SPIRITUAL TSUNAMI! PART 2 OF 2
I have a full, large cup of coffee, it’s really hot and I am ready to allow Holy Spirit to move within me to you! It’s probably 4:12am as I am listening, talking with Jesus, and writing down in note section on my apple IPAD what I hear, what I sense He is providing.
I hear Him clearly: “Share with your friends about these two, significantly events of our spiritual transformational tsunami that began on the bottom of the ocean way out deep, three weeks ago! Share with them, the crack in the ocean floor released massive amount of spiritual bubbles, creating an amazing, enormous, wave that began to build and grow, traveling to the shoreline where you are currently at Duke!
Let’s stop and ponder the words of this paragraph, really ponder what you are hearing! In the midst of a deep and profound, serious biblical and theological experience, I ask you right now one very simple question: Do you think it is possible for a tsunami to occur out in deep Atlantic ocean and cascade inland from Cape Lookout all the way into Durham, NC? Of course none of us desire this to occur, but possible, YES!
ALL my pastoral reflections will require from each of us some amount of faith in order to grasp what truth He has for each of you, specifically for His glory and YOUR good! Now you know the most important foundational underpinning of Pastor Jerry reflections! YES, HE told me over 10 days ago, it’s time Jerry to start sharing our journey during this huge and terrible brain cancer battle with your family and friends. When you share, I want you to be authentically honest, hold nothing back, with an open heart put your feelings out there in written word. Son, my promise to you, if you are faithful with this small task, early each morning, here is what I promise: I the Lord thy God promise you, have no concern at all, I will take care of all the spiritual details needed in the lives of our faith community! I form a pack with you my son, if you faithfully share as I ask, if you be humble and obedient. I am ready to create a spiritual tsunami in eastern NC and beyond! This is about as honest in sharing what Jesus and I discussed. I leave this in His hands to now work truth in your heart and mind.
So, what two things today has He led me to illuminate with you:
- Fourth Watch and 2. Spiritual Tsunami
Ray asked me a week ago, “Jerry, what is happening with you being woke up by the Holy Spirit each morning between 3:30 am – 6am each morning?”
Ray was seeing me get up, Debby and him so were becoming very concerned for my health, my rest, and who could blame them! Ray has been asking me some powerful, concise questions, that has led to significant spiritual insights, just like I am about to share with you!
I reply, “Ray, great question, I too have wondered, what is going on, being woke mightily by presence of the Holy Spirit somewhere around 3:30 before 4am each morning…and it is thrilling! Ray I do not know what this is!”
Guess what happens next? That afternoon Debby’s other brother, Patrick calls to check with me. So I share this discussion Ray and I had with him. Patrick comes alive! He just had a conversation with a member of his small group at his large Methodist church. In this conversation, Patrick’s friend shared how God speaks to people in a time between 3-6am, and gives them a mission to perform on His behalf. This time of day is called the fourth watch. WOW, cannot make this up!!! Hear God-incident! Hear huge ripple effect! My early am conversation really happened and I have witnesses! But then Patrick shares one more important thing. He knows of several other prominent lay people who also received their ministry calling during the fourth watch. Patrick’s small group friend advised him to tell your brother-in-law that Jesus is using the fourth watch to give him a new ministry opportunity! Praise Jesus!
“The fourth watch is defined by the Roman watch as a time spanning from 3-6 a.m. Biblically, these strategic events take place particularly during the night and early morning. The Hebrew watch was divided into three watches, the first, middle and morning watch.”
Now I rejoice and give thanks to Jesus, for the clarity of what spiritually is occurring in my life so early each morning in my battle with this bad, large, brain cancer battle! I am also amazed, and saddened, WHY I have never heard of this most powerful and precious spiritual truth of how Holy Spirit moves within those who are willing to have open hearts to Him so early in the morning?
Now I do not consider myself as a scholar, not me! However, I have rich theological background, with prominent Duke education, plus I have a Doctor of Ministry degree from rich Baptist. Northern Theological University. Plus I love to read spiritual books, especially books by authors who are rich with real life Holy Spirit experiences. However, here I was experiencing such a profound, early morning awakening, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and I had no clue as to what was happening! It took the battle of this brain cancer for me to have this awesome experience with the Holy Spirit, and then for me to discover the fourth watch! As I expressed this, it’s rather comical in some sense—really Lord in all my life with you, you waited now in the battle of the brain cancer to illuminate this precious element of a work you’ve been doing for years called the fourth watch? Yes, I talked to God about this!
Understanding spiritually of what I’ve been experiencing through research now has illuminated spiritual truth to me in regards to the fourth watch. Researching fourth watch is easily discovered on the websites. I encourage you just to type it in yourself and there’s much you can read about this profound spiritual truth for yourself!
You will intellectually discover the fourth watch has its beginning way back to the days of Rome!
“The fourth watch is defined by the Roman watch as a time spanning from 3-6 a.m. Biblically, these strategic events take place particularly during the night and early morning. The Hebrew watch was divided into three watches, the first, middle and morning watch.” WOW! This is the most simplest easiest definition. I discovered in my research that I share with you about the fourth watch. I I really enjoyed discovering that it was tied to the Roman empires utilization of an organized Clock system, but then expand by our Hebrew brothers and sisters in their own experiences with God!
Pause right now: do you hear the magnitude of the history of fourth watch? Is this the first time you’re hearing about it? It reminds me to share this as I continue on this reflection this morning, we understand so little about the magnitude of the work of the power of the spirit of God in our world, and in our own individual lives! Yes, my dear friends, my dear brothers and sisters. It is clear to me that the magnitude of Almighty God, and how He works, not just within heaven, but within the realms of the world in which they live is so wide and deep and vast on this side of heaven, we will never ever completely understand The richness, the vastness of how he exists among us each day! However, this morning, I am pleased in this reflection to share with you how he showed up to this Coastal boy during this battle with this brain cancer, how he wrapped me in a bubble and dragged me out into the deep of the ocean at a very special time of need in my life and awaken me to the awesome power of the fourth watch! Yes, for me on this side of heaven, I look forward now to spending time with Jesus somewhere between 3 and 6 AM every morning for the rest of my life!
So now with profound understanding, Ray and Debby are at peace and step aside from desiring to prevent me from getting up out of bed in response to the Holy Spirit movement on my life. Now they are working with me, and yes I do need their help, with another pattern of necessary rest during the day!
So, we come at end of this most spiritually insightful Pastor Jerry reflection with one more item to embrace. This one very easy now for you to embrace, just want you to know how it occurred last week. This is how Debby, Ray and I moved from using term ripple effect in describing what we were hearing and experiencing to spiritual tsunami!
My beloved bride and core helper heard from Jesus very clear: “ Debby share with Jerry when he awakes from his afternoon nap that you all are not have ripple effects anymore! No my dear child, you both are experiencing spiritual tsunami now as I am mightily at work behind the scenes in his battle with his brain cancer! You make it clear with him, I have the Lord God ask him to focus on the healing ground work of the cancer, I promise you I am already at work in handling all the details of this new ministry to which I have asked him to do with his pastoral reflections.”
She was so excited, as she waits for me to wake up from my nap. As I do she shares let’s have a “eye to eye, knee to knee” moment. Something we had to put in place recently due to ALL occurring, This is when one of us sense perhaps we not be in step or one senses some disconnect. We have agreed to be honest, so when one says, it’s time for “eye to eye, knee moment, everything else stops. As she speaks, she shared Lord spoke to her and she asks the question, honey you are a coastal boy first and foremost, what happens when there is an earthquake deep out in the ocean? I look at hear, first thought this is rather interesting, where this going, then just smile and say a huge wave is born! And she says, what do we call this wave, I smile now a TSUNAMI! Jerry honey, Jesus says we are not having ripple effects anymore, in the fight against this bad, huge, brain cancer, Holy Spirit is at work in us, in my family, in my friends, in lives I do not know and we are living in a spiritual tsunami!
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is NOW being done, this saving of many lives!” Genesis 50:20
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who has raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11 NKJV
