NORMAL OR IDEAL? THE MOTHER GOD WANTS MAMA TO BE

The Mother’s Day message examines the difference between: NORMAL OR  IDEAL? THE MOTHER GOD WANTS MAMA TO BE.

Listen well.

If you can’t get the audio on your device, visit the main podcast page at http://revandersongraves.podomatic.com/

The podcast is on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anderson-graves-podcast/id918990482

---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

Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves  #Awordtothewise 

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

A WORD TO THE WISE: Proverbs 31:12. "Treat 'Em Like a Christian"

Proverbs 31: 12     She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31: 12.  In the early days of the Methodist movement, before the small groups that were meeting had become a denomination, John Wesley created the “General Rules of the United Societies.”  These rules outline foundational principles of Methodism. 

Don’t go away.  This’ll all connect with Proverbs 31.  Stay with me.

Among the theological declarations in the General Rules are 3 life rules that Methodist are expected to “continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation.” 

These general rules don’t make you saved, but they do express your salvation.  The first 2 of those rules are:

1)      By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced

2)      By doing good … as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort

Do good and don’t do harm.  That’s the evidence that you have a right relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now read Proverbs 31: 12.

Do good and don’t do harm  That’s the evidence that you have a right relationship with your husband/wife.

Get it?

The same rules that apply to your Christian relationship with other people------- those exact same rules apply to your family relationship with the other spouse.

We talk about a man treating his wife like a queen and a woman treating her husband like a king. We talk about a husband being his wife’s protector and her being his greatest cheerleader.  We talk about husbands and wives treating each other like friends, like  partners, like missing halves.

Among all of these analogies, we often forget something.  We forget to treat each other LIKE CHRISTIANS.

I don’t go around cussing people out ----- not because they don’t deserve it----- because that’s not the Christian thing to do (Ephesians 4: 29).   So, I also don’t cuss at my wife, because she deserves at least the same Christian courtesy I show to everybody else.

You know that you have to forgive people who wrong you because Jesus said that you have to (Matthew 11: 25).   So you  can’t stay mad at my husband or wife for something he/she said in 1998.  You forgive them because you’re still a follower of Christ, even in the context of your marriage.  (Colossians 3: 19)

You have to help people (Matthew 25: 31-46).  You have to tell the truth even when a lie would be more convenient (Zechariah 8: 16; Ephesians 4: 25).  You have to live so that your life expresses, and doesn’t contradict ,the Biblical message of God’s grace and holiness(Matthew 5: 16) .   

So also, you have to be honest with your spouse.   You have to be there for them. You have to live with your husband/ live your wife in such a way that your actions in the family make your spouse want to know your Jesus better.

 In the opening verses of 1 Peter chapter 3, the Apostle talks very specifically about husband and wives. Then around verse 8, Peter switches into general instructions for all Christians. 

Be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. 

Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary bless, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.
For he who would love life and see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.  
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (1 Peter 3: 8-12)

Did you catch that part in the middle?   Let him turn away from evil and do good. (1 Peter 3: 11)

Same thing Wesley said to the emerging Methodist church.  

Same thing King Lemuel and his mother said about the ideal wife in Proverbs 31.

Though God’s instructions for marriage don’t always apply to general behaviors in the church, God’s instructions for conduct in the church do generally apply to conduct in the family.

We forget that sometimes.   And that’s when we hurt the one we love most.  

When you don’t know which magazine’s marital advice to apply, remember this:  Always treat your husband, always treat your wife at least as well as you know God wants you to treat your other brothers and sisters in Christ.

---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 hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

You can read more on Pastor Graves's personal blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  .

If this message helps or touches you, please help support this ministry. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116

Proverbs 31:12. "Treat 'Em Like a Christian"

Proverbs 31: 12     She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.

Proverbs 31: 12.  In the early days of the Methodist movement, before the small groups that were meeting had become a denomination, John Wesley created the “General Rules of the United Societies.”  These rules outline foundational principles of Methodism. 

Don’t go away.  This’ll all connect with Proverbs 31.  Stay with me.

Among the theological declarations in the General Rules are 3 life rules that Methodist are expected to “continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation.” 

These general rules don’t make you saved, but they do express your salvation.  The first 2 of those rules are:

1)      By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced

2)      By doing good … as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort

Do good and don’t do harm.  That’s the evidence that you have a right relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now read Proverbs 31: 12.

Do good and don’t do harm  That’s the evidence that you have a right relationship with your spouse.

Get it?

The same rules that apply to your Christian relationship with other people------- those exact same rules apply to your family relationship with the other spouse.

We talk about a man treating his wife like a queen and a woman treating her husband like a king. We talk about a husband being his wife’s protector and her being his greatest cheerleader.  We talk about husbands and wives treating each other like friends, like  partners, like missing halves.

Among all of these analogies, we often forget something.  We forget to treat each other LIKE CHRISTIANS.

I don’t go around cussing people out ----- not because they don’t deserve it----- because that’s not the Christian thing to do (Ephesians 4: 29).   So, I also don’t cuss at my wife, because she deserves at least the same Christian courtesy I show to everybody else.

You know that you have to forgive people who wrong you because Jesus said that you have to (Matthew 11: 25).   So you  can’t stay mad at my husband or wife for something he/she said in 1998.  You forgive them because you’re still a follower of Christ, even in the context of your marriage.  (Colossians 3: 19)

You have to help people (Matthew 25: 31-46).  You have to tell the truth even when a lie would be more convenient (Zechariah 8: 16; Ephesians 4: 25).  You have to live so that your life expresses, and doesn’t contradict ,the Biblical message of God’s grace and holiness(Matthew 5: 16) .   

So also, you have to be honest with your spouse.   You have to be there for them. You have to live with your husband/ live your wife in such a way that your actions in the family make your spouse want to know your Jesus better.

 In the opening verses of 1 Peter chapter 3, the Apostle talks very specifically about husband and wives. Then around verse 8, Peter switches into general instructions for all Christians. 

Be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. 

Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary bless, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.
For he who would love life and see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it.  
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (1 Peter 3: 8-12)

Did you catch that part in the middle?   Let him turn away from evil and do good. (1 Peter 3: 11)

Same thing Wesley said to the emerging Methodist church.  

Same thing King Lemuel &  his mother said about the ideal wife in Proverbs 31.

Though God’s instructions for marriage don’t always apply to general behaviors in the church, God’s instructions for conduct in the church do generally apply to conduct in the family.

We forget that sometimes.   And that’s when we hurt the one we love most.  

When you don’t know which magazine’s marital advice to apply, remember this:  Always treat your husband, always treat your wife at least as well as you know God wants you to treat your other brothers and sisters in Christ.

---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 hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

You can read more on Pastor Graves's personal blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  .

If this message helps or touches you, please help support this ministry. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116

A WORD TO THE WISE. Proverbs 31: 1. "Mama Said."

Proverbs 31: 1     The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him:
2     What, my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows?
3     Do not give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings.

Proverbs 31: 1-3.  The last chapter of Proverbs recounts the words of a king named Lemuel and the words of Lemuel’s mother.  It’s unclear though who Lemeul and his mom were.

The name Lemuel means “for God” or “belonging to God.”  That might have been one of Solomon’s nicknames, which would make Bathsheba the mother King Lemuel quotes in this passage.    Or, perhaps Lemuel was another name for Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and successor. King Rehoboam’s mother was an Ammonite named Naamah.

Though their advice makes it into the annals of Biblcal wisdom, neither of these ladies was the stereotypically perfect mother.

Mother Bathsheba had gotten her 1^st husband killed because she was messing around with  David, the rich guy in the big house across the street, while her husband was deployed to a combat zone (2 Samuel 11). 

Mama Naamah was one of a thousand women Solomon had had (literally 1,000, 1 Kings 11: 3).  Somehow she’d worked her way into the number 1 spot and corrupted her “good man” with her pagan ways.

For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.   For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. (1 Kings 11: 4, 5)

Whether Bathsheba or Namaah, the mother of Proverbs 31 has a pretty scandalous backstory.   So, the advice in Proverbs 31, especially the opening warning is more than a little ironic.

Mama said, “Don’t waste your energy chasing women.  Women will mess up a successful man.”

Sisters, as a man and a son let me explain something to you.  When you tell your baby boy, “You can’t trust no woman,”  the first woman that your son looks at suspiciously-------- is you.

You can’t tell a male human being that it’s O.K. for him to live with you forever and never fully commit to another woman AND simultaneously complain about his daddy being immature and not fulfilling responsibilities to you.   The two can’t both be correct.  It makes YOU sound suspect.

Despite her past, Lemuel’s mother understood this.  So though Proverbs 31 begins with a warning about women, the rest of the chapter elaborates on that advice and makes it clear that not all women are bad.  It’s just bad women who are bad.

Mama not only teaches her little prince to be careful about women, she also teaches him how to recognize a good woman.  This means that even though she was not herself a perfect woman, even though she knew that at any point she might be  the baddest of 1,000 bad girls, though she and her husband had done major wrong in the course of their relationship----- King Lemuel’s mother still taught her son that, “Yes, baby, there are good women out there.”

Any mother who teaches her little prince about the bad of other women without also teaching him the good has herself become one of those women who helps destroy a potential king.

A son is supposed to leave his mother one day.  A son is SUPPOSED TO find a woman, a good woman, whose love becomes MORE important than his mother’s.  

Therefore a man SHALL leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2: 24)

SHALL LEAVE.  “Should leave.”   IS SUPPOSED TO GROW THE CRAP UP AND LEAVE!

He can either be God’s man or mama’s little boy.  He cannot be both.

---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.

Call  334-288-0577
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

If you enjoy our work, please help support our work in the community. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116

Proverbs 31: 1. "Mama Said."

Proverbs 31: 1     The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him:
2     What, my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows?
3     Do not give your strength to women, nor your ways to that which destroys kings.

Proverbs 31: 1-3.  The last chapter of Proverbs recounts the words of a king named Lemuel and the words of Lemuel’s mother.  It’s unclear though who Lemeul and his mom were.

The name Lemuel means “for God” or “belonging to God.”  That might have been one of Solomon’s nicknames, which would make Bathsheba the mother King Lemuel quotes in this passage.    Or, perhaps Lemuel was another name for Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and successor. King Rehoboam’s mother was an Ammonite named Naamah.

Though their advice makes it into the annals of Biblcal wisdom, neither of these ladies was the stereotypically perfect mother.

Mother Bathsheba had gotten her 1^st husband killed because she was messing around with  David, the rich guy in the big house across the street, while her husband was deployed to a combat zone (2 Samuel 11). 

Mama Naamah was one of a thousand women Solomon had had (literally 1,000, 1 Kings 11: 3).  Somehow she’d worked her way into the number 1 spot and corrupted her “good man” with her pagan ways.

For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.   For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. (1 Kings 11: 4, 5)

Whether Bathsheba or Namaah, the mother of Proverbs 31 has a pretty scandalous backstory.   So, the advice in Proverbs 31, especially the opening warning is more than a little ironic.

Mama said, “Don’t waste your energy chasing women.  Women will mess up a successful man.”

Sisters, as a man and a son let me explain something to you.  When you tell your baby boy, “You can’t trust no woman,”  the first woman that your son looks at suspiciously-------- is you.

You can’t tell a male human being that it’s O.K. for him to live with you forever and never fully commit to another woman AND simultaneously complain about his daddy being immature and not fulfilling responsibilities to you.   The two can’t both be correct.  It makes YOU sound suspect.

Despite her past, Lemuel’s mother understood this.  So though Proverbs 31 begins with a warning about women, the rest of the chapter elaborates on that advice and makes it clear that not all women are bad.  It’s just bad women who are bad.

Mama not only teaches her little prince to be careful about women, she also teaches him how to recognize a good woman.  This means that even though she was not herself a perfect woman, even though she knew that at any point she might be  the baddest of 1,000 bad girls, though she and her husband had done major wrong in the course of their relationship----- King Lemuel’s mother still taught her son that, “Yes, baby, there are good women out there.”

Any mother who teaches her little prince about the bad of other women without also teaching him the good has herself become one of those women who helps destroy a potential king.

A son is supposed to leave his mother one day.  A son is SUPPOSED TO find a woman, a good woman, whose love becomes MORE important than his mother’s.  

Therefore a man SHALL leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2: 24)

SHALL LEAVE.  “Should leave.”   IS SUPPOSED TO GROW THE CRAP UP AND LEAVE!

He can either be God’s man or mama’s little boy.  He cannot be both.

---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.

Call  334-288-0577
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

To hear sermons, read devotions, and learn more about the ministry at Hall Memorial CME Church, visit www.hallmemorialcme.blogspot.com .

If you enjoy our work, please help support our work in the community. Send a donation of any amount by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116

WHAT (ELSE) MAMA SAID

In the movies, when a parent leaves an important detail out of their instructions, the results are hilarious.  But, in real-life, when parents give incomplete advice, especially incomplete advice about relationships-----the results are tragic.

How do we know what to tell our children about romance and relationships and what to leave out? 

What do we do if our parents somehow missed giving us the whole story?  
Is there any hope for raising up godly families in a culture where damaged relationships are more common than healthy ones?

The challenging and encouraging answer to these questions are given in a message called  WHAT (ELSE) MAMA SAID.

Listen well.

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---Anderson T. Graves II

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church

Call/ fax: 334-288-0577
Email us at hallmemorialcme1@aol.com  
Friend Pastor Graves at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
If you want to be a blessing to this ministry, contributions may be made by check or money order.

Mail all contributions to:

Hall Memorial CME Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116