outlived his fellow apostles, but was not enjoying a comfortable retirement. Early church fathers tell us that for his faithfulness as a respected Christian leader he had been arrested during a persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian about 95 ad, and banished to Patmos, a rocky island about twenty miles off the coast of present-day Turkey.

John was evidently alone, cut off from fellowship with his dear brothers and sisters in Christ. What should he do under these circumstances? Believers today sometimes may find themselves in situations where they are similarly cut off from meeting around the Lord Jesus with fellow believers, whether through illness, old age, persecution, imprisonment, or whatever else it may be.

It was the Lord's Day, the day on which the Lord Jesus had triumphantly risen from the grave. It was "the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread" (Acts 20:7) in many localities. What did John do? "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day," he tells us. The day was not a holiday. In fact, the Roman calendar was different from ours: it did not even have seven-day weeks, as God had established for Israel and as we have today.

John was in the Spirit. Even though he was alone, he could enjoy thinking about the Lord Jesus, worshiping Him, praying to Him, maybe even quietly singing His praise. If he were living today, he might well have been reading his Bible. And suddenly the Lord Himself was with Him. He will never leave nor forsake His own!

Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.

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