Showing posts with label heaven. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heaven. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Sunday, August 18, 2019
FOCUS ON THE DREAM (audio)
From the beginning of Romans chapter 8 we
have a message in the series through the book of Romans. The title of the sermon is: FOCUS ON
THE DREAM
Listen well.
If you can’t get the audio on your
device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/
---Anderson
T. Graves II is a pastor, writer, community organizer, and
consultant
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
He writes the popular blog: A Word to the Wise at
www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Click here to support this blog with a donation.
Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and
click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support
Bailey Tabernacle CME Church with a donation through Givelify
Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Bailey
Tabernacle CME Church
1117 23rd Avenue
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35401Sunday, October 15, 2017
WINNING WORSHIP
After
speaking the 10 Commandment, God gave very specific and restrictive directions
on what type of altar the Israelites were allowed to make. A few chapters later, God gave a very
specific and entirely different set of directions for building an altar. And a little while after that He delivered a
third, different-from-the-first-two-times design for an altar.
What?
Why?
This
is not a case of contradictory information.
It’s a powerful lesson on how the power of worship.
We
continue our sermoninc journey through Exodus with a message about THE
WAY TO WIN WITH WORSHIP.
Listen
well.
Please leave a comment.
If
you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry,
and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor
of Miles
Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance
Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership development for the National
Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Click
here to support this ministry with a donation. Or go to andersontgraves.blogspot.com and click on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money order may be
mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, AL 35064
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
THE WAY TO HEAVEN: GOOD OLE-FASHIONED LOVE
I heard a televangelist say,
“To get into Heaven, it doesn’t matter what you do. All that matters is that
God loves you.”
That’s beautiful.
Wrong.
But beautiful.
We tend to superimpose our
modern cultural views of “love” on God, but you have to remember that when it
comes to love and relationships, God is old-fashioned.
In the old days of courtship,
an unmarried couple would meet in a designated area belonging to the family and
under elders’ supervision: the outside of the tent, the parlor of the home, the
courtyard. In the old-fashioned system, love got you into the
house, but only marriage would get you into the bedroom.
Heaven is eternal, intimate
cohabitation with God Himself. Jesus
described our place in Heaven as a personal mansion-sized room where we are at
home with the Lord (John 14: 2).
The world is the Lord’s
footstool (Matthew 5:35). The church is
the house of God (1 Timothy 3: 15). But
Heaven--- Heaven is the bedroom.
As a human institution
operating in a fallen world, the church is made up of people who SAY that they love God, but “love” doesn’t mean the
same thing to everyone who uses it.
The love God wants with His church
is the old-fashioned love between husband and wife. (2 Corinthians 11: 2; Ephesians
5: 25; Revelations 19: 7-9; Revelations 22: 10)
That old-fashioned marriage love is exclusive,
submissive, better-or-worse, sickness-or-healing, prosperity-or-poverty, and explicitly
committed.
You can hang out in God’s
presence and enjoy His company and “love” Him without being committed in the
old-fashioned sense. But it won’t get you into the bedroom of Heaven.
God’s just old-fashioned like
that.
I know we’re not
old-fashioned anymore, but think about what you expect in a modern marriage.
Does the way the other person treats YOU matter?
If your spouse ignored your
every request for time and attention, would it affect your relationship?
O My people, what have I done
to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against Me. (Micah 6: 3)
If your spouse regularly violated
your marriage vows, and then came home saying they had no regrets because it
would all work out for good anyway---- would it affect your relationship?
Surely, as a wife
treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with
Me, O house of Israel,” says the Lord. (Jeremiah 3: 20)
If the wearer of your
marriage ring praised you in public but demanded that you give them money every
time they did so, would that wear on your heart? Would it affect the prospects of your
marriage?
Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah
prophesy about you, saying:‘These people draw near to
Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from
Me.And
in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ (Matthew
15: 7-9)
If your spouse treated you like this while you spent your money
building a new and bigger house, would you not reconsider whether or not this
spouse was the other name you wanted to put on the deed?
I was crushed by their
adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the
harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they
committed in all their abominations. And they shall know that I am
the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.” (Ezekiel
6: 9, 10)
Modern or old-fashioned, our
actions affect the nature and direction of the relationship.
God loves us. He loves us all no matter what, but
what we do affects the kind of relationship God will have with us.
Ya’ll know Galatians 6:
7? “Do not be deceived, God is not
mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. “
That verse isn’t about money. It’s about whether we choose faithfulness in
spirit or spiritual adultery through the flesh.
For he who sows to his flesh
will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the
Spirit reap everlasting life. (Galatians 6: 8)
In other words, God loves us,
but unlike humans, love doesn’t make God stupid. God is not mocked.
Our actions/works cannot get us into Heaven. All that matters
is our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But in the context of that relationship, what
we do matters A LOT.
Jesus answered and said to
him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep
My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which
you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” (John 14: 23, 24)
Our choices demonstrate whether our love and commitment is sincere in the old-fashioned sense or just some modern thing we profess so we can live in the new house not made with man’s hands.
God has
old-fashioned expectations for our “love.”
So be as good to God as you’d want your spouse to be to you.
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer,
community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is
pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director
of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural leadership development
for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
#Awordtothewise
You can help support Rev.
Graves’ work by visiting his personal
blog and clicking the DONATE button
on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money
order may be mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
Saturday, January 24, 2015
"THEOLOGICAL BULIMIA" Article 14, blogging through the Articles of Religion.
Article XIV - Of Purgatory
The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no
warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God.
The term purgatory comes out of Catholicism but the concept is older than
Christianity. Purgatory refers to a
state and/or place after death where souls who are not quite good enough for
Heaven (or not quite bad enough for Hell) can be purified, cleansed, and sanctified
through suffering. Once a soul has
suffered enough he/she is ready to ascend into the presence of God.
Methodists reject the Catholic doctrine
of purgatory. The editors of our
Articles of Religion called the concept a fond
thing. That’s fond in the Shakespearean sense, meaning “simple, unwise, foolish.”
Basically our church’s official stance
is: Purgatory is a stupid.
In the Screwtape Letters, C.S.
Lewis imagined a junior demon named Wormwood who, frustrated that his attempts
to corrupt his human charges were failing, sought advice from a senior demon named
Screwtape.
Poor little
Wormwood is all out of ideas. He says, “Screwtape, I give up. We can’t tell
them there is no God and we can’t tell then there is no hell. What lie should
we tell them?”
Screwtape
says, “My dear Wormwood, just tell them there is no hurry.”
The doctrine of purgatory tells us,
“There is no hurry.”
Which is an invitation to a mindset not
just a doctrine: the mindset of theological bulimia. Theological bulimia encourages us to binge on
unrighteousness in this life and purge through suffering immediately
after. Purge-atory.
And many of us, non-Catholics included,
have theological bulimia. We hate our
bodies, our lives, our material existence; but we love the taste of sin, its
texture and flavor. Yet, we don’t want
to carry the weight of its wages around for all eternity. (Heaven doesn’t make robes in that size.) So we binge, justifying our gluttony for
gluttony and the other sins with plans to crawl into the grave when we’re done
and painfully expel our ugliness.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually work
that way.
Remember that in the sacrificial system
under the Old Testament law, atonement for sin was made through blood. That is, through death.
And according
to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of
blood there is no remission. (Hebrews 9:22)
Animal sacrifices weren't tortured, they were
calmed and then killed because atonement for sin is comes through death, not
through suffering.
If Jesus had accepted the beatings, and
the whippings, and the insults, and the pain of crucifixion, but come down from
the cross before He actually died, the plan of salvation would have failed.
For the wages
of sin is DEATH---not suffering.
You can’t purge your sins by hurting
yourself or by letting others hurt you.
The wages of sin is death. So, the only way you could pay your way out
of eternal Hell would be to die for yourself for eternity. And eternal death is the definition of Hell (Matthew
10: 28; Revelations
20: 14, 15).
Purging doesn’t work.
Think.
If suffering and pain in themselves produced holiness, then the victims
of torture and atrocities on Earth would all be saints. But we know that trauma is more likely to
create demons than angels.
If there is a place in the afterlife
where souls are tormented under the pretense that one day they’ll go to Heaven
because they suffer, their hope is just another torment, and Purgatory is just
another name for Hell.
By one
offering He [Jesus] has perfected forever those
who are being sanctified. (Hebrew 10:14)
Jesus gave up His life. God who transcends time and eternity DIED a
death of eternal and infinite mass and thereby covered all of the sin-debts of
humanity past, present, and future.
And He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for
the whole world. (1 John 2:20)
We are saved from Hell and for Heaven
when we accept Jesus and truly submit ourselves under His Lordship. We don’t have to do any more to gain
redemption. We CAN’T do any more to gain
redemption.
Spiritual bulimia hides the true shape
of redemption from our eyes. We see only
how ugly we must be to God.
I’m too evil, too damaged. I deserve to suffer. I NEED TO suffer.
We can’t see the beauty of the fullness
and finality of Jesus’ sacrifice. We see
ourselves in the image of our sin, but God wants us to see that through the
cross we are remade in the image of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3: 18).
He is the
image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
(Colossians 1:15)
And we
all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are
being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the
Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
You don’t have to keep hurting
yourself.
All you have to do is receive Jesus,
rest in Jesus, and reflect the image of Jesus.
Do that and you’ll stop
binging. Do that and you’ll stop
punishing yourself with every sin you can shove down your life. Do that and you break the cycle of
binge-atory and purge-atory.
Therefore, if
anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have
passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5: 16, 17)
You just need Jesus.
Anything else is, well let’s just call
it a fond thing.
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer
and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor
of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;
executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural
leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Subscribe to my personal
blog www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com .
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support Rev. Graves’ work
by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button
on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or money order may be
mailed to
Miles Chapel CME Church
P O Box 132
Fairfield, Al 35064
Sunday, January 4, 2015
IT’S NOT GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT, BUT YOU ARE
Everyone who’s ever been through a tragic, painful, or traumatic experience
has at some point been told, “It’s going to be all right.” And
most people who’ve heard that have wanted to scream, “No! It’s not.” In this first message of the new year, Pastor
Anderson Graves II shows us God’s response to both of those statements.
If you’re going through it or you know someone who is, this is the
lesson you can’t afford to miss. The
title of the sermon is IT’S NOT
GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT, BUT YOU ARE.
Listen
well.
If you
can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse
Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and
director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can
help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the
right-hand sidebar.
Support by
check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P O Box
132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
Saturday, December 20, 2014
If... Then...
This is what He said: "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7: 14)
This
is what we hear: "if people who call
on My name will pray then I will hear from heaven, and will forget their sin
and heal their land."
Notice
the difference? Read them again.
We
expect----heck, some people stand up and DECLARE--- that God will fix what’s
wrong for us. Why?
Why
would He?
Are
we called by His name?
To
bear His name is to be a member of His household. To be a member of His household is to
obedient to His authority. Are we
obedient to His authority? Really? Even when He authoritatively tells us to do
what we don’t wanna and to quit doing what we enjoy?
Are
we the people called by His name, or are we just the people who call His name
when we want something? Cause those
people are houseguests, not member of the household.
Do
we humble ourselves? Or do we exalt
ourselves as blessed, highly favored, anointed, royal, etc., etc.?
I’m
not saying that the saints aren’t all of those wonderful, Biblically rooted
things. I’m simply pointing out that
when we focus on the exalted aspects of our Divine identity, we’re not in the
place where God said He’d hear, forgive, and heal.
We
pray. Oh, we do pray. But when we pray, do we seek His face, or do
we seek His fortune? Do we want a deeper
experience and understanding of God for God’s sake? Or, do we want deeper blessings from God for
our sake?
Last
questions. Be honest, now.
Are
we turning from our wicked ways?
Are
we, or are we turning around looking for ways to justify our wickedness? Do we come to Him weeping and confessing,
“Lord, we have done wrong. Lord, I have
done wrong”? Or, do we come to him with
3-ring binders full of reasons why what we’ve done shouldn't be called wrong and
shouldn’t be held against us?
(It’s the White man’s fault.
I was born this way.
My parents gave me PTSD.
My student loan is too big.
My income is too small.
Other people are worse than me.
Obama.)
How
can you or I turn from our wicked ways when we don’t see what’s so wicked about
the way we are?
If My people who are
called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn
from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their
sin and heal their land.
Now here’s the hard part.
God
will hear our prayers.
God
will forgive our sin.
God
will heal the brokenness and injustice in our land.
But
first…
But
first, we have to:
1) Submit to His
authority
2) Genuinely humble
rather than exalt ourselves
3) Love Him and seek Him
alone
4) Be real about how
wicked and stupid WE have been
---then
He will hear from heaven, and will
forgive our sin and heal our land.
And
if not, then He won’t; and 50 years after this movement we’ll be talking about
how sad it is that nothing has really changed.
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry,
and rural leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse
Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and
director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You
can help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the
right-hand sidebar.
Support
by check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P O
Box 132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
Sunday, July 20, 2014
DO YOU GET IT?
In other
words, Jesus wanted to know, “Do you get it?”
The Lord
is asking that question of all of us still today. What is “it”?
And how do you get “it”?
Find out
in this message. Find out: DO YOU GET IT?
Listen
well.
---Anderson T. Graves
II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev.
Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse
Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO); and
director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human
Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can
help support Rev. Graves’ work by visiting his personal blog and clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by
check or money order may be mailed to
Miles
Chapel CME Church
P O Box
132
Fairfield,
Al 35064
Monday, June 23, 2014
HOW MUCH FAITH DOES A DEMON HAVE?
You believe that there is one
God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! (James 1: 19)
I have three questions for you.
Question #1: How much faith does an angel have?
The correct answer
is NONE.
You see, faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrew 11: 1)
Angels live every
moment in the direct experience of God’s presence. They don’t hope to enter Heaven. They live there. They don’t BELIEVE that the unseen God is
real; they SEE Him every day. Therefore,
angels don’t have faith. They don’t need
faith. They KNOW. And because they KNOW,
angels OBEY.
Question #2: How much faith does a demon have?
That’s a little more
complicated. Demons are, after all,
former angels. They have seen God
directly. They’ve spent time in
Heaven. And, according to Job chapter 1,
demons (or at least the head demon) have been called before God on multiple
occasions since their fall from Heaven.
But according to
James 1: 20, demons BELIEVE in God. So
maybe, for the angels who’ve fallen,
Heaven is something they can’t see anymore.
God’s direct presence is lost to them, and all they have to convince
them that what they once knew was really real is ------ faith.
So the answer to
question #2 is: Demons have as much
faith as you and I do.
Which brings us to
-----
Question #3: What makes us humans better than angels or
demons?
Demons believe in
God, but they disobey Him. They have faith but not good works. Angels
obey God, but they don’t have faith. (Faith
isn’t necessary when there’s certainty.)
They have works but no faith.
Human beings, among
all known sentient life forms, are capable of both faith AND works.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I
have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my
faith by my works.
You believe that there is one God. You do
well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish
man, that faith without works is dead? (James 1: 18-20)
In the resurrection we
will, as Jesus said in Matthew 22: 30, be like
angels of God in heaven. We will
KNOW God, and faith will be fulfilled and finished.
But in this life, we
get to be more than angels---- the fallen ones and the glorified ones. In this life we get to trust God even when we
can’t see Him. We get to listen hard and
hear God’s voice through all the static of earthly life. We get to obey God’s Word in an environment
that has evolved to get us to do anything except obey God’s Word. We get to show the angels and the demons how it’s
done.
When you look at it
like that, we’ve got a pretty cool opportunity here.
Do you not know that we shall judge angels?
How much more, things that pertain to this life? (1 Corinthians 6: 3)
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T.
Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of
the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
To listen to sermons
and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church,
visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .
You can help support
this ministry by clicking the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or
money order may be mailed to
Hall Memorial CME
Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116
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