The Scourge Of Racism
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I interrupt this month’s blog flow for this important announcement. This past Friday, the Ministry I have led full-time on a modest salary the past seven of thirty-four years quietly launched a fundraising campaign to help fund my salary for 2020. I am grateful to God and our Board of Directors that have authorized and will lead out to help reach the goal you can read about on the platform the Ministry is using.1 The why of such a campaign aimed first at all that the Lord has used me to impact in thirty-four years of preaching, teaching and ministry through Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. is easy and thoroughly biblical (Deuteronomy 25:4; Luke 10:1-7; 1 Corinthians 9:1-11; 1 Timothy 5:17-18). The work in scope and fruitfulness requires my full-time labor!
For this reason, it is God’s will that I should no longer turn my full attention away from the work of ministry to labor at part-time jobs to provide for my family as I did the first twenty-seven years of this Ministry. So, I know all about the apostle Paul’s preference and being bi-vocational; joyfully working for the privilege to serve the Lord in accord with His calling and assigned ministry (1 Corinthians 9:12-18). As I teach men about working, I have done and am ready to do again if the Lord were to say the same (2 Thessalonians 3:6-15). I have not come this far to now play the hypocrite and undo the Lord’s teaching through me among many men. Even so, what I do is work!
Too, in line with the Pauline doctrine on giving, you can rest assured that in giving to my support it is not so I can live lavish at anyone’s expense--I fear God (2 Corinthians 8:13)! When you see the campaign goal toward my final salary you will quickly realize I have told you the truth. My God is able to take my salary and enable me to help meet the living expenses of my family. I am so blessed to have a wife that is willing to live sacrificially with a husband that has the education and experience in worldly terms to provide so much more monetarily and materially.2 So, I salute her and glorify God who has met all of my need over the years for an adequate wage as His Kingdom laborer.
Therefore, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you are one that has benefitted from my calling, gifting and ministry from the Lord and I am asking you to be among those that make a tax-deductible gift of any size to the Ministry for my 2020 full-time support. If you prefer, you can do so anonymously on the platform we are using. Another option is to make a one-time or recurring gift designated for “Salary Campaign” on the Give Page of this Web Site that will be handled as you have directed. Finally, using the same designation you can send cash, a check or money order made out to Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc., P.O. BOX 56704, Portland, OR 97238-6704. It is my joy to serve you as the Lord’s servant. Please let Him use you to help me keep doing that full-time!
1 Go to FundRazr Salary Campaign.
2 Not only have I declined to pursue a secular full-time career that would have meant having little if any time left for ministry over the years, but I also refused to accept a
number of Christian religious opportunities because they required compromising the truth of God’s Word and/or tolerating transgression, sin and iniquity (Philippians
3:1-14).
As the Lord led, I ended the August 4, 2019 post, Man No Freak Accident, under the category, Biblical Worldview, speaking of God’s eternal destiny for man. God’s originally planned eternal destiny for man is now for faithful followers of Jesus Christ and glorious beyond human words! Even so, we are given glimpses of man’s astounding eternal destiny in Christ through words He and His apostles spoke that were written down in Holy Scripture. These Scriptures were meant for us to understand through the illuminating agency of the Holy Spirit sent into the world for that very purpose among other of His responsibilities (John 16:12-15; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16).
Truly, man is not only a creature, but God’s highest creation as the only of His creatures expressly made in the divine image and likeness! Let’s get it said right here as Scripture does that this amazing truth applies equally to man as male and female as God designed each respectively to function in serving His purposes in this present mortal age (Genesis 1:26-28, 5:1-2).1 Just because God did not initially speak of man’s eternal destiny as immortals, does not mean this was not His plan from the beginning; a plan postponed by God only after man’s fall as foreknown by Him since Christ as Savior was already set to come (Genesis 3:22-24; 2 Timothy 1:8-11)!
As I wrote in another place, the first stage of human existence is mortal.2 However, the second, last and ultimate end of mortal man is immortality whether as condemned rebels forever with fallen angels in Hell or redeemed by grace through faith in the Gospel of and standing with Christ in eternal glory (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, 25:31-46)! Those that stand with Christ fulfill with Him the spiritual end of God’s creation of man which is to be eternal sons to rule over all of His created works including angels (1 Corinthians 6:3; Hebrews 2:5-13).3 The creation of man from the dust in mortal, natural bodies begins with the original man, Adam (Genesis 2:7).
In a context explaining to the church at Corinth how essential the possibility of resurrection from the dead is and the reality of Christ’s (1 Corinthians 15:1-34), the apostle Paul presents the means of it and why it is necessary beginning with mortal Adam (1 Corinthians 15:35-58). Explaining the means of resurrection, Paul unapologetically points to God in power and wisdom! In accord with His mighty power and eternal plans prepared in advance, Paul teaches God makes the second, immortal stage of man possible by overcoming death through resurrection and metamorphosis as is commonly seen, for example, in the planting of a grain seed (1 Corinthians 15:35-44).
Adam introduced death to himself and “the world” in the instant of his disobedience to God as he had been warned would occur (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:6-11, 17-19; Romans 5:12, NKJV). Death has reigned from Adam--the first and federal head of mankind as well as “a type of Him who was to come” as Deliverer--through sin ever since even during the centuries without law from God (Genesis 3:15; Romans 5:13-14, NKJV). However, in God’s “grace” and perfect timing He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, from Heaven to earth “born of a woman” and “under the law” with the free gift of salvation, eternal life and “adoption as sons” through faith in Him (Romans 5:15-21; Galatians 4:4-6, NKJV)!4
Summarizing the apostle Paul’s teaching from 1 Corinthians 15:45-49, the first Adam is of the earth and was brought to life by God from its dust. Like him, all mankind is of the earth too, bears Adam’s fallen creature image and shares in his experience of death. But Jesus Christ the second and last Adam is from Heaven having eternally been God, the Son and Word of God (John 1:1-5, 14-18). Though in His incarnation a body was “prepared for” Him, He always “Am”; ready to give eternal life to all who believe on Him (Luke 1:26-35; John 8:51-58; Hebrews 10:5-7, NKJV)! Those who line up behind Christ as their Head by faith are made spiritual sons of Heaven and live forever bearing His glorious immortal image as planned before time by God (Romans 8:29-30).
Still limited by their earthbound thinking, many professed Christians refuse to believe God will do anything different with our bodies at the resurrection to immortality other than what we have now in form and function as male and female after the first Adam. However, Paul teaches that while these natural, mortal “flesh and blood” bodies do come first, they “cannot inherit the kingdom of God” and a metamorphosis is required (1 Corinthians 15:50-53, NKJV)!5 Because Christ’s former mortal body has already undergone the metamorphosis to immortality, Paul writes we no longer “know Him” after “the flesh” and are to already be enjoying in Him the “new” things He now enjoys to be fully revealed to and in us at His coming (2 Corinthians 5:16-17; Philippians 3:20-21; 1 John 3:2, NKJV).6
1 As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, although the female version of man bears the image and likeness of God as creature glory after the
man, Adam, that glory nevertheless, is fully the glory of the divine image and likeness (1 Corinthians 11:7)! You can get a print copy of the book on sale in the
Strong Man Store.
2 See the July 3, 2016 post, Man As God Designed Him, under the category, God’s Creatures.
3 See the June 19, 2016 post, Eternal Sons Of God, under the category, Instruction.
4 Read the three-part post beginning January 29, 2017, Jesus, Son Of Man, under the category, The Cause.
5 Read the two-part post beginning May 18, 21014, The Body Beautiful, under the category, God’s Creatures.
6 Read the three-part post beginning July 10, 2016, Raised To Immortal Glory, and the July 31, 2016 post, The Immortal Bodies Of God’s Eternal Sons, all under the
category, God’s Creatures.
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