The Scourge Of Racism
E-Book Availability 4/12-26
Released January 5, 2024
Download Your Copy
Now In The Strong Man Store!
In between the frantic activities of the week, reflect on this edited 2011 repost.
Originally Posted November 18, 2011
Thanksgiving has almost been lost as “Black Friday” and the “Holiday Shopping Season” looms large. Besides the commercialism and greed for which Thanksgiving has become only a launch pad, the holiday has lost some of its luster spiritually as our secular society requires only a passing attitude of gratitude to satisfactorily celebrate the day. Thinking of the blessings of God are no longer required as the warm and fuzzy feelings of gathering with family and friends takes the top spot as the reason for having had a really great holiday.
Echoing the declaration of that ancient aspiring strong man of God, Joshua: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” (Joshua 24:15, NKJV). In an extra special way from our routine on Thanksgiving, we will reflect on the goodness of our God who has saved and blessed us abundantly in so many ways over the past year. I can lead my family to do this thankfully to God, because I have a wife who lets me serve in my role and place as the head of our family. I challenge every man reading this to prayerfully seek the Lord for the courage to lead your family to at least have a special prayer time giving thanks to God if in fact, this practice has been lost in your Christian house.
Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
On Mother’s Day, May 8, 2011, I wrote the untitled paragraph immediately below as my second blog post ever as an author followed by the more lengthy, re-titled and edited offering readers have become accustomed to one year later as noted. What a difference one year made in my experience of Mother’s Day because of the ongoing rebellion against God’s order and morality being worked out in the laws and social policies of our nation! For this cause, no one should expect God’s judgment upon the land to diminish ahead even with a temporary repentance (Nehemiah 9:1-37), but severely intensify regardless of who the President is (Jeremiah 30:23-24; Nahum 1:1-10; Romans 1:28-32).
God made man male and female--Gen. 1:27-28. The days set aside on the calendar to honor our parents are good. In so doing, we are reminded of God’s purposeful acts to create and set in place the means by which the human race would perpetuate itself. As I discuss in The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, by His intentional physical design man is male or female in this present age. On Mother’s Day, we celebrate females whom God designed to conceive, carry, birth, nurse, and nurture our children. My own mother departed to be with the Lord just after Mother’s Day last year. I remain grateful to her and salute all of the women including my wife, Mary that embrace their calling to be mothers as God designed.
Originally Posted May 13, 2012
Today, I remember my mother, salute again my wife and divinely designed motherhood with a profound sense of appreciation tied to the incredible role God has uniquely given you for bringing human life into existence. Adam so valued the unique role his wife would play in God’s purpose of marriage and procreation (Genesis 2:18-24) that he gave her a name related to it: “Eve” which means “life” or “living,” (Genesis 3:20, NKJV). A man as God designed him cannot conceive nor can a woman do so by herself. Human procreation is the cooperative effort between the seeds of men and women along with God who gives each human conceived a spirit (Psalm 139:13-14; Zechariah 12:1).
Apart from this cooperative effort with mothers in the middle, new human life would not come into being. Out of the joy of such clarity comes now, a deep sadness. As a professed Christian this past week, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, gave a public endorsement to same sex marriage and the resulting unnaturally assembled families as a matter of living out Christian morality. Specifically, he referenced the instruction of the Lord Jesus found in Matthew 7:12 (also Luke 6:31) and made it a moral underpinning for permitting same sex marriage so as to treat all people equal and fair.
With all due respect to his office (I address this matter upon his public profession of being a Christian), Mr. Obama in his reference to the Bible gives a classic example of corrupting God’s Word to support one’s own ideas. Did not the Lord just lead me to write two weeks ago (April 29, 2012) that seeking Him in humble prayer and paying attention to context are among the important steps to take in gaining a right understanding of His Word?1 Also, a common truth every faithful Christian knows is that God or the Son of God never, ever ratifies sin. Since He is immutable, God does not evolve in His thinking either. In love, though, He sent Christ to die for and save us from our sins!
Our President said he observed his staff engaged in and talked with his wife and daughters about same sex families and felt that they should have the same acceptance as any other family. Absent from his consultation list (publically anyway) is a talk with the immutable God who consistently from the Bible’s Old and New Testaments calls same sex relations sin, wicked, abominable, vile and sexually immoral (Genesis 18:16-21, 19:1-25; Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:18-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Revelation 21:7-8). In my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, we teach men their first loyalty in all things is to God.2 A talk with the holy God to understand His Word will never yield His endorsement of what He has already called sin!
In attempting to interpret and apply Matthew 7:12 to morally support treating people equal and fair, one must do so within the larger context of Jesus’ sermon beginning at Matthew 5:1 and the immediate context of the verse which starts at Matthew 7:1. In the larger context our Lord is teaching about Kingdom attitudes and conduct. In the immediate context He warns against the practice of condemning others in their faults because to whatever extent we dish it out, it is coming back to us. He also teaches that before we spend time judging others, we must begin with ourselves (vs.1-5). The Lord next presents instances of exercising proper judgment about things holy and God (vs.6-11).
The Lord’s instruction about doing to others as you would have them do to you in verse 12 comes at this point. In saying “this is the Law and the Prophets” (NKJV), the Lord equates His Kingdom teaching with the moral instruction of these Old Testament books and particularly their summation in loving your neighbor as yourself! In no way are we to interpret our Lord as teaching in our quest to treat people equal and fair as we also want to be treated that we are to accept what they do in sinning against God. Matthew 7:13-23 (which is still part of the larger context of Matthew 7:12) makes it absolutely clear Jesus was not teaching this.
What God calls sin, we call sin and there is nothing in this about being equal or fair except to the extent we apply the same standard (God’s Word and what He calls sin) to ourselves as we do others. Therefore, heaviness of heart has overtaken me as our President is the highest profile professing Christian in the world who along with a growing number of others is corrupting God’s Word to support their own ideas. In the name of the Lord Jesus, I call Mr. Obama and all such persons to repentance knowing Christ will have the last word (Matthew 7:24-29).
1 Read the May 31, 2015 blog, What Does God’s Word Say? under the category, Instruction, then take full advantage of the offer for a free Bible Interpretation Document Download. God will hold every single one of us accountable for how we handle His Word (2 Timothy 2:15; 2 Peter 3); a reality every prospective Bible interpreter should fearfully consider!
2 The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics is available through all major internet booksellers and the Strong Man Store where the E-Book Edition in two formats is currently
on sale through June 20th.
Join The Strong Man Of God Resources Conversation!
Get Your Copy Of The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics Today!
Your purchase supports restoring men, families and communities through Strong Man Ministries!
Purchase It Now