HEMS & HEALING

Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8.

^So it was, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed Him, for they were all waiting for Him. (Luke 8: 40)

Let me contemporize that. 

Jesus shows up and the crowd goes wild!

They thronged Jesus.  They wept.  They stretched their hands to the Lord and shouted,

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.” 

What praise!  What worship!  They were having a Holy Ghost good time.

But one sister at the meeting was not getting her shout on, cause she had issues, one issue in particular.   

She’d had this issue since her baby started elementary school, and the child had graduated.  She had this when she started college; but a bachelor’s, 2 master’s, and a ph.d. later her issue was still unresolved. 

For 12 years she had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. (Mark 5: 26)

She heard that Jesus was healer, so she came to a seaside service.  But the logistics of the worship experience excluded her.

The multitude---some true believers, some more like fans of the hot new Prophet from Nazareth---- were really into the program.  But the sister with issues just was quiet.

The inner circle of associate pastors and armor-bearers known as the Disciples were doing their thing.  They stood close to the main Man and formed a secret-service style buffer escorting Jesus to his next engagement.

Visiting clergy and dignitaries from Bishop Jairus’ church were ushered through the crowd straight to Jesus.

But the sister with issues didn’t have those kind of connections. She didn’t have the ecclesiastical muscle to push her way through the press.  She didn’t have the money to “sow a seed” for her blessing.  She was broke and broken on the edges of the worship moment, and she didn’t think she was worthy even of eye contact from Jesus. 

Some then must have wondered silently what I’ve heard preachers today ask openly, “If you got no money, no testimony, and no praise, why are you even here?”

All she had was issues…. and faith.

She said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” (Matthew 9: 21)

She eased up behind Jesus and touched the edge of His robe. ((Matthew 9: 20: Mark 5: 27; Luke 8: 44 )

Remember that the church is the body of Jesus Christ.   Religion is the robe that the church wraps around its body. 

This sister reached for the robe.

We don’t know which hem---sleeve, or bottom or maybe a piece of the collar.  But we do know that from the fringes of the worship experience, from the back of the church she reached out believing that it would be enough if she could just  touch the edges of the trappings surrounding the body of Christ.

Sitting quietly on the back pew, the sister with issues participated in the religious exercise, ritual, and/or tradition of the church because that was all the Jesus she thought she could reach.

Her religiosity was an expression of genuine FAITH.

Everybody in the multitude wanted Jesus to answer their prayers, but the quiet one in the back, the silent one at the edge of the church’s property line was the one Jesus stopped the program to look for.

“Who touched Me?”

From way in the back of the sanctuary her FAITH had cried out to Jesus louder than the Hallelujah’s all day.  Her FAITH was more impressive than the credentials of the visiting ministers.   Her FAITH was more precious than the crowd’s combined tithing potential.

Her FAITH got Jesus’ attention and endowed her with a testimony.

Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. (Mark 5: 33)

The disciples didn’t get it.  From their vantage point in and around the pulpit it was just one big crowd all yelling for Jesus at the same time.

But Jesus got it.  Faith had awakened His power.  Faith had sparked an subconscious response in His virtue. Everybody else wanted a touch from Jesus.  But now Jesus had been touched. 

 And He said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” (Mark 5: 48)

Jesus recognized her faith even though it was active on the fringes of the worship experience. 

Do we?

It’s good to shout. It’s good to be exuberant when we crowd together in the name of Jesus.

But is that all we can see?

Can’t we discern the sincerity of the faith of the ones who sit in the back?

God is not like Baal, the pagan god whose followers had to shout because he might be sleeping. (1 Kings 9)

We are not like the heathens, thinking God will hear us because we make a lot of noise.  (Matthew 6: 7)

We’re not, are we?

Surely we know that if the Holy Ghost  is moving in the sanctuary, He's moving even in the back at the height of a seated person. 

Surely there’s as much issue resolving power at the fringes of the church experience as down in the center of it all.

Or “Maybe,” as my friend Rev. Freeman McKindra said, "the hem of His garment and the edge of our property lines differ in power.   But I thought we were the body of Christ?!"   

The protocols, procedures, and preferences that make up our religion are just the robes around the body of Christ.

Our religious adornment is often exclusionary.  Religion can strangle the spiritual life from a community or a bind the hands of a saint who wants to serve.  But religion can also be the thread that brings a sister with issues into contact with the living Jesus.

That dry, boring old religion can be the cord through which the power of God is conducted into the real lives of people at the spiritual edges of church proper.

It’s easy for the preacher in charge to give attention to the Holy Ghost high brother at the altar crip-walking to the piano riff.   But we also have to acknowledge and disciple those who have nothing to show, nothing to offer, nothing except faith and issues.

They may not yet know Jesus as their personal savior.  All they know is that this religion is supposed to get them to God.  All they reach for is the hem of His garment.

Let’s love them, too.  Let’s not require them to act like the rest of the multitude.  Let’s take them as they are.   

Everybody’s not going to praise like everybody else praises.

Don’t make people pretend.  Let them do their religious thing if that’s how they touch Jesus.

Let them touch the hem if that’s how they’ll get their healing.

That’s what the robe/ religion is for.

---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

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

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

WHO DO YOU TELL THEM I AM?

So we’re eating pizza and Philly cheeseteaks and my wife says, “I don’t know why people don’t take the question Jesus asked more seriously.”

If you’ve never talked to my wife, you don’t know that she often begins conversations out loud where she left off the conversation in her mind.

The question Jesus had asked was, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16: 15).

Sheila said, “I don’t know why people don’t take the question Jesus asked more seriously. If it was your boyfriend or your husband, you’d know it was serious.

‘When people talk about you to me, what do they call me?

‘And who do you tell them that I am?’

That’s like a major question.  Why don’t they think that was important to Jesus?”

Sheila (as usual) is right.

We treat “the question” like a kind of casual theological pop quiz.  Like Jesus was checking to see if the disciples had an adequately orthodox view of Christological doctrine.  (Google it if you have to.)

But “the question” wasn’t casual.  It was major.

It still is.

When you’re away from church and other Christians and your sin-loving friends are talking about Jesus and judging His body (the church), what do you say?  Do you say anything?

When your buddies from other faith-traditions are talking about Jesus, calling Him this and that, do you laugh and agree so they don’t think you’re weird?

Do you call Him a teacher because that’s what they called Him?  Do you nervously make little of His divinity?  Do you hasten to make sure that they know that you don’t think He was any more of a big deal than any other spiritual figure?

Do you call Him your Lord, and Savior, and God of everything?

Or do you say, “He’s just a friend”?

I know.  Not everybody comes from the same tradition.  Everyone's entitle to their own beliefs. We’re all children of the same God. 

I know.  I know.

“But who do YOU say that I am?”

That’s what Jesus wants to know.

And the answer majorly matters to Him.

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.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 (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) 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 blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

POWER, PROFIT, & LETTING GO

Jesus gave authority, spiritual authority, to the disciples and to every individual Christian who believes in Christ.  But Jesus also gave spiritual authority to the church, the collective body of believers.  So with all of that spiritual dominion available, why does the church often seem so power-LESS?  What can we do to change it?  How can the church take back its power?

The answers are in a follow up message on the doctrine of binding and loosing.  The sermon is called THE POWER & PROFIT OF LETTING GO.

Listen well.

If you have trouble with the audio player, click here.

---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

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

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

THE (REST OF THE) GOLDEN RULE FOR PARENTS

In Matthew 7, Jesus praised God’s parenting skills.  Our Heavenly Father, as Jesus explained, is the standard and model for all human parents.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew 7: 11)

And that is the context for one of the most quoted (and misquoted) verses in the Bible, the Golden Rule.

Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7: 12)

Jesus repeated this rule, probably lots of times.  Luke recorded one of those reiterations in  chapter 6. 

And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.(Luke 6: 31)

Or, as we put it on our decorative plates, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Jesus, genius that He is, encapsulated the entirety of ethics and social morality in one sentence.   But, for us to fully apply the Golden Rule, we have to do what our Heavenly Father did.  We have to apply the Golden Rule forward AND in reverse.

The inverse of Matthew 7 would read: “Whatever you want done to other men, do that also to yourself.”

God proclaimed judgment for the sins of men, judgment by death and separation from His grace.  So, what did God do to Himself?

He gave Himself, the Word of His Trinity to take sin upon Himself and die.  And when He, His Son, was covered in sin on the cross, the Father looked away and the Son cried out “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27: 46)

God did to Himself/ His Son what He would do to others.

God applied His own rules to Himself.

For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.  (Matthew 7: 2)

And God is our model as parents------ right?

O.K.  Now think about how you reacted when you heard about Chris Brown beating up Rhianna. How indignant were you when you saw the video of a big pro football player punching his slender girlfriend in the face?  Recall your reaction when you read about a federal judge beating up his wife and getting away with what amounts to a promise to erase the charge from his record?

Don’t you want justice for the women?  Don’t you want JUDGMENT against the men who treated those ladies with violence instead of the respect they deserve?

Good.

But now, imagine (or remember) your son’s principal calling to tell you he hit a girl at school?

Do you want YOUR son punished?  Do you want YOUR SON  to lose his place on the football team?  Do you want your son to feel the full weight of JUDGMENT?

Or do you ask, “Well, what did the little b***** do to him?”

Do you want others to judge your son the same way you want them judged?

If God is your model as a parent, you should.

You don’t have to be a monster to turn your child into one.  All you have to do is defend them when they behave monstrously.

When Jesus was covered in sin on the cross, God didn’t make excuses for Him----- and Jesus was/ is personally perfect.  Your baby and mine?  They’re not perfect.    What excuse do we have for the excuses we make for them? 

Spare the rod and spoil the child.  Well what if the rod is in somebody else’s hands?

Yes, protect them from evil. Yes, defend them against every INjustice.  Demand equity.  Advocate for their rights, privileges, and advantage.

But.

Just remember the Golden Rule.   Remember how God applied the Golden Rule to His Son.  Let’s do the same for our children.   It won’t kill them.  It’ll make them better people.

If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8: 31-32)

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.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 (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) 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 blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

ARTICLE 3: THE RESURRECTION

Article III - Of the Resurrection of Christ

Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.

Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?--- Paul (Acts 26: 8)

Seriously.  Why?

Christians believe in God existing infinitely without beginning or end, in God creating everything from nothing, in God enabling salvation for all people in all times through the events of a single torturous day, in God knowing everything and being everywhere all at the same time.

But some of those same “Christians” think the Resurrection is too much to be taken literally.

So God can create a body and give it life, but He couldn’t put His life back into a body He’d already created?

Really? 

Even though He’d done that kind of thing before?

You see, Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t the first.

When a Zarephathan widow’s son died, the prophet Elijah brought the child back to life (1 Kings 17:17-24).   Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, resurrected a Shunamite woman’s son when he died from an apparent brain aneurism (2 Kings 4:20-37).  In 2 Kings 13:21 a dead man revived when he was dropped on the bones in Elisha’s tomb.

During the 3 ½ years of His public ministry Jesus personally resurrected at least 3 dead people, including one who’d been dead and buried for 4 days. (Luke 7:11-16; Mark 5:35-43; John 11:1-44)

Well before that first Easter weekend, God had well established a record of physical resurrections.

Yet, In 1 Corinthian 15: 20, Paul called Jesus the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  Colossians 1: 8 calls Him the firstborn from among the dead.

Not ”first” because resurrection had never happened before, but first because it had never happened like this.

Jesus’ resurrection, The Resurrection, was unique and precedent setting.

No one prayed over Jesus’ lifeless body.  No one touched His corpse, took His hand, or breathed onto His face.  No one dropped Him onto the bones of a prophet.  No.  His followers sealed Him in an empty, unused tomb and left.

Jesus got up from death all by Himself.

… I lay down My life that I may take it again.  No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (John 10: 17, 18)

When He carried our sins on the cross and the rest of the Trinity had to look away. 

Now when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15: 33, 34)

Jesus carried our sins to His grave---- and left them there. 

Having dealt with sin, Jesus proceeded to kick Death’s butt.

 “O Death, where is your sting?

O Hades, where is your victory?”

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15: 55-57)

The oneness of the Trinity remained and Jesus rose in the fullness of glory.

I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death. (Revelations 1: 18)

Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t metaphorical or “spiritual.”  He really came back in His real body.  This point is so important that Jesus went out of His physicality to the disciples.

In Luke 24: 36-43, Jesus appeared (like Bam!) to the disciples while they were hiding out from the Jews.   But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.

Jesus wanted them to know that He wasn’t just a spirit of Himself, He was really, really Him.

So, He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.

But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, “Have you any food here?”

 So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.

Before Jesus, all of the people who had come back from the dead later died again.

But Jesus ?  Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. (Romans 6: 9)

So, if we are by faith joined to Jesus Christ, then we get to participate in the same unique resurrection process.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. (Romans 6: 8)

Peter called Jesus the Author of life (Acts 3: 15).  By His death and resurrection, Jesus wrote us into His-story.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11: 25)

Like Jesus, our ultimate resurrection will not simply be a rising of the soul; it will be a resurrection of the body.

Our corrupt forms will be raised in incorruption.

Our dishonorable forms will be resurrected as glorious.

Our weak flesh will rise in power.

This made-for-death natural body will be a made-for-eternity, spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15: 42-44)

The eaaarrrrly Sunday mo’nin’ testimony of the empty tomb is where our hope and faith begin. 

This is why with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all (Acts 4: 33)

Jesus really, literally, physically died on the cross.  3 days and 3 nights later, Jesus really, literally, physically rose from the dead.  The 2^nd person of the Trinity, the Word of God, re-entered the mummy-wrapped body lying in another man’s tomb.  (Matthew 27: 57-60)

Approximately 33 years earlier, God formed an earthly body in Mary’s womb and made Himself the life in that body.  On Easter, God redeemed the earthly body He had worn those 3+ decades and walked the world again.  This time, though the body was perfect, like the original form made for Adam. 

Resurrected Jesus was the same Jesus who had walked and talked and eaten with his mother and siblings and disciples.    But, like Adam in Genesis 1 & 2, Jesus’ post-Resurrection body was without any taint of original sin or corruption.  As Adam and Eve could once walk safely in the direct, unfiltered presence of God (Genesis 3: 8), so now Jesus ascended bodily into the throneroom of Heaven.

And because He arose, if we have faith in Him, one day, we will, too.

Now that I think about it, that IS pretty incredible. Better yet, it’s pretty AWESOME!

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.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 (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) 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 blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

WHEN TO HOLD ON; WHEN TO LET GO

It’s true of romance.  And it’s true in this spiritual journey called the Christian life: You have to know when to hold on, and you have to know when to let go.

The Bible speaks to this issue of holding on or letting go.  Jesus taught that holding on and letting go are expressions of spiritual authority.  Jesus called it BINDING & LOOSING. 

The sermon is called WHEN TO HOLD ON & WHEN TO LET GO.

Listen well.

If you have trouble with the audio player, click here.

---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

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

You can help support this ministry with a donation to Miles Chapel CME Church.

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

PERMANENT WEED KILLER

Where I grew up in Bassfield, Mississippi we had a big yard. And I mowed that yard----- with a push mower.

Oh from time to time Pops would buy a so-called self-propelled mower to “help me out,” but when the propulsion gears got clogged with rich south Mississippi dirt (And the propulsion gears always got clogged.  Where’d they test self-propelled mowers anyway, in a parking lot?).  Anyway, when the self-propelled mowers stopped propelling themselves they became much heavier push mowers. 

I pushed that entire yard spring, summer, and fall.  If I didn’t get up early when it was cool, Pops would say, “I bought you a hat didn’t I?” and I’d mow that whole freakin’ yard in the Mississippi sun.  For some reason my parents didn’t discover  riding mowers until I moved out of state for college.

I hated yardwork.  Still do.

But back then on a Saturday under 100 degree plus sun while my friends drove by blowing their horns and waving, I hated the grass in that yard with the kind of seething, personal antipathy that teenagers usually reserve for other teenagers.

So one day, when Pops left me alone at noon with instructions to mow the yard because I should have gotten my butt up while it was still cool----- I sprayed the entire yard with diluted diesel, and then I sat on the steps of our trailer and watched the grass die.

It was BEAUTIFUL.  The blades of grass shrunk and curled in the sun.  The tall seeded stems drooped and seemed to slide back in to the earth.  It all turned this beautiful winter brown, first in spots were the droplets of diesel fell, but after an hour baking in the oven that was Mississippi the diesel basting turned the entire yard an even shade of beautiful, beautiful, dead, not needing to be mowed brown.

I started this story to make some deep point.  Where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah. 

The grass grew back.  The mowing started all over again.

Around this time,  in Sunday school, we were studying the Judges (as in the book of Judges), and I read Judges 9: 45.

And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt (KJV)

Our Sunday school teacher explained that salt kills the root and the makes it impossible for anything to ever grow on that soil again.

I put my fingertips together, leaned back in the pew, and said nothing, but in my mind I was laughing, “Bwaahahahaha!”

No.  I didn’t spread salt on my parents’ yard.  I was frustrated not suicidal.

But I nurtured a vision, a dream that one day I would leave that place and build myself a big house. 

And I was going to pave the entire yard, and every year I would go outside and fertilize the pavement with salt just to make sure that NOTHING GREW.

However, we built our house in a planned subdivision and both the housing covenant and my wife prohibited that type of landscaping.

All this time though, I’ve remembered the growth killing power of salt.

Hebrews chapter 12 urges Christians to “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”  The author wants to prevent us from “[falling] short of the grace of God” and becoming “defiled.”

Now (and here’s the connect to my grass-cutting rant), the passage tells HOW Christians fall short of grace and become defiled.  It tells how we fail to pursue peace and holiness.

“lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble”

We get angry.  We feel wronged.  We have moments of envy, jealousy, wrath, lust, etc., etc.  Yes, WE, as in we CHRISTIANS.  But, we fight those sinful feelings.  We turn from them, rebuke, push them down, pray them away.  We stop, get ahold of ourselves, and breathe.  We cut off, or shall I say, “We mow down,” the weeds of sinful thinking.

But the grass always grows back.

Just when you think you’ve conquered your anger, “That chick said what?”  Now you gotta crank up your spiritual engine and cut back your emotions again.

It’s exhausting.

What you need is a way to kill the root of bitterness so it can’t spring back up to cause you trouble.

You need SALT.

And you have some.  More specifically, you are some.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13)

Fertilize your emotional landscape with your own spiritual salt.

How?

Colossians 4: 6.

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. 

Salt your emotional ground with what Paul had previously advised in Colossians.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.  (Colossians 3: 12-14)

Spread your spiritual salt all over your emotional landscape by being good to people---- to all people.

My grandmother and the women of her generation all seemed so calm, so centered, so sure of who they were, so at peace with their choices and circumstances.  It was Zen-like.

Now, I remember them singing to themselves.  When their men or their children or their circumstances got out of line, they would cook, or clean, or do whatever was their normal task for the day, and they would quietly hum the old hymns, and sometimes ad-lib Bible verses into the lines.

It was Zen-like. 

It was genius.

It was Scripture.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3: 16-17)

Spread your spiritual salt by praising God---- in all situations. 

Hum those hymns and gospel songs.  Treat every assignment and task as a chance to glorify Jesus.  Thank God---- for everything.

You’ll kill the roots of bitterness, and one day you’ll look out and realize that you don’t have to trim the edge off your anger anymore.  The bitterness will be dead, dried up from the root.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful (Colossians 3: 15)

You’ll be living the dream.

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.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 (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) 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 blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

BASIC JESUS: Blogging the Articles of Religion, Article #2

Article II - Of the Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man

The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.

Sometime around the end of B.C. or the beginning of A.D.  Jesus was born in Bethlehem. That was when Jesus was born. 

That wasn’t when Jesus BEGAN.

Cause He has always existed.  Jesus was, is, and had always been the 2^nd person of the Trinity, better known as the Word of God. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  (John 1: 1-3)

In Bethlehem, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1: 14)

In the conception and birth of Jesus (known as the Incarnation), God used the virgin Mary’s genetic material to create for Himself a physical human body.  This was a unique event, but not entirely unprecedented.

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.  Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. (Genesis 2: 21, 22)

See what God did there? 

God reached into a part of Adam’s body, and without the contribution of a 2^nd parent, God  used Adam’s genetic material to form a different physical body for another unique human person.  She was named Eve.

And that’s what God did for Himself.  The Nativity story (Christmas) is about how God reached into Mary’s body, and without the contribution of a 2^nd parent, used Mary’s genetic material to form a unique human body.  He was named Jesus.

And BORN into the world, the eternal Word is the Son of God.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds …

For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”?

And again: “I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son”? (Hebrews 1: 1, 2, 5)

Into Eve’s body, God breathed the breath of life just as He’d done for Adam.  That breath created a unique living soul  and mind that were one with the physical body.

Into the rapidly dividing fetal cells in Mary’s womb, God breathed HIMSELF.  The Word joined to that flesh and became one with the body.

“The Word became flesh.”

That’s why even when Mary was in her 1^st trimester, the prenatal Jesus’ Divine nature was apparent to those who were spiritually sensitive enough.

And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! (Luke 1: 41-42)

The New Testament Incarnation of God in the flesh was unique, but it wasn’t unprecedented.

In Genesis 18, “the Lord appeared to Abraham by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day” (Genesis 18: 1). 

God appeared as  one of three men (Genesis 18: 2, 3).  The other two were angels accompanying Him (Genesis 19: 1.

When God and the angels appeared, Abraham fell all over himself trying to be a good host.  Abraham said, “Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree” (Genesis 18: 4).

You see?  This wasn’t just a VISION of the Lord.  This was God Himself inside real flesh and blood.  He walked.  His feet got dirty.  He looked like He could use a drink of water.   

God and His angels reciprocated Abraham’s hospitality by actually, literally, PHYSICALLY eating Sarah’s cooking. 

Abraham took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree as they ate (Genesis 18: 8).

Millennia before the birth of Jesus, God demonstrated that He is capable and willing to create a physical body for Himself and walk around in it, interacting with people and the world.

So, we can’t argue ---- from a Biblical perspective---- that God would NEVER accept the limitations of a literal, physical form as the New Testament says He did.

We can’t say that, because the Old Testament shows that God had done it before.

Only in the New Testament, God chose (cause God can do whatever He wants) to construct that body in Mary’s womb from Mary’s genetic material, and instead of just taking that form for a few hours, the Word of the Trinity inhabited that body for 33 or so years and then resurrected it --- forever.

For more than 3 decades, God lived as one of us.

While the Word “dwelt among us,” God was still God, present everywhere, knowing everything, never diminished, never divided.

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Jesus, the Christ, the Word made flesh, the Son of God---- was gestated and birthed.  He lived and grew.  He experienced all of the reality of human life, good and bad, just like every human before and since.  But He did it with perfection.

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4: 14, 15)

God was a better man than man had ever been.  Which was why Jesus, the God-Man, died on the cross.

God had set up a simple system.  In Genesis, He created Adam and Eve into a perfect world: no sickness, no sin.  And as long as humanity stayed out of sin, death stayed out of humanity.

The sting of death is sin (1 Corinthians 15: 56)

Of course we screwed that up, which created a genetically transmitted debt for all and each of humanity.

For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23)

This is what we call “Original Sin.”

Notice that death is the WAGE of sin, not the fine or penalty.  The 100% fatality rate among human beings is not so much the judgment for each person’s sin as it is our well-earned compensation.  It’s a flat rate pay system.  No matter when you enter the market, how long you stay, how well or badly your colleagues scale your performance as a sinner, you get what we all get: death.

Think about the parable of the laborers in Matthew 20.

So we all get to die, and then our lives are judged in the penalty phase of eternal judgment.

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but AFTER this the judgment  (Hebrews 9: 27)

In the Old Testament law, God codified a system by which sacrificial death could atone for sin. The problem is my own physical death is an insufficient sacrifice to pay off my sin account. 

For my sins to be cleared, something or someone must die FOR me. 

But what or Who has enough life in them that their death could cover the wages of their sin AND satisfy the penalty phase of mine.

Look at it geometrically.

A human life is a line segment.  

Our mortal lives have a distinct beginning and a distinct end.

The life or an angel or other spiritual creature would be graphed as a ray.

A definite beginning (because they are created) but no definite end (because they are immortal).

God has neither end nor beginning.  God began the beginning and ends the end.   Like a line.

More accurately, God is infinite, transcending even the concepts of beginning and end.

∞

Get it?

No other normal human being can die for MY sins.  A human life is too short, too limited to cover somebody else.   

Each person’s death is covered under the wages of their own sin.  And even if someone else’s death-wages were applied to me, it would first have to go toward their own sin, and would still be insufficient for the debt.

Let’s say that God let a holy, sinless angel die in my place. After all, the life of an angel can extend indefinitely.  Surely that would be enough to cover me.  Perhaps, but angels are created beings, confined to time as well.  The angel would only be able to die for one person at a time.  Which means that a separate angel would have to die for each person, or the same angel would have to be crucified over and over and over each time some new human was born or died or sinned.

The sacrificial system of a life for each sin or sinful life is fair but untenable.

For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. ^For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. ^But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. ^For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. (Hebrews 10: 1-4)

So, to bring salvation from sin to EVERYBODY; living, dead, not yet born, present at the sacrifice, somewhere else when the sacrifice was made---- everybody, then the sacrificial offering would have to be perfect and transcendent.    The sacrifice must have life that extends to all places and all times at the same time.  In other words, the sacrifice had to be omnipresent. 

The sacrifice has to be of the same sinful genetic flesh common to all humans but without any sins of His own.

The sacrifice had to be perfect, eternal, and infinite.

∞

Such a sacrifice would have to be man and God at the same time. 

The only possible sacrifice for the sins of the world had to be Jesus.

^And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, ^so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.  (Hebrews 9: 27, 28;)

^And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. ^But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, ^from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. ^For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.  (Hebrews 10: 11-14)

And that is why Jesus died, literally, physically died on a Roman cross during a Jewish festival.

Salvation is not a figure of speech.  It is a literal reality.  Jesus’ death was not a spiritual passing away, a figurative faint, or a Divine sleight of hand.  Jesus’ heart stopped beating, his brain activity went to zero, his respiration ceased.  He biologically DIED, just like every other human has or will.

Jesus’ death was not a myth, a publicity stunt, or a mistranslation.  At least you and I should hope it wasn’t because if Jesus did not die in the way prophesied in the Old Testament and recorded in the New, then we are all eternally screwed.

Without the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are all stranded in sin without a sacrifice sufficient to pay the sin debt we owe after our sin wages are collected.

Fortunately, the Bible is true.

For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given.  And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9: 6)

The Bible is so deep that it can blow your mind, but it’s also mind-blowingly true.

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:

God was manifested in the flesh,

Justified in the Spirit,

Seen by angels,

Preached among the Gentiles,

Believed on in the world,

Received up in glory. (1 Timothy 3: 16)

That’s deep. That’s wonderful.  That’s Jesus.

And these are just the fundamentals.

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.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 (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) 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 blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves