The Scourge Of Racism
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This Resurrection Sunday, I will celebrate my fortieth year as a born again follower of Jesus Christ; a Christian--glory to God and praise His exalted name! Technically, my day of salvation and new birth took place on Resurrection Sunday, April 10, 1977 which is tomorrow. So, with the Lord’s blessing, I am celebrating my spiritual birthday all week long! And why not do this? Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me (c’mon James Cleveland with a little help from Gladys Knight and the Pips)! I am overjoyed; can you tell? Yes and I am mighty grateful to God too.
Truly, as I recently wrote about in the four-part blog, God Of Restoration And Judgment under the category, The Cause with three others, I am thankful that the divine cause to proclaim the Gospel to the ethnicities, races, tribes and tongues of men upon the face of the whole earth, one day, in the 20th century, reached me; even thoroughly sinful, wretched and no account me! Just as lost, empty and without purpose as I could be; God used one of His dedicated daughters, Mrs. Altamese Lee of Jacksonville, FL (a family friend since my childhood) to share the Gospel with and lead me to pray to receive it in repentance and faith that Resurrection Sunday 1977 after church in her home.
I have shared all or part of my testimony in various blogs and writing platforms, so, I won’t share it all today.1 However, reflecting back on that day, I feel pretty dumb to think at the time I was doing momma Lee a favor to drive up to Jacksonville from Orlando to go to church with her for the “holy day.” No, in her sincere devotion to God and obedience to His Word to “tell it,” she did me the favor for which I will be eternally grateful! And while I do not remember every single word she said to me that day, among her words was that sweet, simple Gospel of Scripture I now also freely share with the soul reading this that may not have heard it plainly stated (Matthew 10:7-8).
Mankind are sinners and condemned before a holy God no matter the station, problems or experiences in life. The Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ is that He came into the world to die on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day to secure God’s forgiveness for and save us from His just condemnation. If one will repent (turn from embracing his sins) and receive the Person (Jesus) and message of the Gospel in child-like faith, then that one will be saved (Acts 2:22-40; Romans 3:9-31, 10:4-13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4)! This is not about religion, but relationship restored at God’s initiative out of love and grace (John 1:12-13, 3:1-21; Ephesians 2:1-10)!
Again, how grateful I am to God for His love, grace and mercy that came to me through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the new birth and resulting incredible journey I have been on forty years that continues into eternity! My journey, thus far, has had tears of both grief and joy. Grief has come to me from struggles with sinful thinking, attitudes, conduct and habits that God, the perfect Father, has been at work dealing with in me. My, my, how we love our sins! Yet, we born again Christians have a Father that works a discipline plan for us that includes painful chastening to bring us into conformity with His will and seeing our progress, we love Him for it (Romans 8:29; Hebrews 12:1-11).
Beyond grief from my struggles with Satan, sin and self to grow in Christ-likeness over forty years, it has come far too often from professed Christians in the pews and pulpits which to this hour I still find amazing since supposedly, we are all on the same journey as brethren in Christ. Yes, I know as the willfully weak are always so ready to explain, we are all at different levels of maturity in Christ. But really; professed Christians that remain comfortable and immature in sin? According to God’s Word, this is not of Him (Romans 6; Ephesians 4:7-16; Philippians 3:12-21; Hebrews 5:5-14). Such an attitude is of the many corrupt and inferior displays of manmade Christianity the religion deceitfully raised up by Satan to destroy the soul possessing it (Romans 2:1-16, 8:12-13; Galatians 6:7-8).
Oh, but the joy of the Lord in the journey has been so much more than any grief! For the Lord has never failed to meet me in every circumstance good and evil to lead me out and forward in His perfect or permissive will. Daily I have overflowed in the abundance and superior quality of His life by the Holy Spirit. Daily I have experienced the inexhaustible riches of His love, grace in blessings, forgiveness and regularly His deliverances and healings! Because of His mercies and forgiveness new every day, it should be no great mystery why I love my risen Lord so; why I am so sold out and devoted to His service and causes in the Gospel (Luke 7:36-50). Indeed, I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good and commend Him and His great restoration in the Gospel to all reading this especially of the generations behind me (Psalm 34:8-22)! Thank You, Lord, for forty years to date!
(Since I will be celebrating my spiritual birthday Resurrection Sunday, this post will stand until my next on Sunday, April 23, 2017--Lord willing. Have a blessed Resurrection Sunday 2017!)
1 I share my testimony of coming to Christ in the most complete form in the final two parts of a five part Journal article entitled, Releasing The Strong Man! in the Journal Archives at The From Slavery To Victory Education Project (FSTVEP) Web Site.
This is the conclusion of an edited three-part 2013 blog repost that exhorts professing Christians and churches that are guilty to stop resisting and persecuting God’s gifted, called and sent prophets so that our ministries for good might be fulfilled among them. Even so, how glad I am that while sinful men may not honor His prophets, the Lord Jesus does now inwardly and will in days to come, provide sweet vindication to us before the entire world near and at His glorious return to earth!
Originally Posted November 24, 2013
As foretold by His eye witness apostles and confirmed by the Lord, many of the leaders of the churches planted in the first century corrupted themselves and launched a trend that has never been reversed, but only enlarged to this hour (Acts 20:28-31; 2 Timothy 3:13; 2 Peter 2:1-3; Revelation 2:12-29). Indeed, as l have already written about many times, after the passing of the Lord’s eye witness apostles, corrupt shepherds along with false prophets and teachers introduced many heresies and brought forth manmade Christianity the religion which has a form of biblical Christianity (1 Corinthians 4:18-20; 2 Corinthians 3:1-6), but is powerlessly far from it (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
It is in the satanically fostered context of human ordained religiosity in churches and related organized ecclesiastical bodies that faithful saints and prophets have been martyred for the faith as by divine unction they cried out against the corruptions they saw standing faithful and true to the Word and causes of Christ--a truth recorded in many reliable sources including Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. These are churches and ecclesiastical entities that have called, sanctioned and sent out their own workers to spread their corrupt, religious doctrines while they willfully murdered those standing in their way falsely claiming divine approval (John 16:1-4).
With that history, what is it today--hundreds of years after the Protestant Reformation that also spawned its own round of violent persecution and martyrdom of godly opposition--if the churches of manmade Christianity the religion purposely persecute perceived opponents and prophets with oppression, mistreatment, ostracism, loveless abandonment to hardship and murder by words? This is done without hesitation by men controlled by the sinful flesh while outwardly decked out in deceitful religious piety as I can testify (Matthew 5:21-22, 27:46-49; Galatians 5:13-15; James 2:14-26; 1 John 3:16-17).
As if to plug up their ears to God’s outcry against their sins by His prophets, some of the scholarly especially have gone so far as to assert prophesying and preaching are synonymous so that to preach is to prophesy and all preachers are prophets. Others of that group in attempting to expose false prophets declare that prophecy and prophets ceased after the first century and surely by the completion of the entire Bible in the 4th century. Both of these views are corrupt since one does not have to necessarily preach to prophesy (2 Samuel 12:1-15; Luke 2:25-35) and may be used by God to prophesy to an individual or many through preaching (Luke 1:67-80, 3:1-20)!
While the completed Bible is our written, living foundation and landmark (Hebrews 4:11-13), it does not mean the living God has muted Himself with no further communication to be made to us at all (John 14:15-26; Acts 22:17-21, 23:10-11, 27:21-26). There has not been a time since the passing of the eye witness apostles to this hour when the Body has been without contemporary need for the eyes, ears and messages of her prophets sent from Christ the risen, living Head even with many false prophets who have existed simultaneously from ancient times (Jeremiah 23:9-32, 27:12-18, 29:1-9; Matthew 28:20b). The Lord’s foretelling of false prophets did not mean there would not be any that were true (Matthew 24:11).
On the contrary, it certifies their existence since Satan raises up the false to subvert the words of the true. The Lord’s prophets are faithful to His Word as it is written; they do not rely on or cite for final authority the opinions of sinful, mortal flesh--no matter how credentialed. And who better suited to accurately interpret God’s already written prophetic Word when He is ready (Daniel 8:15-27; 1 Corinthians 13:2a)? As the evangelist burns to win lost souls, so the prophets of Christ burn for the purity, holiness, righteousness, obedience, fidelity and fruitfulness of His bride (2 Corinthians 11:1-4)!
The Church in its infancy may not have had need for many messages of rebuke and warning--although, what is the apostle Paul with the gift of prophecy doing in most of his New Testament letters to churches? Beyond question, however, the Lord Himself continued that aspect of the work of New Testament prophets with His Revelation to the apostle John given and written down for all professing believers and their churches near the end of the apostolic period (Revelation 1:9-3:22). He has also continued to gift, call and send His prophets to faithfully fulfill every aspect of their ministries in the churches including crying out against sin and warning of divine retribution upon the unrepentant.
As the Lord foretold, His prophets have been so much without honor they are singled out among the martyred faithful saints as recipients of God’s vindication (Revelation 11:15-18, 16:1-7, 17:1-6, 18:1-8, 20, 24-19:3). This is because of their suffering to the end at the hands of unbelievers and those professing to be Christians they were sent to serve especially in the churches of manmade Christianity the religion whose leaders in the West today generally and America in particular through their proud, independent spirit, resent being told they are in sin and resist rebuke as well as warning preferring instead, to cut off the messengers to their own hurt (Jeremiah 2:29-30, 5:1-3, 7:28; Amos 7:10-17; Matthew 23:33-24:2).
Therefore, in this month of praying for persecuted believers, among them I pray for and honor my brethren, the Lord’s prophets without honor in the churches who are held in contempt and persecuted in various ways by those claiming to be Christians. As for me, I do not seek or require the honor of mortal flesh though I desire for their sakes that God’s people would give proper heed to the words of warning He has put in my mouth in perfect alignment with what is plainly written in His Word (Ezekiel 33:1-9)--woe to the teachers of falsehood who teach believers in Christ face no eternal peril for sinning in willful disobedience without repentance (Jeremiah 28; Galatians 5:19-21, 6:7-8; Hebrews 3:7-19, 10:26-31, 35-39; Jude 1-11)!
I repeat in part what I wrote in my April 17, 2016 blog repost, Disembodied, Pt. 2 under the category, The Faith: “I am deeply honored in the Lord and pleased to the highest degree to serve you as a watchman/prophet and teacher in the footsteps of those faithful servants of Christ from the first century until now...” Glory to His Name!
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