Strong Man Of God Blog

            This Black History Month, I cry out yet again as the Lord leads against the failure of the many churches among professing Christian black Americans to be at the forefront of dispensing the tie breaking truths in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our people, hurting men and those on lockdown in particular.  Sadly, one major reason for this is that many of our churches remain caught up in the house of refuge mentality and practice of manmade religion.  Another reason directly tied to this is that many of the leaders of these churches are themselves still bound by Satan with the ties of sin and the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism.

            Though I have been crying out to the professing Christians and churches of black Americans at the Lord’s directive since 1986 through various media efforts to include our Ministry’s From Slavery To Victory Education Project launched in 1994 and ongoing at www.fromslaverytovictory.org as well as in blogs under the category, Black History on this site, it is very clear many have turned a deaf ear.  For if the number of black American men on lockdown is any indication, things are not improving spiritually, mentally and emotionally for us, but as the Lord has foretold through me, spiraling downward to complete ruin and that in spite of an African-American President in the White House!

            Truly, the heavy burden of lifting us up as a people should never have been put on the President, any other sinful, mortal flesh or institution of men because it is impossible.  However, with the Lord strong and mighty, nothing is impossible (Genesis 18:9-14; Jeremiah 32:13-26; Luke 1:30-37, 18:24-27)!  For those who will look to Him with a faith that is more than simply believing He exists, but full confidence and trust in as well as reliance upon Him, He remains a mighty present help in the time of trouble (Psalm 33:16-22, 46:1-3).  What is impossible is pleasing God without faith in Him (Hebrews 11:6)!  What happened to us; we used to know this?

            Besides putting our faith in and spreading our love to all of the wrong people, places and things as a harlot of low self-esteem, we have stopped believing on and acting in obedience to the Word of God as it is written!  Or how else is it that our transplanted African slave forefathers that became Christians persevered through their darkest nights with singing and dancing to God that drove their enslavers to fear induced mockery and greater attempts to break them down; their subsequent churches serving faithfully through the height of the Civil Rights era as houses of refuge from the fierce and violent storms of oppression as I have formerly written in Black History blogs.

            As I have also written, the house of refuge mentality with all of its attendant manmade religious practices and traditions continue in many churches well past a generation later and have served to impede the spiritual development of our people (Hebrews 5:12-14).  In comparison, retaining the house of refuge mentality is like Israel still insisting on manna after God cut it off.  God had given them manna in the wilderness with instructions on how to collect it.  The bread from Heaven was good when they collected it as God instructed, but was spoiled and stank when they did not.  It stopped coming after they had crossed over into and began to eat the produce of the Promised Land--a new phase in their journey with God (Exodus 16; Joshua 5:9-12). 

            Israel wandered in the wilderness in the first place because they had refused to enter and take the Promised Land when God was ready for them to do so (Number 13:30-14:38).  Now, in similitude because of refusing to do His will, professing black American Christians take refuge in their churches while our communities are war zones with our sons filling prisons and graveyards; our daughters enraged protest and with Beyonce, hearken back to the militancy of the Black Panthers as an answer.  But like Moses to whom God showed the deliverance of his people was in his hand, so, we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our hand--if guilty professing Christians will repent, believe and proclaim it from the heart as commanded (Exodus 4:1-5, 14:10-16; Isaiah 49:5-6; Romans 10:6-15)!

            It was never the Lord’s intent that the churches among our people should serve indefinitely as houses of refuge with their own religious program and agenda.  Regardless of culture, race and language the churches of Jesus Christ are supposed to be about His business (Matthew 16:13-18);  the business of making disciples by going as heralds to preach and give witness to the Gospel about Him, the reality of His love, grace and power operative in our own lives.  After disciples are made, they are to be taught the whole counsel of God; the risen Christ laboring with us to the end (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:14-18; Acts 1:8, 20:17-27)!¹  But the churches can go no further than their leaders (Proverbs 29:18).² 

1 In  a  book  of  his selected sermons entitled, Strength To Love, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2010, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through a sermon rejecting Com-

   munism, chided black American Christians for not having the same zeal for proclaiming and witnessing  the  Gospel truth of Christ as the Communist did for his em-

   pty political system.  He challenged the church he served as pastor (and all those in the black community as I do today) to a renewed devotion to the cause of Christ

   such as the early church displayed and away from traditional inward and Sunday focused activities, p.106-108. 
2 Please  support  our  Books To USA Prisons Project  that  will  send two copies of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back to Basics presenting the Gospel of Jesus

   Christ and biblical instruction about becoming a strong man of God in His image to prisons across the nation.  Go to https://www.thestrongmanofgod.org/Give.

            As God’s preacher, I am compelled by His love to contend for the souls of humanity bound by Satan’s ties through preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  I fish for men as a first priority because we are His chosen leaders in the human family as He constructed it.  Among men are those for whom I am deeply burdened because of our shared experience of being born black in America.  If it is true that Satan binds men with spiritual, mental and emotional ties that are common to the human experience, then why have black American males historically had such an extraordinary and disproportionately difficult ordeal in terms of dysfunction, criminality and incarceration?

            Nearly two million men are presently on lockdown and just at fifty percent or more of them is black American.  They are there for murdering or harming mostly one another through gang and other crime related violence along with all manner of conscience and natural self-control breaching lawless conduct.  They are there not only because of a cycle of poverty, low educational attainment, unemployment, fatherless households, culturally conditioned poor choices or the very real white controlled societal apparatus still adverse to them, but also their own self-sabotage as I wrote in June 2015 blogs reflecting on the state of black Americans one hundred and fifty years after slavery.

            However, even the foregoing does not get to the root ties Satan has used to bind the black male soul so tautly there is self-hatred enough not only to self-sabotage, but as well, lash out violently on our own people.  Again, these root ties are common to mankind, but have been applied during the excruciating events of the black American historical experience; root ties that are the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism.  By stating this, please do not hear me to be making excuses for the evil behavior of black males as criminals--set free by Christ, I no longer embrace victimization--or somehow diminishing the pain of those hurt by them. 

            Nevertheless, I can testify to the fact the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism as root ties that at some point have bound nearly every black male soul are actual, understandable and hallelujah, removable!  As a result of the work of Sigmund Freud and those that have come after him since the turn of the last century, the soul business has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the West.  Exploding in the middle of the last century, the troubled souls of mostly whites have paid educated persons to help them identify and cope with any number of mental and emotional maladies through counseling, therapy and drugs.  It is even trendy to have a “therapist.”

            If the souls of white folk cannot “just get over it” (whatever it is that leads to seeking help), why do the souls of black males have to?  Because of the stigma of perceived weakness as a man that remains to this hour though, many pride filled men do not voluntarily present themselves to the soul doctors for help.  For black American men, it is also the sense of final capitulation in seeking help after clinging so long to the delusion self-remedies will finally successfully handle the root ties that bind their souls.  Besides, if the dismissive attitude from guilt toward the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism by white professionals dominant in the soul business is anything like white society at large, why should a troubled black male soul bother?  

            Among the root ties Satan uses to bind the black male soul as continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism I have identified in my research and from personal experience are anger, victimization, powerlessness and frustration.  Examining just anger for a moment, hostile, violent and subtle oppression as a bully creates anger in its object in short order.  Imagine being oppressed almost 400 years with very little relief.  Now, imagine being threatened to suppress that anger short of being killed by the bully and add to the mix other sources of anger such as an absent or neglectful father.  Any normal human being without any intervening positive coping mechanisms such as Christian forgiveness would be beyond angry (Matthew 6:9-15, 18:21-35)!

            I bring up the issue of the continuing mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism in a number of published works in my “Journal” on our www.fromslaverytovictory.org Web Site.  The site beginning on its Home Page points the willing toward the biblical worldview and truths that can begin to bring help, healing and hope to the seeking soul.  Too, I mention the legacies related to barriers to black male professing Christians aspiring to become strong men of God in the image of Jesus Christ in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics with an eye toward future elaboration.

            In light of all of the trouble black males are having with the police among other white authority figures and their non-coincidental high rate of incarceration, this Black History Month I plead with my brothers by race to recognize we need help; help only God the soul’s Creator can provide through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Genesis 2:7; Psalm 139:13-14; Luke 4:16-21; 1 John 5:4-5).  He alone has the superior power to one by one break every chain as ties Satan has used to bind our souls and enable us to live victoriously as aspiring strong men of God in Him going forward!