MISERY LOVES COMPANY?

 

They say, “Misery loves company,” but I don’t know about that. 

The idea is we tend to spread our pain to others as if by division we can diminish our share of anguish.  I’ve been sad enough to be bitter and make my company miserable, too.  It didn’t help.  For each companion infected with despair, the inverse occurred, and my share of misery multiplied.   My misery does not love present company. 

But PAST company is welcome. 

There is surprising comfort in realizing that my particular distress isn’t particular to me.  Someone else has scars in the same place.  Others have fought the same battle, lost it like me, survived the loss, fought it again, and survived to share the story.

 This is why I love the Bible’s record of failures.  

 Jacob “wrestling” with insomnia because he’s convinced himself that his brother is going to massacre his entire family (Genesis 32).  David starving himself in seemingly suicidal desperation because he can’t fix the consequences his stupid choices have caused for his child (2 Samuel 12).  Elijah in a state of bi-polar depression running away from his greatest success, isolating himself from loyal company, mentally self-abusing, and wanting to just die. “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” (1 Kings 19: 4).  

None of those miserable examples of humanity survived that moment unscathed, but each of them survived.  They got up --- limping, grieving, chastised and still angry; but they got up and went on to succeed.   

 It comforts me to be in the company of such a great cloud of miserable witnesses.  

It should comfort our community to open the Bible and read that that we are not  the first community of faith to experience this particular combination of anxiety, anger, hope?, resignation, and cynicism about the possibilities of justice. 

The Korahites had been slaves, leaders, rebels, outcasts, and worship leaders.   One of their songs declares the misery of being citizens of a country defined by sin, led by lies, governed unjustly, and oppressed with impunity. 

Vindicate me, O God,

And plead my cause against an ungodly nation;

Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!

For You are the God of my strength;

Why do You cast me off?

Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?  (Psalm 43: 1-2)

 

The sons of Korah pleaded for a sign, for a Word from the Lord that would make all their praise and worship seem relevant in the midst of national misery.

 Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!

Let them lead me;

Let them bring me to Your holy hill

And to Your tabernacle.

Then I will go to the altar of God,

To God my exceeding joy;

And on the harp I will praise You,

O God, my God. (Psalm 43: 3-4)

We don’t know what were the specific issues which inspired the 43^rd psalm. What were the alternative facts delivered by the deceitful and unjust man?  Whose lives didn’t matter to the ungodly nation they nevertheless loved?  What were the systemic tools used for oppression?  We don’t know how or if the complaints in the psalm were justly resolved? 

 

All we know is their misery. 

And we know how they survived, got up, and kept going. 

 Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God;

For I shall yet praise Him,

The help of my countenance and my God. (Psalm 43:  5)     

 

The Korahites worked on themselves internally. 

Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me? 

They concluded that they could not survive depending on circumstances as the source of their mental health.  They recalled that they, like the miserable saints before could endure and progress if they placed their hope in God. 

Hope in God 

The Sons of Korah decided to reinvest in their praise and worship.  To simply DECIDE that their praise and worship was relevant. 

For I shall yet praise Him

They decided to remember, to believe, to KNOW that God had brought them through every past battle; and, therefore, He would bring them through the next battles, including the battles with their own misery. 

The help of my countenance and my God.  

 These all foreshadowed the greatest story of misery and success. 

JESUS had no form or comeliness . . . no beauty that we should desire Him. . .  He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  He was lonely because we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.  He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.   (Isaiah 53: 2, 3)

Jesus triumphed over death, the grave, Hell, sin, and human betrayal.  This is our God in whose eternal company we have our most precious hope. 

This is the company that misery can love.   

Over and over, the Bible affirms:  You may not feel alright right now, but you will be alright in the long run. 

You will lose sometimes, but you will ultimately win.

God’s people hurt, too.  But God heals His people.   Every time.

May our present anxiety find relief in the great cloud of witnesses who have suffered and triumphed before us.       

 AND GO VOTE ON TUESDAY. 

-  Anderson T. Graves II, is a writer, community organizer, consultant and the pastor of Bailey Tabernacle CME Church 

Email: BaileyTabernacleChurch@comcast.net

Friend on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves

Follow on twitter @AndersonTGraves 

Support this blog with a donation to paypal.me/andersongraves  or CashApp  at $atgraves or on the DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar. 

 

 

 

 

FEARLESS FAITH

The title of message is FEARLESS FAITH. It was preached for the Homecoming Celebration at Miles Chapel CME Church.

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

STILL STANDING (audio of sermon)

The message, delivered at St. Paul CME Church in Selma, AL, is called  STILL STANDING.

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

BLIND SHEEP & THE GOOD SHEPHERD

You probably know that Jesus called Himself “the Good Shepherd,” but do you know why and how the conversation started?

See, Jesus had gotten into an argument about healing a blind man on the Sabbath day when He started talking about…

You know what?  Just open your Bible to John chapter 9 and  listen to the sermon.  The title of the message is: BLIND SHEEP & A GOOD SHEPHERD.

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

WHAT WILL YOU... & WHAT WILL I.. (A Lent Message from a special guest blogger)

Today’s guest blogger is Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick.   This entry is used with permission from Bishop Reddick’s Lent Message to the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

The late Bishop Joseph Coles impressed me during his episcopal ministry as one who could say a lot with a few words.  (I often wondered if his gift was related to the necessity of him to economize as he adjusted after a stroke early in his episcopal ministry.  Not having observed his preaching as much beforehand, I did not know.) 

          I believe it was a conference teaching session (I’m not sure; memory fails me!) when I heard him say, “Discipline is choosing the greater over the lesser.  That’ what it is:  choosing the greater over the lesser.”

          One day in devotional time, I heard that theme anew when I read Psalm 119, verse 37, in the Revised Standard Version:

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways.

          I don’t exactly remember why the verse stopped me that day … but it did.  It stopped me and moved me from being “in devotional time” to being “in study time.”  And I began to look up words in English and in Hebrew.  I heard the word “worthless” as two words – “worth less.”  And I heard Bishop Coles’ definition of discipline, and considered the question, “What is worth more?” 

 The result was that “study time” resulted in even greater devotional time … because I wanted to know and choose those things that were worth more.

          The word “choose” is important – at least, for a few moments.  It was important some days ago when I was challenged to find the right message for a worship service led by the East Texas Region ushers.  Of course, I looked at Psalms 84, which includes the words, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”  Yet, the psalm starts with words descriptive of the pull, the magnetism, the joy, and, yes, the fullness and the glory of getting into God’s house – “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord ….”  Amiable is from a Hebrew word that means “lovely, beloved, pleasant.”

          Then I saw that the words translated “I would rather be” (a doorkeeper …) in verse 10 of Psalm 84 are from the word, babar, which can mean, “choosing, distinguishing, proving, trying, selecting.”  Thus, the psalmist is saying, out of a culture where the “tent of God’s presence” existed among other “tents” in Israel’s camp:  “I choose to be in God’s tent rather that in the tents of wicked folk!”  The word “choose” is important; it is highlighted by our conscious actions.

          But those of us who have been disciples just a little while know that we don’t always choose what is good, or what is better, or what is worth more rather than what is worth less. And so, like the psalmist in Psalms 119:37, we pray for God’s help, asking God:

Turn my eyes from watching what is worthless;

give me life in your ways.

In this prayer, a key word is turn (rather than choose).    The Hebrew translated “turn” is abar, and it means, “to move beyond,” or “to move from here to there,” or “to transfer.”  And so the psalmist is praying (and when we recite the psalm, we can also be praying), “Move me, Lord; move me beyond this to that.  Move me beyond what is worth less to that which is worth more”:

-move me from focusing on things that are lesser;

-move me from focusing on things that have little value;

-set my sights on greater things,

-and give me life through your direction.

          Lent is an important personal  time.  For some of us, it is “taking off”:  “What will you give up?” we ask.  But I am wondering if we might also learn to “take on.”  This becomes my new Lenten question:  “What will you … and what will I … take on for Christ?”  

Senior Bishop Lawrence Reddick

Presiding Bishop of The Eighth Episcopal District of

The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

            Bishop Lawrence L. Reddick III, the 51^st bishop elected in the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, has been presiding bishop of the Eighth Episcopal District since July 2014. 

ww.thecmechurch.org/collegeofbishops/bishoplawrencereddick.htm
  

WAIT. WHAT'D YOU JUST SAY?

Maybe it's because I'm an old English teacher.  Maybe it's because I'm a little bit obsessive about this whole Word of God thing.  Whatever the reason, here is my contribution to the canon of "Things Christians Need to Stop Saying."

#1 “Declare and decree”

I’ll come back to the rationale, but the language comes from Psalm 2: 7.   What the Psalm actually says is, “I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” (King James Version)

No translation says “declare AND decree.”

Grammatically, the structure of the actual Biblical quote is verb followed by object-noun.  The popular version people repeat is verb followed by synonymous verb.  The verb declare and the verb decree basically mean the same thing.

The Bible says “I command what will be.”  We (and by “we” I mean “ya’ll”) have been saying, “I command and command.”

But hey, so what?  

Well, the difference between what the Bible actually says and what the trending church cliché says is deeper than grammar.

King David is the human author of Psalm 2, but the speaker in verse 7 is a prophetic Old Testament depiction of Christ.  Jesus is the begotten Son God.  It's Jesus who says, “I declare the decree,” and the decree is the Father's declaration of the Sonship of Jesus.  This is internal Trinity business.  When a Christian presumes to have this exact same level of authority to declare and decree, that Christian is claiming to be equal to God.

In Jesus’ name and in His will, we are authorized to bind, to lose, to heal, and to cast out evil spirits.  But, the power to make something from nothing by just saying that it is so---- that power is reserved for God.

And that other verse about “speaking things into existence” is also a verse about what only God can do.

As it is written, I have made thee [Abraham] a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.  (Romans  4: 17)

In this verse, Abraham doesn't speak anything into existence.  God does not pass on the power to call forth something out of nothing.

God’s exclusive Divine ability to call things that don’t exist into existence was the foundation of Abraham’s faith.    We are ---- less than God. (Psalm 8: 5)

The misquote has deceived thousands of Christians into thinking that they can just make up reality as they go along.  That's some ole New Age stuff.  That's not Biblical.  

It’s not just that you’re saying it wrong.  It’s that what you’re saying is wrong.

#2 Touch and agree

“Take somebody’s hand,” intones the preacher, “cause Jesus promised that if we just touch and agree….”

That ain’t what Jesus said.

What Jesus actually said in Matthew 18:19, is “That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” (KJV)

Not “touch and agree” but “agree …as touching.”    Touching in this case means “about” or “on the subject of.”

There’s nothing wrong with touching when we pray.  It’s a beautiful act.  Human touch can evoke a sense of unity that just being in same room cannot achieve.  Jesus touched the people He prayed with and for.   

But, Jesus’ point was not about physical touch.  Jesus was stating the power and necessity of spiritual and intellectual agreement, what Luke called being “on one accord” (Acts 2: 1, 46), what Paul called being of “the same mind” (Romans 12:16; 1 Corinthians 1: 10; Philippians 4: 2).

There is no inherent spiritual power in making physical contact with another person when you pray.  You can’t double-team God and make Him give you what you want.  We’re not the Wonder Twins. 

(The Wonder Twins….. lame superhero team from the 1970’s cartoon “Superfriends”?    Just google it.)

Misquoting Jesus from this verse makes us look in the wrong place for the key to effective corporate prayer.  We look down at our hands when we should be looking within at our hearts.   The Lord wants His disciples to ensure that everyone on the prayer team is of the same mind about what they’re praying.   That level of agreement requires dialogue before prayer begins.

Jesus wanted His disciples then and now to talk to each other before we all decide to talk to God at the same time.  

I know that this may sound pointlessly nitpicky.  I’m also aware that this post may contain my own grammatical errors, but the point here is deeply important. 

Some Biblical misquotes are harmless.  I paraphrase all the time. 

But…

When thousands of “Christians” misquote God because they either didn’t examine the scriptures for themselves or because they gave more credit to the trending version than to the Biblical version; then something sad and dangerous happens.

We create a new doctrinal tradition, and “thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition,” as Jesus said in Matthew 15:6. (New King James Version)

If you think I’m wrong, fine.  Open YOUR Bible and read the passages for yourself.  Cross-reference with other Scriptures.  I don’t much care which translation you pick.  Pick ‘em all if you want.  Just really read what the Holy Spirit really said, and compare that to what you’ve been saying.

And then, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.”  (Acts 4: 19)

---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

LISTENING FOR THE LIGHT

This morning I tried to listen.

Around 4:30 A.M.,  while the rest of my family was sleeping, I shut my laptop, closed the door of my study, turned off the lights and sat, trying to listen.

Which is harder than it sounds, at least for me.  You see, inside my head there is this constant conversation, an unceasing dialogue with myself: planning, worrying, praying, reviewing class notes, outlining sermons, anticipating questions from students, board members, church members, and random dudes I talk to on the street, cross-referencing Bible verses, revisiting conversations, praying, running hypothetical scenarios, re-analyzing research, scolding myself over missed opportunities, imagining, praying for a deeper prayer life.  I’m constantly producing all of this noise within myself.

This morning I tried to shut up and just listen.

And that’s when I began to see.

What started off as pitch blackness in my study began to dissolve into shapes, objects, even patterns on the dark comforter I’d wrapped around myself.  Out of the darkness came light.

In our narrative of the Genesis of creation we usually begin with God’s Words, “Let there be light.”  After all that was the beginning of the first day.  Only it wasn’t.  A Jewish day, a Biblical day, doesn’t begin with morning.  It begins with night.

So the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1: 5)

Before the Voice and the light, there was the long, long evening of silence in the dark.

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1: 2)

Before God spoke, He listened.

And to whom could He have been listening except Himself, the unceasing dialogue within the Trinity.  Before the light emerged from the darkness and dissolved into lesser and greater lights, before the darkness was broken into patterns of alternating night, God was there, hovering above the liquid darkness.  Not flying, just hovering.  Just sitting in the dark, listening.

For how long, did that first, long evening last?

For how many of our centuries, millennia, and epochs, did God sit there planning, thinking, imagining, anticipating, outlining prophecies, rehearsing answers to prayers, running scenarios, sketching out creation in His head, worrying through the necessary plan of redemption?  

Psalm 104 says that when God holds court, He wears light like a robe of honor and majesty.  But when He needs to just be with Himself, Psalm 18 says that He covers Himself in darkness and thinks His secret thoughts.

He made darkness His secret place;

His canopy around Him was dark waters

And thick clouds of the skies. (Psalm 18: 11)

It’s a scary thing really to sit in darkness and listen.  Without the noise and screens that distract us, we face some things about ourselves that we’d rather not face alone at 4 something in the morning.   But we need to.  If you and I are going to build and become what God so carefully planned and created us to build and become then we have to face the silence and the darkness because that has always been the way that God brings forth Light.

Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, Jesus went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.  (Mark 1: 35)

---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

GOD & THE TOOTH FAIRY

Some people hate religion.  They are vehemently opposed to the very existence of Christianity and other faiths in God or a “god.”   These people maintain that the world and life are the product of chance and evolution.  They reject the idea of a Creator or a Divine plan.

But then.

Then those same people say, as proof of their position, “If there is a God, where was He when…”

… when my child died.

… when my father abandoned us.

… when Hitler murdered millions of Jews.

… when the Twin Towers were attacked.

… when etc., etc.

The atheists reason that if they can show God lacking accountability for tragedy then they can disprove God.

Well, here’s what baffles me: Why don’t they ask, “Where was chance and evolution when…”

Why aren’t they angry at evolution for randomly selecting a child as unfit for survival?

Why aren’t they mad at natural selection for marking entire ethnic groups for genetic extinction?

Where’s the indignation that the steady progress of evolutionary “advancement” created Hitler, who as a later member of the species should have been a better specimen than say Socrates or DaVinci or Isaac Newton?

Why aren’t they mad that “Science” or “Nature” didn’t intervene to facilitate the punctuated evolution of the people in the Twin Towers so that they could survive such a catastrophe?

Why are atheists who say they find religion illogical, so irrationally mad about what they think God did or didn’t do?

When I or my wife get a toothache I don’t demand answers from the tooth fairy because I don’t believe that the tooth fairy exists.   

It’s not simply that I don’t want the tooth fairy to exist.  It’s not that I think the tooth fairy is being mean or unfair so I’m going to say she doesn’t exist because I’m mad at her.  It’s that I really don’t think there’s a tooth fairy. 

I don’t question the fairness or fairy-ness of the tooth fairy because that would be me delusionally arguing with a non-entity.  So why, why do atheists use God’s behavior in their arguments?    

Either there’s something in even the most ardent atheist that makes it impossible not to subconsciously acknowledge God.

Or atheists are delusional.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3: 11)

The fool has said in his heart,“There is no God.” (Psalm 14: 1)

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

ARTICLE IV: “Hey! That’s God You’re Talking To”

The Articles of Religion of the CME Church
Article IV - Of the Holy Ghost

The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God.

The word very in King James English means “in truth, truthfully, in actuality.”  In contemporary English, that’s “really.”  So Article 4 states clearly that the Holy Ghost is really, actually GOD.

Not a force that shoots out from God.  Not a metaphorically symbolical figurative representation of God’s manifest power.  We’re saying that the Holy Spirit is REALLY God.  Very. 

The Holy Spirit is everywhere.  In other words, He is omnipresent.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139: 7-10)

The Holy Ghost knows everything that God knows.  In other words, the Holy Spirit is omniscient.

For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2: 11)

The  Holy Ghost participated in Creation.   

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1: 1-2)

Like God the Father (James 1: 17), the the Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts according to His own will without conflicting with the Father’s will.

But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. (1 Corinthians 12: 11)

Jesus intercedes for us in Heaven (Romans 8: 34), and the Holy Spirit intercedes right alongside Him.

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8: 26, 27)

The Holy Spirit acts with the rest of the Trinity to save us from our sins.

Jesus answered,  “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.   (John 3: 5, 6)

The Holy Ghost does what only God can do.  He is very God.

Which makes me wonder why so many people seem to think they can boss the Holy Ghost around.   

With God it’s not our will, but His, right?

You can pray for a healing, but I don’t know if you really have the pull to demand one. You can ask the Holy Ghost to manifest a certain gift, but unless He has already told you that it’s going to happen, I don’t think you can legitimately declare or decree that it’s going to happen.

Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him?   With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, And taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, And showed Him the way of understanding?

Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales;  (Isaiah 40:13-15)

A nation is a drop in the bucket.  Wait.  I’m sorry.  The nationS (plural) collectively are a single drop in the Holy Spirit’s bucket.  The sum of our planet’s political and human power is a SMALL speck of dust on the Holy Ghost’s scale.  (Not even a medium sized piece of dust.)

So you or me standing in front of an altar with a bottle of oil talking about what the Holy Ghost has to do because the band did 3 extra choruses and a vamp----- we’re going to make God the Holy Ghost do what we want?

In right relationship with God we have His grace, His favor, and authority in His name according to His will, but don’t get it twisted.

We walk according to the Spirit. The Spirit does not walk according to us. (Romans 8)

The Holy Ghost leads.  We follow.

The Holy Spirit is very much God, and the appropriate posture before Him is faith, reverence, and submission.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (Romans 8: 14)

---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).

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