Several weeks ago Barry Dunsmore, the Pastor at Christ Church, Warwick, asked me if I would fill in for him at the 8am service on January 23rd.You know, I groaned inside. I said, “Yes, sure”, but I groaned inside. The reason is that I've become much more a writer than a speaker, and I've gotten older so my senior moments seem to come more frequently. I often sense a word but cannot find its name; the word calls to me in my spirit and I can feel it but I cannot find it on my tongue. I'd feel better if everyone in the congregation had their laptops, and I could just e-mail them my message. This is what I said to them:Paul talked of this relationship when he said that he combined spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. The passage is from 1 Corinthians 2: 11-15. Let me read part of it for you because I want to come back to it.“…For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no-one knows except the Spirit of God. Now, we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words…” (NASB)A better translation, given the context, might end with “explaining spiritual things to spiritual people” (handling the participle sungkrinontes, meaning “by means of continually explaining”, pneumatika, meaning “spiritual things”, and pneumatikois, meaning “to spiritual people” understanding the dative case of the word).When Barry asked me to fill in for him I wrote to a friend of mine. We went to seminary together and he's been a pastor for many years. I told him that I was going to be preaching at Christ Church, Warwick, where George Whitefield once preached. Then I reflected on what I had said. Barry had not asked me to preach; he had asked me to “conduct the service”. Conducting the service takes in the whole process from beginning to end. It includes the preaching but is not limited to that, and it includes the prayers and the singing as well. In my background in the ministry, preaching was not just the main thing, it was the ONLY thing.So, I laughed at myself, and I thought about the differences that we have in Christendom, considering all the various kinds of churches that exist in Bermuda, let alone the world.When Jesus came preaching, He did not preach the gospel of forgiveness of sins; Jesus preached the gospel of the Kingdom. He sent His disciples out to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. He would frequently tell people, “The Kingdom of God has come upon you”, because it had in his presence, in his actions, and in his words. The Sermon on the Mount was, and is, a Kingdom perspective. Spiritual sensitivity, sensing God, what some would call “hearing God”, is a Kingdom capacity, not just a church thing. It transcends all churches, and it is the main concern when it comes to our sanctification our spiritual growth.Often people come to me in my practice of psychotherapy, and they want to talk about spiritual matters. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, I often find myself asking, “Can you hear God?” It is a capacity I have learned to appreciate and to nurture.Dallas Willard, in a book titled ‘Hearing God: Developing A Conversational Relationship With God', says, “Today I continue to believe that people are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to.” How might that happen? Here is one example:Once I found myself in a Christian friend's home, an expansive house filled with lovely things, the latest and best of technical gadgetry at that time. I realised that I was not envious; I was hurting.The situation for me at that time was difficult. It was tough and it seemed that my friend had it so easy. I said to God, “Don't you love me? Why are things so hard for me and apparently so easy for this man?” Now, God could have said to me what Jesus told Peter on the shores of lake Galilee when Peter looked over at John and said, “What about that man?” Jesus had told Peter, “What is that to you? You follow me.” Instead, God impressed me with this thought: “You are on a different path, and I have riches for you of a different kind.”Understand, this was not spiritual one-upmanship, and God was not telling me that He had better things for one of us; the impact of the God's thought goes beyond my ability to put into words, and the point was that God had not forgotten about me. God had good things for me too, but our calling, our paths, and our purposes were different.Can you hear God? How is it between you and God these days?How do you sense Him? We walk by faith and not by sight, so how do you see God at work? How do you hear God? Some hear God's voice as an impression, and it comes in the quiet and the dark of night when they cannot sleep. Some hear God in the howling of the wind. Some hear God while reading Scripture. Sometimes God is in a tragedy. The Holy Spirit is a comforter always by one's side to encourage, to convict of sin, to lead into truth, and to support and console through difficulty. In His presence, the Kingdom of God comes upon us daily.Those who are taught by the Spirit belong to the Kingdom of God.You find them in all churches. You can even find them outside of church. You can find them in courtrooms, prisons, and homeless shelters. You can find them in governments and business organisations. It is special when you can wake up each day and find them in your own home.