The Scourge Of Racism
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This Veteran’s Day, I salute veterans by posting one of my favorite past Commentaries inspired of the Lord the moment I saw the photo of wounded Army Ranger, Joshua Hargis, offering a salute to his superior officer there in the hospital to honor him. Tears welled up in me so fast it was as if someone else inside of me I had no control over was moved by this imagery too; Someone I soon recognized as the Lord! Why would the Lord be moved by this imagery? As you will read in this edited 2013 Commentary, devoted and loyal soldiers are appreciated in Heaven by the “Commander of the Lord’s Army” who set such an example as well as on earth by mortal men (Joshua 5:13-15; Acts 14:19-22, NKJV)!
Originally Published November 2013
Count me in among the multitudes that were instantly moved upon seeing the photo of twenty-four year old injured Army Ranger, Joshua Hargis, struggling to lift his arm to salute his commanding officer during the ceremony awarding him the Purple Heart on October 6, 2013. The Cincinnati man had been injured in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that wounded fourteen others and killed four. His salute came through bandaging, tubes, pain, a doctor’s attempt to restrain him and after the over fifty people in the room thought he was unconscious. A photo of the event was sent to his wife who in turn posted it on Facebook and from there it went global!1
Coming from a family of career servicemen to include my retired Army veteran brother, Richard, I fully understood the moment from a military perspective. My brother, our now deceased father, grandfather and uncles took their service commitments seriously. It was a duty as well as an honor to fight and if necessary, suffer and die for their Country. Never mind many of the white citizens of their Country despised them. In spite of that fact, the military culture with its spit and shine outer veneer, rigid command structure, devotion to comrade and requirement to be willing to sacrifice all bred in them a fierce commitment that was perfectly captured by Joshua Hargis in his determination to salute.
It is the fierce loyalty, commitment to duty and sense of honor to fight of the American soldier which is legendary from the Revolutionary War that is greatly lacking among Christian men today.2 Indeed, the many churches of manmade Christianity the religion have so thoroughly feminized their activities (clubs and tea socials for example) that they have discharged the men from service in their God designed natural masculinity specially suited for dangerous military type action. The closest thing to danger most Christian men might see in the churches is the quick muscle flexing of carnal leaders who feel their authority or position is threatened (Jeremiah 26:7-9; Mark 3:1-6; Acts 4:1-12).
As He is portrayed in the Bible and my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics,3 the Lord Jesus Christ approached His mission to rescue mankind from the powers of darkness and sin with a soldier’s heart and that is because His mission was of a military nature (Hebrews 2:14-18; 1 John 3:8). Knowing that He was the promised Seed of the woman and God’s Anointed, Satan tried but failed to preemptively take Him out as a Child (Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 7:10-14, 9:6-7, 61:1-3; Matthew 2:1-18). God allowed Satan to tempt Jesus in every way men are tempted, yet, He did not sin as Adam before Him (Mark 1:9-13; Hebrews 4:15). The Lord directly took Satan on in a match of power and prevailed; even letting His disciples and enlisted soldiers get in on the action (Luke 4:31-37; 10:1-12, 17-20).
Then the hour arrived that He alone had to go behind enemy lines to Satan through his human agents to be falsely accused, tried, cruelly treated, tortured, whipped and condemned to death by crucifixion (Luke 22:52-53). On the cross naked, He was further humiliated by the taunts of the adversaries including two men crucified with Him and enemy soldiers gambling for His clothes. However, He graciously asked His Father who had sent Him on this mission to forgive His enemies and patiently endured His suffering involving finally the most excruciating pain of all: separation from His Father (Matthew 26:57-27:46; Luke 23:34-43). Moments before His death, the Lord vocalized His soldier’s salute to His Father: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” and as recorded by the apostle John, “It is finished,” (Luke 23:46; John 19:30, NKJV)!
Upon the successful completion of the first part of His two-fold military mission certified by His bodily resurrection from the dead to immortality on the third day after, the Lord Jesus Christ is called forever the “Faithful and True Witness” among other commendations (Revelation 3:14, NKJV). Truly, He is coming again to complete the second part of His mission and eliminate all opposition to His rule as King on earth (Revelation 19:11-20:3)! Meanwhile, in Christ’s image as faithful and true wit-nesses, Christian men are supposed to be fully engaged as soldiers in the spiritual warfare with the “spiritual hosts of wickedness” warring against them, resisting the Gospel that saves and the coming Kingdom of God equipped with the weapons and armor He has supplied until that Day (Matthew 28:18-20; John 15:18-16:4; Acts 4:23-31; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5; Ephesians 6:10-18, NKJV).
Being in God’s army as in those of men includes enduring “hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” and avoiding entanglement with the temporary “affairs of this life” that pleases mortal flesh instead of Christ who enlisted us as soldiers (2 Corinthians 6:4-10; 2 Timothy 2:1-4, NKJV). Therefore, pastors, elders and church leaders that are guilty: rather than dry, dull courses, meetings discussing the Bible and men’s feelings about it as well as the many social occasions labeled “fellowship” that cultivate passivity, repent and get back to Christ’s program for restoring the men who follow Him!4 This cause is the heartbeat of the Ministry I lead by Christ’s command!5
Unless restored Christian men become engaged soldiers, humiliating days of defeat before the enemy loom ahead for them and professing American Christianity (Acts 19:11-16). This does not have to be; for we are supposedly Christ’s soldiers! With difficulty we “fight the good fight of faith” as well as for souls and even get wounded (1 Timothy 6:12, NKJV). However, in the image of Christ and like Joshua Hargis, we remain faithful and true in the service which we were enlisted; in the approving presence of our Commanding Officer though suffering as the apostle Paul also modeled, we give Him a soldier’s salute (2 Corinthians 11:22-29; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18).6 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Google “Joshua Hargis update” to learn of his status now from your chosen source.
2 Read the July 2, 2017 post, The Urgency Of Restoring Men, under the category, The Cause.
3 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
4 See the July 23, 2017 post, Churchmen In The Two Minute Drill, under the category, The Cause.
5 Learn about the mission and work of Strong Man Ministries on our Web Site About Us Page. Additionally, while on the Web Site, visit the Blog Page and look especially
in the category, The Cause, to experience our zeal to restore men!
6 For a sobering prophetic look at what American Christians are up against now and going forward figuratively depicted as a football game men can connect with, read the
six-part July 30-September 3, 2017 series, Restoring Men In The Two Minute Drill, under the categories, Bible Prophecy and The Cause.
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.
In this New Year 2016 I want to salute those Christian individuals, churches and ministries moved by God’s love for sinners to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and teach His Word to the incarcerated. Talk about unsung heroes! These servants of God do not routinely get appreciated by Christendom unless they reach the celebrity status of the now departed and former Watergate conspirator, Chuck Colson, because what they do is literally behind barred and locked doors as well as among a people group most (keeping it real) consider unworthy. Nevertheless, they serve because the living God desires to reach the incarcerated with His grace in the Gospel too!
While I am not writing to gain recognition, I know what I have written in the foregoing is true because I am one of those servants of God to the incarcerated as the Director of our ten year old Strong Man Ministries, a unit of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. the Lord led me to found in 1985. The preaching of the Gospel through our Strong Man Of God Rally and teaching of the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study by way of our Strong Man Institute in Northwest prisons are works of infancy compared to all that have gone before. However, our Ministry has in common with all others truly raised up by Him, God’s care for the incarcerated (Psalm 69:29-33).
The work in our nation is great! There are more than 2.4 million incarcerated men and women in the United States; a number that has quadrupled from 1980. We have the largest incarcerated population and highest rate of incarceration in the world! 90% of those incarcerated are men.1 It is estimated that black Americans make up nearly one million of those incarcerated and our men outnumber white men six times over. Blacks and Hispanics were 58% of all prisoners in 2008 though their combined total population is around 25%. Black juveniles comprise 26% of all arrests and 58% of those sent to state prisons.2 These statistics indicate a vast mission field among incarcerated men!
Even with all of our ongoing activity, we consider ourselves only partially engaged. Up till now, we have been waiting for more Christians, pastors and the churches they serve to joyfully come on aboard to help. Hoping against hope this has not happened for any number of reasons including a lack of Kingdom vision (John 3:1-8; Romans 12:1-2) and consequent lack of a mission and ministry focus typical of those practicing human invented religion (Matthew 6:31-33; Luke 9:57-10:16). Spiritually blind, carnal and deceived, the religionist believes that what he has made-up to do for God is enough to please Him.
However, even in the world parents and employers never reward for tasks carried out in complete disregard for what their instructions were! With God and sinful men obedience and diligent zeal to carry out assigned tasks are praised and rewarded as is plainly taught by the Lord Jesus in His parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30). This leads to what I am convinced of the Lord is the primary reason many professing Christians in general do not get excited to support or serve in the work of ministering to those that are incarcerated. It is that they have no love for the sinner and have selfishly forgotten that they are redeemed sinners saved by God’s love and grace!
Indeed, God reminds us through the apostle Paul that it was not while we were yet righteous that He displayed His love and permitted Christ to die for us, but sinners and His enemies (Romans 5:6-11). God saves mankind from all stations and circumstances of this life out of His overflowing love for us (John 3:16). With His love and continuing gratitude in our hearts, we as redeemed sinners have been granted the wonderful privilege to take up Christ’s Kingdom cause of preaching and witnessing Him to sinners so they may hear (and sometimes, such as on lockdown, really hear) the Gospel. And as the Lord commands, all new disciples are to be taught His Word (Matthew 28:19-20).
In the course of discipling men as newborn sons it is imperative not only that they be taught the basic knowledge of salvation, gifts and ministry as servants of God, but also His express will for them as man the creature in this present age and eternity. It is downright sickening to repeatedly hear incarcerated men who have read my book or been a part of the group study exclaim while being taught the elementary principles of biblical manhood embodied in the strong man of God: “I never knew that!” Many of these men are middle aged and older professing Christians with their names on the membership rolls of churches from any number of denominations; and no wonder, many churchmen on the outside are without knowledge too of what God intends a man to be and do!
Whether it is lack of love, Kingdom vision, mission and ministry focus or any other sin in not caring for the salvation of sinners, the Lord would call all professing Christians to confess and repent from it. For not lately, but from the declaration of His Messianic mission and its initial fulfillment He has incorporated care for the prisoner (Isaiah 61:1-2; Luke 4:16-21, 23:32-43). Being a prisoner in His cause, the apostle Paul missed no opportunities to witness and teach Christ among his fellow inmates (Acts 16:23-28; Philemon)!
Laying aside then every cynical excuse including how the men got to prison, their motives for interest in the faith or their prospects for success upon release, I urge you to get busy with the Lord’s commanded work to reach men with the Gospel among our nation’s large incarcerated population. You can also partner with us (or any of our fellow reputable Christian prison ministries) financially and/or as a volunteer as we go into the prisons. Not only do we need support for our ongoing activity, but this Ministry is set to conduct a Crowdfunding Campaign to fund our national Books To USA Prisons Project that will send two copies of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics to select prisons throughout the United States. Locally, we will be enlarging our transitional ministry to newly released Christian men we have served while incarcerated or directed to us by pastors.
1 Michael Snyder, Mass Incarceration: 21 Amazing Facts About America’s Obsession With Prison, July 27, 2014, www.EndoftheAmericandream.com/archives/mass-incarceration.
2 Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, www.Naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet.
After He had sent the disciples of John the Baptist back to him to report what they had heard and seen Him do (Matthew 11:1-6), the Lord Jesus Christ turned to the multitudes present and asked a question that would launch His only recorded eulogy in the New Testament. He asked them once, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” Then, he asked twice for a total of three times, “But what did you go out to see,” (Matthew 11:7-9, NKJV)? The first two times the Lord asks the question, He purposely provides an inaccurate description of what John was all about. However, the third time He provides the accurate divine answer--the only one that ever finally matters!
So, now, in providing this opening of His eulogy for John the Baptist as a template in answer to my prayer for how to salute and bid farewell to my retiring Portland, OR friend and mentor, Dr. James Martin, Pastor of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church for over thirty-two years, I now ask the church he served, the many who visited, heard him on the radio or saw him on television during his tenure: what did you go out to see? Certainly one will say this and another that, but I will tell you three important things I saw from a biblical worldview and intermingled with my personal experience with him for the last twenty-two years to the glory of God. I saw a Pastor/Teacher, Administrator and Visionary!
Dr. Martin is a God gifted and called Pastor/Teacher and Administrator (1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 27-30; Ephesians 4:11-16). I sought him out within the first six months of arriving in Portland to serve as a pastor in 1997 after hearing him on the radio. I had been sent from Fort Worth, Texas with the sound counsel to seek out seasoned pastors with whom I could continue my personal growth and development as well as be benefitted as a pastor in being mentored by such experienced men. Like so many others in all of the Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan area, I was blessed to my soul to hear Doc (my nickname for him) teach God’s Word with His power, clarity, directness and some humor.
As I have often reminded him over the years, God sent him here at the right time and for the right reason as a faithful teacher of His Word since this highly unchurched part of our nation was (and is) so needy spiritually. The proof is how Mt. Olivet grew from about 300 when Doc arrived in 1987 to the nearly 2,000 attending by the time I came to town. Doc made room in his very busy schedule to meet with and welcome me over lunch after I called his office to request an appointment. That first lunch led to us meeting monthly when he was in town over the next twenty years. It turns out, he had been seeking opportunities to help other willing pastors and I knew God was at work.
Besides being a caring shepherd with an emphasis on teaching God’s flock, Doc’s gift of administration was abundantly evident too. I watched him adapt and expand the church’s organizational units to accommodate its growing services, ministries and activities especially when it became “one church in two locations.” During this busy time of expansion, Doc also kept a place in his schedule for me and a couple of other pastors on occasion that met with us--most deeply missed now is the positive interactions he and I shared with Pastor Terry Treadwell who departed to the Lord. Doc also led Mt. Olivet to help our church with building repairs, finances, worship and pulpit supply.
Finally, as a God enabled Visionary, Doc led Mt. Olivet from their original typical church building to purchase an old store and wrestling arena in North Portland to transform into a functional worship, educational and fellowship campus; a suburban storefront into a combination worship center with education, office and recreation space as a second campus. While doing those things, he led the church to plant other churches and send out missionaries to fulfill his commitment to the Lord’s Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). To this end as well, with his leading the church supported this Ministry in conducting the Strong Man Of God Rally in Oregon and Washington men’s prisons and was the first church in 2011 to host a signing for my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics.1
Though our relationship started professionally, Doc and I became friends in the process. We held each other accountable in our personal walk, family life, ministries and doctrine with only a few disagreements. His enduring legacy with me is having helped me to be a better husband and father which I acknowledge in my book. My wife, Mary, and I also enjoyed the fellowship we had with Doc and his wife, Lynetta, out to lunch or dinner in their home (we had some great Thanksgivings at the Martin’s). What did you go out to see? To the glory of God, I with heavy heart, love and gratitude salute and bid farewell to a gifted Pastor/Teacher, Administrator, Visionary, brother, mentor and dear friend in Christ; wishing him all of the best going into his retirement from Mt. Olivet.
1 Get a print copy or digital download of the book at major internet booksellers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ChristianBooks.com and Apple (digital only). You can
also get a print copy of the book in the Strong Man Store.
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).
In preparing to make this edited 2012 repost, I had to refresh myself on the circumstances that stirred me up before the Lord to write it in the first place. Ms. Rosen’s now famous rebuke of Ann Romney which she walked back the next day certainly led to what is presented spiritually in the post and which I fully stand by in step with the posts I made on feminism last spring.1 However, also heavily on my heart that I did not include then was how that debate was so much one of race and class privilege. Mostly white women up until recent times could have such a debate about the work of women at home or outside of it.
Black women from slavery have had little choice but to work outside of the home to help support their families. What is striking is that the black women I have read about and known personally such as my grandmother, mother and wife did not complain or believe that they somehow were being cheated. Working to help support their families was something that had to be done and they did it with a resolute joy--though they came home tired and with sore feet; looking only for us children and when I married, husband, to show some appreciation by helping with household duties. I confess resentment in my youth I regret to having to wash dishes and do other household chores.
I did better as a Christian husband--although my daughters still laugh about my combing their hair on occasion for school. Women that work outside of the home in black and other communities of color is a fact of life. I salute all that do so including the memory of my grandmother, mother and with thanks to God, my wife, Mary, still with me whose employment and other sacrifices down through our thirty-eight years together have helped make it possible that I could serve in this Ministry. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers who work in and outside of the home; blessing their families as a result!
Originally Posted April 15, 2012
To tell the truth, I was not shocked by the national collision and resulting discussion of worldviews that took place last week on the issue of women that work in and outside of the home. In the second chapter of my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, I am led by the Lord to address the 21st century confusion on what a man and woman are head on.2 It is an inescapable issue in light of the rejection of God’s ancient instruction on the matter by the secular world and a rising number of professed Christians along with their churches. And of course, it is the rejection of the absolutes of God’s Word that gives rise to the confusion and subsequent worldview collisions.
Democrat Hilary Rosen’s declaration on a News show that Ann Romney, the wife of Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, “never worked a day in her life,” sparked the latest round of national heated discussion over not only whether stay at home mothers really work or not, but the larger question of a woman’s role and place in the family. Whether she is a card carrying feminist or not, Ms. Rosen’s comment and attitude with it is typical of many women that are. Having encountered many feminists in my years of ministry, there seems to be antagonism toward especially Christian women that willfully choose to be full-time wives and mothers. In their minds, “real women” do the home thing, but only as they also pursue personal ambitions--whatever they may be.
The truth is, the woman that devotes herself full-time to her husband and family is pleasing to God and so is the one that in support of her family, chooses to (or must) work outside of the home as long as she does not neglect any of her divinely assigned responsibilities (Titus 2:1-5). Ah, and that is the catch for the career minded woman who like her male counterpart must often sacrifice family on the altar of achieving success. Clearly, God is not pleased with either a man or woman who does this. Both the stay at home and the employed woman can work hard; aspiring great women of God in the image of Christ in either situation will work very hard in order to please Him and their families. I devote two chapters of my book discussing such women.
Incredibly, the aspiring great woman of God does not feel nor is she chained to the home if she commits to serving her family full-time. As demonstrated by the woman of Proverbs 31:10-31, she sees fully after the needs of her husband and children first. But then she uses her home honed skills and God-given management abilities to operate businesses and/or serve others. At the end of the day, the family of this hard working woman is blessed by and calls her blessed that is motivated foremost by a desire to please God (Proverbs 31:30)!3
1 Read the posts beginning April 15-June 3, 2018.
2 The book is available at all major internet booksellers, by order at your favorite brick and mortar bookstore or in the Strong Man Store.
3 Visit our Strong Man Store to hear a sample of and consider purchasing the audio resource, Great Woman Of God Mothers.
Of the greatest sins manifested among many church leaders today is the arrogance to believe that they can somehow improve upon and expedite God’s program for making and teaching disciples of Jesus Christ! Though ancient now, the methods Christ and His apostles empowered by the Holy Spirit used to make disciples (preaching the Gospel) and teach them to obey God’s whole Word were effective (Mark 1:9-20, 3:13-19, 4:10-12, 33-34, 8:27-38; John 20:19-23; Acts 2:1-16, 36-47). Even so, 100% of the people who heard their preaching and teaching did not accept it (John 6:60-71; Acts 4:1-4). Our problem is we want that 100% even if it means doing stuff in the flesh to get them!
The Lord’s approach and example to teaching men as disciples was Self-denying, labor intensive and time consuming. But these are the inescapable realities of spiritual fathering our Lord embraced as well as called, equipped and charged His disciples turned apostles to also do. Church pastors are imperative in the work (John 21:15-17)! Having been a pastor and mentor of boys and men I fully understand the demands especially of time spiritual fathering make on one’s life. However, this is why a pastor equips those he spiritually fathers to do as he does. If he is too busy to do what the Lord has commanded as his priority, then he is too busy! As the Lord leads me to point out in this edited 2013 Commentary, men are being hurt because of disobedience to His commands.
Originally Published September 2013
While our Ministry celebrates every brave incarcerated man that steps out before our Strong Man Of God Rally assemblies to publically pray to receive Christ or rededicate to Him, it saddens me personally to see the great numbers that rededicate. Most of these rededications are men that were Christians before their incarceration for a second or third time. It is certainly true Christians that commit crimes must take personal responsibility for their actions. However, after talking to many of these men it becomes clear that they are not getting the one on one mentoring of a “spiritual father” needed to deepen their walk with Christ in the churches they are members of as I did not early on.1
To be sure, the failure to make committed followers of Christ is a wide spread problem in the churches. Spiritual infancy dominates today in a Western church culture that is more concerned with the numbers than whether members are maturing in Christ. This lack of emphasis on the slow process of making disciples as our Lord commanded is hurting men the most since they are God’s chosen leaders in the home and churches. Many sit and the relative few that serve largely do so as babes in Christ with no intentional plan to disciple them. Once a month meetings and the annual golf tournament are not enough to turn baby Christian men into fiery, maturing disciples of Christ!
As I write in my book, The Strong Man Of God: Back To Basics, teaching his family is a responsibility God assigns every man.2 As the head of the house, a man teaches his wife and children. As a father, he teaches all of the children, but with a special duty to mentor and guide his sons into manhood; his wife, their daughters into womanhood. Beyond their families, aspiring strong men of God in the image of Christ imitate Him in taking newborn Christian men under their wing to spiritually father them into maturity. We know this process is slow because our Lord spent more than three years of intensive time with His twelve disciples, then the rest of the lives of those who became faithful apostles (Matthew 4:18-22; John 14:18, 16:12-15).
In the Lord’s “Great Commission,” He commands His disciples to make, baptize and teach new disciples from all of the nations (Matthew 28:19-20). As it concerns teaching, veteran disciples are to teach the new “to observe all things that” Christ had commanded them (vs. 20, NKJV). Teaching what Christ “the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2, NKJV) commanded entails more than just important doctrines, but also all of the thinking, attitudes and behaviors of Christ-likeness we are also to possess in pleasing God the Father as He did (Philippians 2:5). To this end, the apostle Paul also instructed his spiritual sons to teach and pass on what they had learned to men who would do the same with other men also (2 Timothy 2:1-2; Titus 1:1-9, 2:1-5).
To their shame, not only do many pastors and churches not encourage spiritual fathering or mothering in their ranks today, but too many have no formal discipleship instruction at all much less for newborn Christians in the pews who need the “pure milk of the Word” not the philosophical musings of men (1 Peter 2:1-3, NKJV).3 And for the churches that pride themselves on offering lofty sectarian seminary level courses such as Systematic Theology as sufficient to fulfill Christ’s command to teach especially babes, repent! You are causing them to gag and choke in confusion on what is not even biblically organic, but sinful humanly processed and genetically altered meat (1 Corinthians 3:1-2; 2 Timothy 2:14-16, 3:14-17).
Shame too on you guilty pastors that look down on my work in the prisons as though it were inconsequential when Christ your Judge is recording for Judgment Day how many of the Christians I find there that are members of your churches (Romans 14:10-13; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11)! We salute all of our fellow workers in the prisons filling in what lacks in the churches. To the pastors that need help setting up a discipleship plan for new believers or want to know more about teaching biblical manhood to and spiritually fathering men contact this Ministry.4 The risen, living Christ continues His cry among American churches, "Who is on the Lord's side?"
1 Read Part 1 of the August 21, 2016 post, Christianity The Religion Of Men, under the category, instruction. I lament the early lack of spiritual fathering that potentially
could have saved me from many painful failures and shortened the inordinate length of my infancy in Christ in the opening of this post and also that of the October 2,
2016 post, Gifted With A Prophet’s Heart, under the category, Call To Repent.
3 See the September 25, 2016 post, A Leadership Caused Failure and Pastors As Developing Christian Men posted on December 17, 2017 both under the category,
Call To Repent.
4 Get contact information for Strong Man Ministries and learn about for example, the Strong Man Of God Men’s Group Study as an important help in making disciples of
men and teaching them biblical manhood on our Web Site.
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