His prophetic insights are much sought after in the boardrooms of a variety of organizations. Outcome focused by design. Process oriented in planning. He is a specialist in exploratory dialogue, thinks beyond the box and is a designer of creative action plans that release breakthrough and momentum.
All their children are involved in business, the arts and entertainment. There are numerous children who keep them busy laughing and enjoying life. When push comes to shove, what is most important to us? What takes precedence? Without Marthas very little would get done in the Church. Marthas sacrifice, organize and create places where Marys can flourish in worship. But without Marys, everything we do would come from a religious duty.
We actually need both. Each one of us is a Mary and a Martha, and both are legitimate. Mary is where we receive insight into the things God has placed inside of us. When I read this passage, my heart hears Jesus response to Martha and immediately I could take up her offense. He counsels Martha directly to not take on unnecessary worry and borrow trouble in an effort to impress Him.
But instead tells her to focus on one thing [Faith] which was what Mary desired when she chose to spend time at His feet listening to His wisdom as they shared time together. We do the same when God is made our primary focus and we make his word our priority in our everyday lives. How sweet we can make our relationships when we do the same for each other, as well!
We are called to His Good purpose. We live our lives in the tension of a paradox between being and doing. The key to succeeding in this quandary is to always choose being over doing. We must choose to take time out to rest.
We all have to do many things, but being is just as important. This paradox could be described as the difference between son-ship and stewardship. We must learn how to serve the Lord but we must also explore how to be a son of God.
Sometimes, God commands and I obey. Other times, He makes a request of me because He wants to treat me like His son. Christians need to know how to live life as both a servant and a son. Being a son means God gets the best of our day, not just the tail end.
The Apostle Paul is a wonderful example of a man who knew how to be both a servant and a son as we read in Ephesians Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which he worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.
And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. What an incredible prayer! Longevity in the spirit is powered by wisdom and revelation from God. The two streams flow into one, enabling us to understand who God wants to be for us. Once we capture who God wants to be for us, there is a power and energy that flows into our spirit from His own. Defeats and burnout evaporate.
A spirit infused Christian does not become weary or overwhelmed by circumstances because his or her eyes are lightened with the knowledge of who God is. His call on our lives is certain.
My Comment: I like what Graham says here because there is a difference between the two; servant and heir of God through Jesus. Most time I think, as women, we take the call of a servant [doing] before [being] an heir.
This is the subtle lie we as women buy into so easily. We have a tendency to view our place in the body of Christ based on the law [old testament] but I read in Galatians ,21 the Apostle Paul writes : 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
At the time in Thyatira [Acts ], there were no male leaders in the temple, so Paul spoke to the women of the town and after he ministered, Lydia in her wisdom, graciously invited them to her house to eat and rest. Living in the Spirit gives us a glimpse of the riches of our inheritance. God loves to show us His majesty and power so that in every situation we face, we can rely on Him.
He had absolute confidence in who God was for him: his deliverer, his protector, his passion. Paul was able to go into places where incredible opposition swirled because he knew God was with him.
He was always himself, and spoke the words of God to kings and vagabonds. Each of us can only go as far as God has given us permission to go. Our authority grows as our maturity in Christ grows. By knowing who God is for us, we never have to be afraid of our circumstances. Live Jesus. It is the concept of being infused and victorious. Much of the terminology surrounding revival is geared to events and special circumstances.
We are looking for God to come in a move of the Spirit. Yet the language of Scripture is one of abiding, a habitation of the Spirit being built inside each of us. I also looked up and read in Duet. Pondering, pondering…. In reality, revival is not about large numbers of people discovering the King and His Kingdom. Something that is dead spiritually cannot be revived, it must be born again.
Revival is for the church, not the world. We must wake up from our sleep. Revival has three stages. First is renewal of our passion for Jesus; we must return to our first love and learn to be abandoned to His grace and power. Secondly we must be revived in our compassion for the lost; to give our lives in service of the Kingdom. The outcome of these two initiatives will release the final stage reformation where the world will begin to respond to the power and the glory of a risen Lord, inhabiting His people.
It is a big, big, statement. But it is very dear to my heart as I read Grahams capsulation of revival stages. I am reminded of what I read about Constantine and those that God used to bring the gospel through to the modern ages. I am a just a cheerleader in the arena of revivals, at the sideline, joyful for what God is doing in the body of believers.
I have but a simple heart that loves Jesus. I just love Him. Through these wonderful people, God has used their words, their faithful heart to bring awareness of Jesus and His love for us. So, I say yes, we must return to our first love and learn to be abandoned to His grace and power, as Graham points out here, again. Also, I say yes, Christ will ask us if we fed His sheep, clothed the naked and visited Him in prison; because of His deep love and compassion for the one lost sheep… his treasure.
He does call us to respond because He longs to connect with us… to inhabit His people. We need to lay down our agendas and words and give ourselves, day in and day out, to loving Jesus.
People all too often come to church meetings because they are thirsty. I just cannot understand that. Learning to cohabit with God takes time. The pressure of ministry is intense: it can stress us out, make us sick, even kill us, unless we know how to rest in the Lord. It takes discipline to bring ourselves to a place of peace before God, but it is absolutely necessary to do so. It has taken years of practice for me, but, on most days, I can bring myself to that place of peace in five or ten seconds.
It no longer matters what is swirling around me or threatening me, I can still myself before God. I have to: I need to be quiet to hear His voice. God loves to speak in whispers. He rarely answers prayers at the same decibel level at which they are prayed. Meditation is another avenue towards cohabitation with God. The western church must learn to meditate, setting time aside to think deeply about God.
I love meditating. Meditation and stillness flow into an upgrade of our peace. I learned early in my faith [teens] that meditating on the word was like regurgitating it over and over in our mind, heart and spirit.
Today, am so glad that in my youth I learned some key scriptures. How wise was my mom to teach me how to memorize the word at an early age. It got me through so much back then and it still carries me through today. But in reading what Graham is saying about stillness before God, I find a deepening or a deeper understanding of that discipline and surprisingly my inner peace reflects [responds to] that increase he is teaching about.
Oh my goodness… so much to ponder…where is my pillow??? I spend a lot of time on peace with the people I disciple. I constantly confront them on the issue of peace in their lives. Their peace must increase, and anxiety decrease.
Peace is a vital fruit of the Spirit. Without an upgrade in our capacity to rest in the Lord, we find ourselves running on adrenaline. Peace, though, is an equalizing pressure. Everyone wants to see me and talk to me and pull at me and get prayer from me. To survive, I have learned to be at peace. My rest in God gives me space. Eventually, adrenaline will rob our mind and body and will leave us exhausted.
We must learn to give ourselves to peace, rest, and meditation. We can operate at the highest level for many years if we have developed ourselves internally in preparation. So, as I take from the fruit of Peace and eat, it nourishes my spirit but it also is acting like a mighty spirit builder to counter balance the internal pressures rising from external stressors. Praise Him. God chose us so that He could be Himself with us.
He wants us to see Him as He really is, and to fall in love with Him the same way He has fallen in love with us. In our relationship, we must come to a place of mutual declaration, as He and the Israelites did in Deuteronomy NIV : The LORD your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
You have declared this day that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him. And the LORD has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands.
He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised. God declares to the Israelites His laws, and they, in return, declared that they would follow them. It was a breakthrough moment for Israel.
Just outside of the Promised Land, with their leader, Moses, winding down his life, they finally came to a point of mutual declaration with God. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This original prophetic blessing was updated and expanded in Deuteronomy For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.
The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
His love cuts away all of our performance-oriented mentality. God chose you because of who He is; He chose you because of what He is like. He chose you because He is good. Out of His love and His promises, you were selected as His treasure. God cannot change— He cannot be anything other than who He is. To imagine God wants to just be himself and hang out sounds incredible, huh? Also, love originates in a choice, right? Just as we make choices of who we give our love to, our hearts and devotion in our life, He chose us first and so begins the relationship.
Where do you draw the line on who you listen too post sin? I mean Just because some behavior is more obvious than another Do you read the Psalms? How about Song of Solomon, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes? Many of those in the Hebrews 11 hall of fame, where hardly spotless. It would be such a shame for you to miss out on the nuggets of gold this man teaches about, because you can not look past something that Jesus dealt with on the cross.
It would be a shame to miss out on the amazing insights he has, because you consider his sin? We need to be very careful not to throw babies out with the bath water. No body is making anyone believe anything, you are called to sift everything you hear, but just because there are faults with in the prophetic realms like any other, pastoral not excluded , doesn't mean it doesn't have it's place and calling to and within the body. I do think heatherfb made a poignant observation, and I think it would be more beneficial of and to the body if we prayed for those in positions of influence that the relationships would be greatly protected.
Chris Norden Newbie Posts: 1 Logged. Joh And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Ita Newbie Posts: 1 Logged. I think that it is funny to think that Heather, Graham's wife, had the choice of not following her husband in the pursuit of God's calling. It is obvious that she divorced him and not the reverse from the statement provided in the link by Chris Norden.
I know many think today that both the man and woman are on the same footing before God in a marriage but someone would need to be ignoring 1 Corinthians 11 avidly to arrive at that conclusion. Would that mean that we have the same level of authority with Jesus when making decisions? In a marriage, the man is the head of the woman and no modern reordering will change that when we stand at His throne.
Forgive me for not mucking around it but, lets stop saying marriage comes before ministry. Ministry includes marriage but above all, obedience is the disciples call. Jesus didn't call us to go but to be with Him. To follow Him.
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