IDOLATRY, THEN AND NOW
He was our firstborn. Wow! The joy of parenthood struck my husband and me with emotions which we had never anticipated. What a pleasure it was to hold that little package that arrived at our home.
But one day when little Charles was about two months old, I looked at him and knew that we were totally helpless to make the day happen in his life when the Holy Spirit would make him a new creature. I knew that he would need a Savior like the rest of us mortals. So, I sent up an earnest prayer to the Lord to “make it happen.” We waited. We sowed all the gospel seeds that we could into his growing soul. (Photo above of Charles in 2011 with his first-born when his little Aidan was about 2 months old. Aidan will soon be 11 years old.)
Finally, when he was about nine years old, as I stood beside him at the end of an evangelistic meeting, he looked up at me and said, “Mama, I need to go down there.”
An invitation for salvation was being given. He went forward and was born again from above. And, yes, the rest is history.
Part of that history has included his answer to a call to be a missionary to college students in Brussels, Belgium, and earning a master’s degree over a few years there, along with doing ministry.
Just recently in this New Year of 2022, my husband and I were particularly struck with the conclusion of our Charles’s master’s thesis, First Corinthians: The Role of the Holy Spirit in Liberating Those Captured by Idolatry. Here is the second paragraph of the final words of his text:
First and foremost, the Spirit exalts Christ as Lord, both in leading the Corinthians to conversion, and continuing to lift him up as Lord in their midst. This is a radical work of conquering hearts, tearing down arguments, and displaying his miraculous power over and against a pantheon of competing deities, philosophies, and supernatural expressions. Secondly, in a culture of multiple messages and messengers, the Spirit is the one source of truth and spiritual provision for the believer. Related to this is his role of providing wisdom, both for salvation and for everyday life. It is only by the Spirit’s enlightenment that the knowledge of God is manifested to seeking minds. One of the root causes of idolatry’s hold on people is that they are simply looking for answers to get through life (Emphasis mine). The Spirit provides these answers through his gifts of wisdom and discernment. 1
One of the final lines from his thesis (emphasized above) is a summary of what drives us to continue to reach out to the “lost” of this world: “One of the root causes of idolatry’s hold on people is that they are simply looking for answers [i.e., reality] to get through life.”
If we have found those answers, how could we not be willing to share them freely with others? (Matthew 10:8b)
1First Corinthians: The Role of the Holy Spirit in Liberating Those Captured by Idolatry. A thesis submitted to the thesis committee in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology by Charles Gravely, Brussels, Belgium, February 17, 2020.
Online links @ www.GravelysGoGlobal.com. Seminary article: http://dimitrovresearch.eu/publications/pentescope/pentescope_v1-2.pdf
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