The Scourge Of Racism
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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!
I am fully thankful to God to be among those who are born again Christians according to His love, grace and mercy that brought His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to make it possible through His atoning sacrifice (John 1:1-18, 29, 3:1-21). Indeed, salvation is the number one thing I am thankful to God for this Thanksgiving and every day! From the Lord’s saving of my soul has flowed every other thing I am thankful for not the least of which is His continuing work to help my progress toward becoming that strong man of God in the image of Christ I aspire to be (Philippians 3:12-14)! If you don’t know Him, I urge you to read last week’s post where I present God’s only means to His salvation through the Gospel.1 Have a safe, God honoring Thanksgiving holiday!
1 See the November 14, 2021 post, Overcoming The Male And Female Challenge, under the category, The Cause.
In light of the posts the Lord led me to write beginning September 25-November 13, 2022, this Thanksgiving I am beside myself with gratitude to know and walk with Him by faith! I am grateful too, in those posts along with all of my service to the Lord through Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. to still be on this side of Heaven declaring His mighty works--past, present and future (Psalm 118:17-18)! This is part of His good ends in allowing me to have been afflicted with Prostate Cancer which in accord with His promise of deliverance nearly a year ago to the date He gave it, I am progressing toward fulfillment.1 Truly, God is good to those who look to Him. “Oh, give thanks” with me to God daily and this Thanksgiving, “for He is good,” (Psalm 136:1-3, NKJV)!
1 Read the July 24, 2022 post, Afflicted For God’s Glory And My Good, under the category Glory To God! Also, watch the corresponding Bible Instruction message the Lord gave me to proclaim, Afflicted For God’s Good Ends! on our Strong Man Virtual Institute Channel for a more in-depth presentation on affliction as chastening He brings and/or allows into the lives of His sons for our good.
God’s salvation from my sins in Christ is the best thing that ever happened for me! When I think about how by even at the young age of twenty I had lived such a sinful life and was still alive to tell about it, I am fully thankful to God for His longsuffering He obviously had graciously and mercifully shown me. A wretch if there ever was one not a few who knew me in those days would hesitate to affirm, I marvel to this day that God forgave my sins, filled me with His Holy Spirit and took up residence in me on that Easter Sunday 1977 to begin the intended “forever” relationship He undertakes with all of those He saves (John 1:12-13, 3:1-8, 7:37-39, 14:15-24; Acts 2:36-39, NKJV).
While it took the Lord another 22 months from when He entered my life to finally have me get real with Him during a time of fasting and consecration He commanded me to,1 in the years since, I have been undergoing everything I wrote about from Scripture in a post earlier this month concerning the transformational renewing and regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.2 I am a living witness that when a professed Christian gets real with God in all submission and letting go of the world, the Holy Spirit will supernaturally act to begin transforming our way of thinking formerly governed by Satan, sin and self for example, to the bring it into line with “the mind of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 2:6-16, NKJV).3
In The Scourge Of Racism, I write about experiences with racism from my youth that filled me with anger and futile bitterness.4 Having been made in the image of the perfectly just and righteous God (Genesis 1:26a) though it is fallen due to sin, all mankind at some level has an angry reaction to injustice and unrighteous wrongdoing. For this cause, I can still be angered by the bigoted attitudes of racism and attending acts of discrimination I experience and/or see happen to others in the world. But now, after years of the mind renewing work of the Holy Spirit I am learning to dispose of my anger properly (Ephesians 4:17-32). When I do, bitterness cannot set up in my heart.5
In renewing my mind, the Holy Spirit has also fully convinced me to trust in Christ’s defeat of racism and all sin on the cross (Hebrews 9:26b); His fiery victory over racism and all forms of evil in the coming vengeance of His and the Father’s wrath (Romans 12:19; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10; 2 Peter 3:10-13)! Too, the Holy Spirit has given me the means through His spiritual gifts, calling and ministry to help His way in the right now struggle against racism and all of the harmful sins of humanity. As a preacher of the Gospel, I am able to joyfully herald the salvation of God in Christ that made human and my inner regeneration possible; teach about it as a teacher to willing believers and as I have in The Scourge Of Racism, serve also as the Lord’s watchman/prophet calling His people to obedience.
1 Read the February 17, 2019 post, Surrendering All To Jesus, under the category, Glory To God!
2 See the November 12, 2023 post, Loving With The Love Of God, under the category, Instruction.
3 Aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ are taught in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics that having the mind of Christ is an absolute imperative! The book is available in the Hard or Soft Cover or E-Book Editions in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores.
4 The Scourge Of Racism, Copyright 2023, ODCM Publishing Division, Portland, OR, p. 31-32. These cited pages briefly present my introduction to racism growing up in Seaside, CA on the Monterey Peninsula. Get the recently released book in the Strong Man Store, all major internet booksellers and brick and mortar bookstores. Watch the book trailer.
5 Bitterness as an entitlement right of victimization many blacks cling to is contrary to the will of God for the professed Christian (Ephesians 4:30-32). If you are living in bit- terness you are walking outside of Christ. He bids you return to Him. Understand this fully by watching our thirty minute Strong Man Of God Online Rally, Return To The Lord, on YouTube.
As Daniel represented his generation in his heartfelt prayer of confession and repentance before the Lord in Daniel 9:3-19,1 so, after similar prayers over the years I write now, to my fellow baby boomers with a heart yearning for those of our generation who have not, to turn to Christ before it is too late! The foregoing “too late” is not intended so much to be apocalyptic as much as it is keeping it real about the fact that we are moving fast into the categories of higher death rates among senior adults. Though this is so, many still eat what they foolishly believe is the free lunch of rebellion against God they have also passed on to their progeny. I remind you, this belief is completely false!
Baby boomers are the many post-World War II children born from 1946-1964. I was born in the middle of that range and lived the “wonder years” of the 1960s and early 70s in their full rebel splendor with some of the greatest particularly message music ever; some of which I was privileged to perform.2 Following hard after women’s suffrage begun in the mid-19th century during this Christian era, our generation openly rebelled against biblical social mores governing marriage, family and sexual conduct pursuing free love. We pressed beyond alcohol to experiment with and use drugs to free our minds and in free expression, flooded the streets with “anti-establishment” protests.
Too, many boomers turned their backs on the Christianity of their parents.3 A number did not even care to make a proper distinction between the Christianity of Scripture and that of organized human invention pursuing personal freedoms. Our generation abandoned the faith and churches we attended as youth in droves because it is what we wanted to do and could. Hostile attitudes toward Christianity were communicated in words and deeds by many boomers to their children and the generations that have followed. Indeed, the trend to reject Christianity and its practices among baby boomers has not abated to this hour according to Christian researcher, George Barna.4
As New Age religionists, secularists, agnostics and self-proclaimed free thinking atheists who have made science their god and final authority in large numbers, the hostility of baby boomers especially toward the moral standards of biblical Christianity has helped to bring our nation to its post-Christian posture where abortion is legal, truth relative; political correctness and tolerance facilitates sexual perversion and gender identity confusion in the generations that have followed. Needless to say, evil rebellion against God is not what a generation is supposed to pass on to those that follow it. Ours, consequently fulfills the wise observation of Agur (Psalms 2:1-3, 78:1-8; Proverbs 30:11-14)!
In the catch phrase of our generation credited to economist Milton Friedman, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”5 The costs of rebellion against God, His will, way and Word in the Christianity of the Bible are severe and many as warned, but have not always been immediate or foreseen. This is just as Israel’s prophets warned them and Daniel acknowledged in the day his generation endured God’s judgment for their and their fathers’ rebellion against Him (Daniel 9:5-12). Now, nearly 2,000 years after the first appearing of His Son, Jesus Christ, to bring salvation from sin to the world, He who holds the generations accountable assigns the guilt of rebellion in every generation since to baby boomers and its rising severe costs on the horizon to our progeny (Luke 11:46-51; Revelation 8-9).
For our generation knew the truth of the Gospel, but willfully spurned it (John 3:16-21, 36)! Many of our baby boomer generation pass from this life already seeing too late, the harvest of natural and divine imposed consequences our rebellion has brought upon the world and our progeny of generations X, Y and Z.6 Beyond the lyrical and melodic message music of our day warning as the Bible does of future calamity for rebellion and poor stewardship (Isaiah 24:1-6), it has been painful listening to the children of generation Z such as Climate Activist, Greta Thunberg of Sweden, call their parents and baby boomers out for our selfish lack of foresight and empathy for them as they fearfully and angrily communicate their concern about the degenerating state of the planet being left to them.7
However, climate change is not the worst of the many tragic consequences of baby boomer rebellion. Eating what was believed to be the free lunch of rebellion against God, a consequence not foreseen by unrepentant baby boomers is the warning from Bible prophecy our unsaved progeny making up generation Z that lives to be senior adults may well endure the foretold awesome outpour of God’s wrath upon all of earth’s sinners (Isaiah 2:10-22, 13:6-13, 24:17-20; Romans 1:18-32; Revelation 6:12-17, 15-16)!8 Therefore, I first urge every unsaved fellow baby boomer reading this to repent and believe the Gospel to be saved or return to Christ. Then, care enough about your progeny to proclaim the Gospel and witness to them while you have the opportunity (2 Corinthians 6:2).9
1 See the two-part post that starts January 16, 2022, Arriving At These Times, under the categories Bible Prophecy and Call To Repent.
2 I am thankful to God for the privilege I was granted to start the original Sounds Of Persuasion band in Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula, CA and to make music as well as have friendships with all of its members from 1970-73.
3 As dead manmade religion in many cases, this was actually understandable. Woe to guilty religionists! Read the two-part post beginning August 21, 2016, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, Instruction. Also, read the two-part, American Culture’s Religion starting September 11, 2016, under the category, Call To Repent.
4 Examine his report at Barna Research.
5 Milton Friedman Quotes. Brainy Media Inc, 2022. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/milton_friedman_141778.
6 See the article by Veronica Thompson, Generation Names Explained.
7 View the YouTube excerpt of then, 16 year old Greta’s address to the UN to see this child’s angry intensity. Let every neglectful pastor still rebelling against God after two years of His Coronavirus judgment to build your local church empire while not preparing those you serve for the coming persecution take a close look at Greta's face as you hear her anger. Baby boomers turned their backs on the churches; generation Z in their time will destroy them and persecute faithful Christians to the death (Daniel 7:23- 25, 8:23-25; Revelation 17:12-18)!
8 Read the February 6, 2022 post, The Divine Delay, under the category, Bible Prophecy, giving special consideration to footnote three.
9 To receive a fresh, clear biblically grounded presentation of the Gospel for yourself or someone you care about in whatever generation, please view one or both of our 30 minute videos on this Ministry’s Strong Man Of God Online Rally YouTube Channel.
Reflecting on the past year of writing the Strong Man Of God Blog, I am thankful to God to have served you in serving His purpose to stir up willing Christians to His cause to restore men and more accurately discern where we are at prophetically. The six blog July 30-September 3 series, “Restoring Men In The Two Minute Drill” capped off the focused effort that began with my first post of 2017. Out of His persistent love, grace and mercy, of course, God is not done speaking through me on these matters since my calling in major part as a watchman/prophet, the cause and work of the Ministry I lead are inextricably bound up together by Him (2 Chronicles 36:15-16; Luke 1:17; Acts 11:27-30).
I greatly rejoice that men wiser than I have been used of God in these latter days to also stir up the Body of His Son. One such man was Chuck Colson who was not as biblically audacious as me to consider his contribution to be from a calling to the prophetic office--though, certainly besides being an excellent evangelist, apologist for and teacher of the faith, he spoke to my heart as one; burdened as he was for us to understand the times. This edited 2012 blog repost is my tribute to Chuck Colson in gratitude for how his writings such as the book I name in it impacted me and follows appropriately after my November 12 post under the category, Bible Prophecy, “God’s Throwaways?”
Originally Posted October 21, 2012
With all due honor to the memory of Chuck Colson who with Nancy Pearcey wrote the 1999 Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. book, How Now Shall We Live?, this blog is similarly titled. I was gifted a copy of and read the nearly five hundred page work I believe contains one of the stellar, biblically solid evangelical voices of our time that will echo in the ears of the saints as darkening days continue to press in upon us. Brother Colson departed home to the Lord back in April of this year and left us many great incisive and urgent works of exhortation and instruction on living out the Christian faith with a biblical worldview in an increasingly overtly hostile world and American society.
I reference Colson and Pearcey’s, How Now Shall We Live? in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics in discussing how fathers as teachers must be intentional to demonstrate what they teach in a post-modern culture where absolute truth is no longer accepted. Colson was right in this work and so many others to warn us about the dangers of navigating this world in rebellion without a biblical worldview. He was also right to appeal for us to get our act together. Instead of hunkering down in fear waiting for "the rapture" or to suffer as the end approaches, engage our families, friends, co-workers, and neighbors that are still a mission field as the culture.
Truly, we are commissioned by our Lord to preach the Gospel and be faithful to Him to the end (Matthew 28:19-20). The Lord had to know and did; warning His apostles and us that times such as we now live in and worse would come (Mark 13:9-13; Luke 23:26-31; John 15:18-16:4). How then should we live? God is calling for Christian men and women to become strong men and great women of God in the image of Jesus Christ not because it sounds cute, but because this is the only kind of Christian the Bible has only ever presented to begin with and that will accomplish His purposes; standing by faith and faithful to the end (Matthew 16:24-27; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 3:7-16; Hebrews 11-12:2; Revelation 12:7-11)!
This call from God is obviously being made because just as the many churches have watered down the Gospel and salvation, so they have also invented their own kind of Christian foreign to the Bible. I am deeply humbled as I understand the true weightiness of the strong man of God message and cause in terms of potential impact on Christians in distilling into action the Word of God along with the work of Chuck Colson and others of our time. For the moment has come to move beyond the philosophical and analytical into the battlefield of day to day experience. Aspiring strong men and great women of God are persons completely sold out with godly hearts aflame to please Him in all obedience to His whole will, way and Word!
Only they are equipped to engage first the churches in confronting the sin and worldly compromises among those professing to be Christians--plucking some from Hell’s fire (James 5:19-20; Jude 20-23). Second, only they will care enough to engage the hostile culture bearing the cost, yet winning many souls to Christ and leaving an enduring witness to the glory of God in these latter days. A major part of their engagement in both camps is the restoration of men, families and communities to the extent our gracious God permits. Get my book inspired of the Holy Spirit, drawn from the Bible and built on the foundational work of Christians such as Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey to learn more about what is involved in becoming a strong man or great woman of God in the image of Jesus Christ.1
1 The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics is available at all major internet booksellers and in the Strong Man Store.
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.
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