Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

I Thessalonians 5:4 Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

This is the verse that is echoing in my head this morning after yesterday's... I don't know what you call that... annointing?

Long story short, Rich Nathan preached a great message on women's roles in the church and basically flung the door open for women to do any area of ministry including Sr. Pastor. Which is pretty much what I have believed for a while after doing some research on it several years back. Anyway, at the end he asked for women who had a call to ministry on their lives to come forward for prayer.

I looked at Chris and said, "Yeah.. I do... but..." And he said, "You'd better go then!"

Remember those verses I had from a while back?

I Timothy 1:12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;

what ministry I asked him?
And some time later he says,

Colossians 4:17 And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.

And I had the distinct feeling that God was calling me "Archippus" whatever that meant.

So, I found out that Archippus's name meant "master of the horse" and that he was an elder at Philemon's house church. Didn't make much sense to me because there was no way I could be an elder.

Anyway.. I've shoved all that aside for sometime now, but yesterday Pastor Nathan prayed down the Holy Spirit annointing on me and a lady prayed over me too with laying on of hands that I would be free from my past mindset about gender roles so that God could reveal to me the ministry he has for me. Wow.

So I'm looking further into Archippus, and I found out that he was likely the first bishop of Laodicea in Phrygia (Turkey), but at the time of Paul's writing he was a pastor or co-pastor of the church in Colosse.

Also, this is a guy whose heart is with Paul. Only two men were called Paul's fellow soldiers, Epaphroditis and Archippus. This word in Greek means "an associate in labours and conflicts for the cause of Christ"

Not a lot else known about this guy, but God found him important enough to mention twice in Scripture. Once to let us know that he was an upstanding guy and the other time to let us know that he had an important ministry call on his life.

And this is who God says I am... Hmmm...

Why 5 AM?

This morning at 5 AM Jesus woke me up. Did I want to get up? No. I was cold. I was tired. I was grouchy. I wanted to go back to sleep. Why, oh why is it always 5 AM? Of course, you would think that by this time in my Christian life I would just bound out of bed with joy at the thought that my Saviour wants to talk to me, but no... I said something along the lines of 'what do you want?' (OH MY!) Of course, he wanted me to read my Bible (AT 5 AM??!!), and I'm like, "Jesus, I'm cold, I'm tired! Can we do this later? Besides, remember how I don't have The Message yet? I don't even have access to the Internet today because something is wrong with the server (thank goodness it turned out to be a firewall problem!! YAY! My Internet is back! But at this moment, I didn't know that)." He of course sends me this mental image of my simple green KJV sitting on the shelf in the other room, to which I said, "But Lord, it's so early, I'll never get anything out of it this morning!" To which he sent me the same mental image with the thought that there was something very simple in there for me today. Nothing to difficult, nothing that would need a dictionary, a concordance, or a commentary. "But why?" I had to ask. (I HAD to ask. It was 5 o'clock in the morning!!!) He simply whispered one word. VISION. Come again? What was that? VISION. "Are you saying that you are going to give me my vision if I get up and read my Bible this morning?" Why, oh why did He have to wait until 5 AM to do it? I think I actually harrumphed. I dragged out of bed with my blanked wrapped around me asking where I was supposed to read at, but of course there was no reply on that. I apparently had to figure it out myself. I sat down on the floor outside of the bathroom and decided to read where I had left off in the Message a few days earlier, in Colossians 4 (I know, I know, for a girl who's seeking purpose I haven't been reading very much...). I was all like "YADA, YADA, YADA... okay, God. There's nothing in here for me, I'm going to bed now..." until I came to verse 17.

"And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it."

It was like there were little neon arrows surrounding the verse, and I knew it was what he had roused me from sleep for. Simple for sure, but confusing as well. What ministry? I already had one? When did he give it to me? Of course, right now he was pretty quiet and I was left entirely to my own sleepy-headed musings, and this was the time that an explanation would have been great! I had a cross reference written in my Bible from some time ago leading me to Philemon 2

"And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in they house:"

It meant little to me, so I went back and studied the verse some more... What ministry? It must be important if the Holy Spirit would get me up at 5 AM. And then I remembered something... I Timothy... There was this verse that God gave me last year when we submitted our resumes to FBC. I was terrified about being a pastor's wife, but we saw it as an open door, so we walked through it. God ended up having other plans, but he was pleased with our willingness. At this time I was seeking him like crazy because I was overwhelmed with what that role would mean for me. I was at the dentist getting an emergency root canal and I was bored, so I was playing games on my cell phone (it turned into an all day event). I decided to read my Bible on my cell phone while I was in there and started in I Timothy. It seemed a logical place to start. My husband was seeking the pastorate, and I Timothy was written to a young pastor. I got to verse 12 and my heart melted. Jesus spoke to me, and at the time I thought it was just for peace about FBC... now I'm not so sure. The verse is as follows:

" And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;"

I was never called to do anything, but I felt that God was saying that because I had been faithful in the ministries he had given me, he would allow me to serve alongside my husband.

Now here I was this morning looking at this verse in a new light. Last fall Jesus said that I was faithful and he put me into the ministry, and now he says to me, remember what I told you? It's time to fulfill it.

This left me a tad bit confused as I asked myself is it a ministry, or THE ministry... So I asked Christopher, and in so doing I found the importance of Philemon 2... Archippus was a preacher/teacher, Timothy was a Pastor. There is only one "THE ministry" I quipped back at him that I must be called to preach then, and he laughed. No, not called to preach. Called to the ministry. My husband is called to preach. I as his wife am no less in the ministry than he is. He proceeded to remind me of something that happened last summer at my dear friend Carolyn's funeral. Christopher preached her funeral, and afterwards a sweet lady began to talk to me in an understanding way about being a pastor's wife and that she just knew I was a wonderful one, and she knew just what it was like and gave me all kinds of encouragement. I should have told her that my husband wasn't a pastor, but I couldn't. It felt... right. It felt like truth. Chris was standing right there having person after person shake his hand and call him a pastor, but he couldn't correct them. It felt true. We looked at each other, startled as if some prophecy had been spoken over us. We did tell the sweet lady the truth, and she looked at us in confusion and said that God would put us in a church for sure. From that point on Chris has known that he would pastor a church. For some reason, it hasn't sunk in with me.
Oh, I know why. Because it is the one thing that I have always said that I would NEVER do!! There you have it. A missionaries wife, sure, a pastor's wife, no way!
So I think God is trying to tell me something...
Meanwhile other things are happening in Chris' life that I'd love to tell you about, but the timing isn't right. Needless to say, God has me on this vision seeking journey for a reason, and I'm not seeking on my own. My husband is on a journey as well! I think we all will be amazed at what will happen in the near future.

Oh... Archippus means master of the horse... perhaps I'll get my horse ranch after all! LOL