Tag Archives: calling

Fill my cup, Lord

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

By Adam Graham

“And herein is that saying true, `One soweth and another reapeth.’ I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor; other men labored, and ye have entered into their labors.” John 6:37-38

The context of the scripture is that the disciples were baptizing even more than John. The disciple’s success was the result of the ministry of faithful people who we don’t know. Probably these people didn’t even know they were sowing, maybe they even felt like they weren’t accomplishing anything or were failures. I really relate to them.

However, they ultimately prepared things for the Lord and his apostles. This gives me the feeling that we may be sowing and earlier Jesus promises:

“And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal, that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.-John 4:36.”

Lord, we thank you for your word. Lord, we are weary today and have been so restless. We feel more like those who sows, perhaps without realizing it, and someone else reaps. Strengthen us and encourage our hearts today. We thank you for your peace. We thank you for being with us. Please give us direction and purpose today. Show us your vision. Prepare us to receive from you whatever we need to fulfill your plan for our lives. Protect us from the enemy’s interference today. Empower us to resist the devil and overcome his wiles. Please bring forth a good harvest of bountiful spiritual fruits in our lives today. In Jesus’ name we pray, Lord, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Gospel, Prayer and Devotions

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“Suffering, a Privilege?” Or: “It’s War!”

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, 30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. (Phil 1:29-30)

The Apostle Paul tells the Philippians here that grace has not given them the privilege of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, but also to experience pain, punishment, and distress–for his sake. The privilege is to be engaged in the cosmic war, doing our divinely assigned part to advance the gospel. The more suffering we endure in our calling, as a direct result of obeying clear  instructions from the Lord, the greater of a position in the war effort we have.

Now, the riveter building warplanes has as vital a role as the soldier on the front lines, and the riveter may suffer sore muscles for his or her task to stop the forces of evil, but the soldier on the front lines has the greater glory for he (or she nowadays) bears the greatest risk.  The higher the price we pay in a godly war effort, in theory, the greater the glory.

Christianity today has become wishy-washy in some circles, all about the promises of comfort and peace and joy and forgiveness, prosperity and healing. Turning the other cheek, agreeing quickly with your adversary, avoiding conflict and being a peace-maker who is slow to judgment and quick to listen and respectful and loving to all.

That’s taking a cookie cutter to the Bible.  Our war is not against flesh and blood, but we are in a war, brothers and sisters.

Now, we should follow the rules of engagement, and the human lives around us are the territories being fought over, not the enemy, and we must stay alert. To the enemy, we are either combatants to neutralize or eliminate from the arena of war, or we are ourselves territory to seek to retake and oppress.

In this world, no suffering means we’ve either been neutralized by the enemy via deception like the cookie cutter approach to scripture, we’ve been taken captive by the enemy to do his will and haven’t manifested the bitter fruits of oppression yet,  or we’ve been given leave between battles so we can refresh and refill in preparation for a battle as great as the amount of rest we’ve been given.

Suffering means we are either hot or cold, actively doing what the Lord has called us to and facing the opposition, or a POW taken captive. It is vital we discern the source of our present suffering or its absence.

Lord, give me wisdom to discern the season I am in and ears that hear your call. Grant me a courageous heart willing to fight the good fight according to your principles, when and where you call me. Grant me eyes that see clearly who our enemy is and that perceive as you do the lives around me that are being fought over, used against what you have sent me to do, and who are fighting beside me or in other arenas of the cosmic war. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Dreams and Spiritual Warfare, Prayer and Devotions, Suffering

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Why Did God Make His Promises?

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” (2 Peter 1:4)

Which here refers back to God’s “own glory and excellence,” which Peter referenced in verse three.  Peter emphasizes that God gives us his great promises, which ought to be more precious to us than anything, by, or because of his glory and his greatness or supremacy.  Divine nature likely references back to the divine power that we’re told granted us all things in the previous verse and in context refers to God’s holiness.  Peter goes on to say we obtain to this by having escaped the corruption in the world, suggesting that we were originally made to have holy desires and be holy as the Lord is Holy, but what Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden corrupted our design. To use the language of computers, we’re born with both our  software and our hardware corrupted and our code is full of errors. God’s greatest promise to us is to debug us both spiritually and physically and return us to the pristine  operating conditions that he originally intended us to have.

God’s promises, Peter tells us, all have this end goal in mind. Nothing God promises in the Word is intended as a blank check to continue to delight in our malfunctioning and relish in our buggy ways. His promises are all intended to advance his ultimate goal of restoring us to proper working order, not through our efforts to fix ourselves, but though his power at work in us.

Lord, one question haunts my mind: do I want to be whole? Do I want to escape from the corruption of my sinful desires? Do I want to be changed? Lord, I want to want to be free of the slavery of sin. Grant me by your grace the desire to open up to you and risk trusting you to transform me into the person you made me to be. Fill me with courage to count as loss anything that gets in the way of your will for my life, to bear the holy spiritual fruits and to be free from corruption. We have not already obtained, but let us forget what is behind and press on to reach the mark of this high calling in Christ and obtain the ends of the promises you have made. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, God's promises, Prayer and Devotions, Sin and Holiness

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Unity: “To be in Harmony and in Agreement”

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” (John 17:17)

This comes in the middle of the Lord’s prayer . . . in the garden of Gethsemane. The part most of my pastors have focused on is where he prays for unity. I’ve seen plenty of churches’ pastoral staff water down the truth and ignore doctrinal disunity in the name of unity. We seem to think being one means ‘the more the merrier!” Uh, no, it means those who are in your pews being of one mind and in one accord. We can’t have that unless everyone in the local body is functioning together, each using their individual gifts and natural abilities towards the same goals, which should include, biblically, for us all to grow to be more like Christ and worshiping him in Spirit and in Truth.

I think part of this comes from a common misunderstanding that the Church is all about making spiritual babies. No, evangelism is all about making babies, and for that Jesus sent his disciples out from where he gathered them together to teach them. Did he stop others who didn’t follow him from showing up when he sat down to teach his own? No, but he didn’t modify his message to appeal to them, he kept his focus on the spiritual babies he already had in his care to raise. In fact, he deliberately spoke in confusing parables when the crowds gathered around–exact opposite of what many churches do today.

Maybe that’s why we’re growing fat in numbers, but most of us aren’t growing up in the Lord, but rather still messing in our diapers. Brothers and sisters, on the judgment day, God’s not going to be counting how many babies we made and left to spiritually starve while we were busy focusing on making more. He’s going to be counting how many members of our churches grew up to full maturity and produced the spiritual fruits: love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, etc.

If you’re called to be a pastor or a teacher, your primary job isn’t to make new disciples. Your primary job is to train your existing disciples with the preaching of God’s word, to be their human coach as the grace of God flows through you to change those he’s already entrusted to you from sinners into saints. If you truly feel God’s call to be a full time evangelist, and you’re holding a pastoral or teaching position in (or out of) a church,  step aside so someone can raise your babies properly and take your good news out to the folks it is intended for, by any means but making everyone eat an exclusive diet of gospel-seed and milk.

If you’re laity, and you wish your leaders would read this, or you know you are not a doctrinal good fit within your local body, don’t wait for them to see things your way or to start feeding you properly and don’t ignore the disunity. Go find a church properly focused on discipleship who you feel you can trust to teach you right, if you’re sure it’s  your current body that’s in error and not you.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Gospel, Prayer and Devotions

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Face it: By nature, we’re all “those carnal Christians.”

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

It is so easy to read this verse and think about all of “those people” who don’t understand the things of God, or rather who call our own doctrinal beliefs, personal convictions, and religious practices silly or flat out wrong. But I believe the Holy Spirit today is redirecting us from “those people” to “us people.”

We each have a body. We live in sinful, broken, corrupt flesh, in an equally sinful, broken, corrupt culture. By default, all of us reason according to those forces. If we don’t train ourselves to do otherwise, we will even read the bible through the distorting lens of our cultural and personal experiences.

Yes, us people have a “natural person.” We do also have a “spiritual person,” but we’re better acquainted with the easier-to-see natural person. That is, after all, who we are according to our upbringings at the hands of broken people, damage from our fallen environment, and our DNA, which often contains coding errors. Our spirit’s condition was so bad, we all require a spirit transplant from Jesus, and have already received it if we are of his body.

Brothers and Sisters and fellow transplant recipients, humility compels us to realize we all still live in “natural person” bodies on this earth.  Don’t shove him in a closet and pretend he’s not there. If not watched carefully, he influences how “us spiritual persons” understand spiritual things. He leads us to reject spiritual callings as being ungodly folly in our understanding. At the same time, he leads us to flip ungodly ways into holy ways and causes us to misidentify worldly wisdom as spiritual wisdom. Let us have true spiritual discernment today and seek true wisdom from God, with hearts open to receive from him.

Lord, we confess the weakness of our flesh. We have at times confused natural wisdom for spiritual wisdom and let how we are broken define us. Show us, Lord, in the spirit, who we really are in you. Strengthen us in the here and now to be more like the person your eternal eyes already see as we spiritually gestate and await our births into eternity. Open our eyes to the truth of who you made us to be. Please vanquish any corrupt desire that is preventing us from receiving true spiritual wisdom from you. We trust in you. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Gospel, Grace, Prayer and Devotions, Sin and Holiness

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The Birthday Post Not About Me. :)

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” (Colossians 1:28)

Paul and his ministry partners declared publicly, in speech and in writing, the praises and glory of the name of Jesus Christ, but the word proclaim also can mean to show by giving an outward indication of something. In this day and age, the silent witness of how we live our lives is often as important, if not more, than the words we speak. I pray none of us are afraid to speak the name of Jesus in public, but I pray also that it is not necessary for any of us to confess or tell anyone in words what our faith is and where we stand. I pray that would be plain by our conduct.

Paul and his ministry partners also warned and taught the flock, all those God gave to them, why? “Warn” is not a positive word today. It makes us thing of judgment, it makes us think of unforgiving attitudes, holier than thou, and condemnation. We assume this means warning someone they need to shape up or else they’re headed to hell, and we assume the person is willing us to go there.

The dictionary definition of warn is give advanced notice of danger or evil, and to give counsel, to offer admonishing advice–and admonish can mean gentle or friendly and earnest. This warning is the words of a loving friend encouraging you to take care of yourself and stay safe, spiritually speaking, not a harsh critic tearing you down, often in order to feel better about themselves. Further, the stated ministry goal is present us mature in Christ–to encourage spiritual growth, to lift you up, “actualize yourself” by becoming all that Christ made you to be, per the instructions of scripture.

Lord, we thank you for this day that you have made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. We thank you for those you have brought into our lives to minister to us, whether they are official clergy or not. We pray you would give them the wisdom and the gentleness and the compassion they need to admonish us and encourage us to be more like you in a loving manner. Strengthen us also, Lord, to know when you are calling us to minister with words of warning, and to do so in like loving fashion. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Bible and Theology, Prayer and Devotions, Sin and Holiness

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The Measure of a Man

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Andrea Graham| Comments Off

“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

This gem comes to us when God sends Samuel to anoint a son of Jesse to be king instead of Saul and doesn’t tell Samuel right away which one. Samuel sees the good, kingly looks and height of the eldest, and thinks this must be the one God has chosen to be king.

We do this today. Since the advent of television, presidential candidates have a much stronger chance of success if they look like  the sort  Hollywood would choose to play the president.  The president’s race thankfully no longer matters to the people, but when it comes to the presidency, in the voting booth where no one is looking, Americans, at least, still vote for a tall, dark, and attractive gentleman born to wealthy parents over a short fat guy with an everyman face and a blue collar background or a female presidential candidate of any sort.

God doesn’t measure us the way people do. When selecting where to fit us in the body and what vocation to call us to, God doesn’t judge our candidacy by our looks, how tall we are,  and by implication by other things important to men: how smart we are, how many degrees we have from the right schools, who our families are, how rich, how talented, or even how much we’ve messed up.

No, in the Kingdom of Heaven, God selects us for duty based solely on the condition of hearts, who we are on the inside when no one is looking, and more than that even, he looks ahead and sees who we can become if we answer his call and turn our hearts towards him. When Samuel looked at David that day, he saw a scrawny weak shepherd boy, the youngest son not likely to achieve greatness.

When God looked at the same youngest son shepherd boy that day, God already saw the man after his own heart who would slay the giant and turn down the chance to assassinate Saul even when Saul was jealously trying to kill him.

Lord, give us your eyes. Help us to see people as you see them. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Posted in Prayer and Devotions

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