Our Calling
Polishing and Equipping the Saints
Since COVID started, we have been using Zoom with individuals and couples who live all over the world. Our weeks have been very full, and it looks like to the rest of our lives, our calling is to “Polish and Equip the Saints for Life and Ministry.” Basically, we are witnessing the Holy Spirit doing the polishing and the equipping in our lives and in the lives of others.
In the past when I wrote letters to our prayer partners, I frequently referred to the “two fish and five loaves.” I have repeatedly asked them to please “remember our two fish and five loaves that God will break them, bless them, multiply them and use them in the lives of those precious people whom God is bringing into our lives.” During the years when I asked for this repeated prayer request, I was mostly teaching. But the course that I used to teach has been videoed in 45 YouTube Sessions and it is available now on my website for free. I do not teach this course in person anymore unless I am compelled by the Lord to do it.
The people we meet with on Zoom, are referred to in the New Testament as: “In Christ”/“Disciples”/“a new creation”/“partakers of divine nature”/“complete in Christ”/“children of God”/“heirs of God”/“more than conquerors”/“Saints” and on and on. But they are saints who struggle with their carnal flesh. As saints we do not want God only to meet our needs but we want to be worshippers who seek to glorify him. Here is a quote that sheds some light on what it means to glorify God. “The Lord of heaven and earth staked his reputation on the conduct of his children. Flesh-and-blood Israelites [and Christians today] who would serve as God’s credentials, living proof that he alone is Lord. The sepectacularness of God, the striking grandeur of God, would be seen through the most unlikely of all-frail, faltering humanity. This is the essential meaning of what it is to glorify God.” Revolution Within
When we meet with people on Zoom, we do not see them as sinners who need to become saints. Instead, we see them as saints who need to remember who God is and who they are in Christ. When we read books with individuals or couples for “Soul and Mind Care,” we and they remember that we are not like “Cheap Glittering Jewelry” that people purchase for a few Dollars, but we are like “Genuine Sterling Silver.” At times I am tarnished because of unconfessed sin or at other times I feel tarnished because I did not sleep well the previous night. By the time we go through a Zoom reading and sharing session with our friends, my wife and I get polished by the Holy Spirit and our friends on Zoom get polished as well. Most of the time, when people get “polished” by the Holy Spirit then he is free to equip them for life and ministry. Barbara and I are the biggest beneficiaries when we read with people on Zoom, because we are continually getting polished.
At one time our son Nader who lives with his family in Fort Collins in north Colorado, installed wooden floors in a part of his house. His very young son Noah at that time was “helping” his father by banging the floor with a small plastic hammer. Soon after our son finished the project, they visited us in Colorado Springs. From our grandson’s perspective he did the major job of installing the wooden flooring and his father was assisting him. Barbara and I need to continually remember that we are along-siders of the Holy Spirit. He is doing the major work and we are witnesses to his majesty at work.
Resources
I taught as an adjunct professor a seminary graduate course at several seminaries for many years and these seminaries appear in my Signature. The course I taught is on “!s:!am and the Geopolitics of the Middle East.” The course is now available on my website in 45 video sessions on YouTube.
Two 90-minute sessions on Zoom on the topic: “A Framework of Biblical Theology in the Context of Discipleship and Disciple Making.” Please contact me if you are interested. nabeel@nabeeljabbour.com
Two 90-minute sessions on Zoom on the topic: “The Meaning of Suffering and the Book of Job.” Please contact me if you are interested.
Two 90-minute sessions on Matthew 15:21-28. It is about the Disciples and the Canaanite woman with the reference to the dogs. The disciples were struggling with two issues: Ethnocentricity (Wrong Patriotism) and Wrong Theology. This has great relevance to our world today. Please contact me if you are interested.