The Call Is Holy

December 17, 2018 by  
Filed under Christian Life, Family Focus

By Norma Vera

Saying “Father if it is your will, remove this cup from me; never – the-less not my will but yours be done.” And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Luke 22:42, 44

I recently read an article that talked about how weak and emotionally wounded the Church is today. The world is full of hurting people even though we are the most advanced and richest generation that ever lived.

We are far from being anything like the First Church. The power, courage, and love they had for Christ, was unprecedented to anything we have today. Their passion to live and die for Him was the paramount cry of their heart. Hebrews 11 gives an inside view of what they were like.

What will it take to transform the Church to its former glory? I believe it will take absolute surrender. We ask, how do we do that? It is not what we do but what the Holy Spirit does in us and through us.

My friend Jerry Wadley illustrated a story about the coffee bean. To me it was a fine example of what it will take to turn us back to holiness.

The coffee bean is hard and strong just like the heart of man. In order to be useful, the little bean has to be completely broken, and so it is. It is crushed until it becomes one with the other beans – to the point where no one can tell which bean is which.

Still the process is not complete. It is not refined enough to have the value and purpose it was intended to have. In order to bring these little beans into its highest potential, scalding water is poured over them. It is there that the true transformation begins. They are no longer many beans, but one. With one flavor, one aroma, one substance and one purpose. Even more miraculous, they have become one with the water. It is now a rich liquid substance with a heavenly aroma. Even its name has changed, from coffee beans, to Coffee.

In the heat of the pot is a great eternal mystery: like the baby formed in the womb – or the metamorphosis of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Can our finite minds understand how the coal turns into a diamond under enormous pressure – or a tiny seed become a huge oak tree in the darkness of the earth. Who can understand such divine mysteries?

I believe it is God’s desire that the heart of man become one with the Living Water, and with one another. This process will enable us as a body to send a holy aroma for the world to see, taste, and smell.

Unfortunately, most of us never get to the purifying water part. Because our inclination when the crushing begins is to cry, “Heavenly Father, I would that this grinding, and crushing cup pass from me.”

The secret to maturing in holiness is not only to be crushed but to pass through the heat of his trying furnace. It is then that we desire to embrace the invisible and let go of the visible – so it can be no longer us, but Christ in us the hope of glory!

Let’s stop and consider our children who come after us. We are the teachers, the trainers, the molders of them. They come to us like an empty computer – everything they know they learned from us. They mimic what they see us do.

Studies show that by the time, a child is four or five years old, they already developed their mindset (a way of thinking) that will rule them for the rest of their lives.

Christ is to them what our walk reveals. If they fail to see Righteousness in us they may never see it anywhere else. We are their North Star that points them to the way of holiness. The reflection of Christ in an earthly mirror, and a yielded vessel before a Great King!

Selah!

About Norma Vera

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Comments

8 Responses to “The Call Is Holy”
  1. Carla Johnson says:

    Great article. The author not only has written the words, but she has lived and experienced them.

  2. Kelly Bailey says:

    Norma,
    I loved you article, especially this statement: “I believe it is God’s desire that the heart of man become one with the Living Water, and with one another. This process will enable us as a body to send a holy aroma for the world to see, taste, and smell”. If we as Christians would realize how powerful our testament is to others, especially non-believers, then can you imagine what great things we could do for our Lord?

  3. Great article! Thanks for sharing a picture of us, the church. Yes, I admit–I don’t want the crushing and grinding. But yet, as I look back on my life, it’s through those experiences that God whispers something powerful in my ear.

  4. PD Chriestenson says:

    Thank you, Norma, for explaining the process of growth and change. And thanks for sharing thoughts of hope to encourage people with what is happening in trying times.

  5. Great article, Norma! I love the analogy with the coffee beans. Wonderful description of how Christ’s love and power can flow through us to a hurting world.

  6. Karen King says:

    Loved this article, Norma. I totally agree about the need for the church only be transformed through absolute surrender and if there was ever a time that we really need that to happen, it is now! Thanks for the vivid illustration of the coffee bean. It was very effective.

  7. Stephanie Ramsey says:

    Norma,
    You’ve communicated a Truth by the Holy Spirit that is absolutely necessary in a Christians life to receive the calling of holiness. It truly is a process that you expressed well.

  8. RoseMary Rojo says:

    Norma,
    your writing is insightful and inspiring. Thank you for these words.

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