Even though a large percentage of black Americans have reportedly been Democrats, there has been an awakening in recent years within their communities where many of them, mostly Christians, have now become more conservative in their views.
I bring this up because there appears to be a concerted effort on the part of liberal leaders, to try and stir up hurtful memories and to urge the black community to put into action whatever harbored feelings they may have for a nation that, they say, has shown nothing but prejudice and persecution over the years.
However, I believe the end is near and as we draw even closer to the coming of Christ, I want to strongly encourage all my brothers and sisters, regardless of your color or ethnicity, to walk in the love of God as Christ has taught us and forgive those who may have persecuted you in the past and pray for those who may still continue to bring you ruin, injury and pain.
I bring this up because there appears to be a concerted effort on the part of liberal leaders, to try and stir up hurtful memories and to urge the black community to put into action whatever harbored feelings they may have for a nation that, they say, has shown nothing but prejudice and persecution over the years.
However, I believe the end is near and as we draw even closer to the coming of Christ, I want to strongly encourage all my brothers and sisters, regardless of your color or ethnicity, to walk in the love of God as Christ has taught us and forgive those who may have persecuted you in the past and pray for those who may still continue to bring you ruin, injury and pain.
I have said this before but it bears repeating, "In order to be a follower of Christ, we must take up our cross, that is, we must leave some things daily at the cross of Christ in order to follow him in the power of his resurrection. Hate cannot follow the path of Christ nor can we follow the Lord with resentment in our hearts toward others. Just think for a moment how difficult it must have been for believers in Paul's day to have accepted him, formerly Saul of Tarsus, to be one of the apostles of Christ when before he had that encounter with our Lord on the road to Damascus, he used to hold the coats of his fellow Jews as they stoned believers to death.
Think how terrible it would be today if believers hadn't accepted Paul's conversion by faith, that he had indeed become a changed man through his encounter with Christ. We would have much less truth to draw from, within the pages of the Bible for the Apostle Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament scriptures. I encourage believers everywhere, it is time for us to sing a NEW song to the Lord and say "Lord, you are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals of it: for you were slain, and you have redeemed us to God by your blood OUT OF every kindred, tongue, people, and nation;" (Revelation 5:9).
The meaning of the word, "church" comes from the Greek word, "ecclesia", which is defined as a "calling out". The Apostle Paul supports this in his letter to the Church at Corinth, 2 Corinthians 6:17,18 where it reads, "Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." This means we are to walk away from those things that separate us from God and from other believers. For if we are sons and daughters of God, we are then brothers or sisters to those who have called upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, these three words. He said, "I die daily". In other words, we are to check those things that have been found to be an obstruction or sin in our lives that would separate us from the love of God and from each other and we are to nail it squarely to the cross of Christ, for as it is written, "we are not our own". We have been redeemed. We have been "bought with a price". Now we are "new creatures in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new."
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:16, "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." As followers of Christ, we are to set our affections on things above not on things on the earth. In order to do that, we must cease from our labors, or those things we participate in that would acknowledge the flesh. It makes no difference what kind of flesh we have. It could be black flesh, white flesh, red, yellow, or brown flesh.
How many of you know? flesh is just dirt and God is a Spirit and we were made in the image of God. We are spirit beings and we possess a soul which consists of our mind, our will and emotions and we live in a body. The Bible refers to our body as "an earthen vessel". In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul said, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;". There's that phrase again, "You are not your own."
Then Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 12 and verse 1,.. Let me ask you, Aren't you glad the Early Church forgave and accepted Paul? Most of the things we are referring to in this teaching were written by Paul, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He wrote, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy (another place says "mercies), to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship (another place says, "this is your reasonable service")."
Did you get that? Your body is God's temple. Acts 17:24 reads, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."
It makes no difference who you are, how smart you are or what you've done. It makes no difference whether you are black or white, short or tall or, as it is written, anything else. We are God's temple. And we are told that our citizenship is now in heavenly places, "far above all principality, power, might and dominion and every name which is named, not only in this world or age but in that which is to come". And we are sitting in authority with Christ who forever is sitting at the right hand of God. Can you say "Amen"?
Think how terrible it would be today if believers hadn't accepted Paul's conversion by faith, that he had indeed become a changed man through his encounter with Christ. We would have much less truth to draw from, within the pages of the Bible for the Apostle Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament scriptures. I encourage believers everywhere, it is time for us to sing a NEW song to the Lord and say "Lord, you are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals of it: for you were slain, and you have redeemed us to God by your blood OUT OF every kindred, tongue, people, and nation;" (Revelation 5:9).
The meaning of the word, "church" comes from the Greek word, "ecclesia", which is defined as a "calling out". The Apostle Paul supports this in his letter to the Church at Corinth, 2 Corinthians 6:17,18 where it reads, "Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” And: “I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." This means we are to walk away from those things that separate us from God and from other believers. For if we are sons and daughters of God, we are then brothers or sisters to those who have called upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, these three words. He said, "I die daily". In other words, we are to check those things that have been found to be an obstruction or sin in our lives that would separate us from the love of God and from each other and we are to nail it squarely to the cross of Christ, for as it is written, "we are not our own". We have been redeemed. We have been "bought with a price". Now we are "new creatures in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new."
Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:16, "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." As followers of Christ, we are to set our affections on things above not on things on the earth. In order to do that, we must cease from our labors, or those things we participate in that would acknowledge the flesh. It makes no difference what kind of flesh we have. It could be black flesh, white flesh, red, yellow, or brown flesh.
How many of you know? flesh is just dirt and God is a Spirit and we were made in the image of God. We are spirit beings and we possess a soul which consists of our mind, our will and emotions and we live in a body. The Bible refers to our body as "an earthen vessel". In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul said, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;". There's that phrase again, "You are not your own."
Then Paul wrote in Romans, chapter 12 and verse 1,.. Let me ask you, Aren't you glad the Early Church forgave and accepted Paul? Most of the things we are referring to in this teaching were written by Paul, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He wrote, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy (another place says "mercies), to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship (another place says, "this is your reasonable service")."
Did you get that? Your body is God's temple. Acts 17:24 reads, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else."
It makes no difference who you are, how smart you are or what you've done. It makes no difference whether you are black or white, short or tall or, as it is written, anything else. We are God's temple. And we are told that our citizenship is now in heavenly places, "far above all principality, power, might and dominion and every name which is named, not only in this world or age but in that which is to come". And we are sitting in authority with Christ who forever is sitting at the right hand of God. Can you say "Amen"?
So, what should we say to these things? Should we just gather all the believers together and build a commune somewhere and hold the fort till Jesus comes? I believe Jesus was very specific concerning those things we were told to do before he ascended into the heavens. He told his disciples, which we are, to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature". You can read it for yourselves in Mark 16:15-18. So, we have been given a commission. It has been called, the great commission in that we have a great responsibility as believers to reach out to what? "every creature" and to share with them "good tidings to the meek" and lead them to the foot of the cross of Christ "who loved them and gave himself for them". Paul tells us how to effectively do this and then he gave us examples using his own life's lessons.
Paul said he "became all things to all men that he might save some". He said, "to the weak, he became weak that he might save the weak". In other places, we see Paul using his Roman citizenship or the fact that he was raised among the Greeks. He was also a Jew of Jews and before his encounter with Christ, he was well thought of by his Jewish peers. In other words, God's grace is sufficient to reach to the uttermost or to the gutter-most and this is the reason Jesus has not yet returned for us for our God "is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."
The world will know we are followers of Christ by the love we have for the world and each other. By the grace of God, I am going to show the world the love of God and tell them of the love of God and also love you as Christ loves you regardless of who you are or what you've done because that's what God's children do. We love as God loves for "God is love". Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:13, "now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
I have seen people who claimed to be people of faith yet they would not give me or anyone else the time of day. There is no room for prejudice or hate in God's temple. Remember? You are God's temple. "You can have faith to remove mountains", the bible says, "but if you do not have love, you are nothing".
But if you have love, you are filled with the Spirit of God as expressed in a life of faith, hope and love. Do you know? it takes a lot of faith to love like God loves. Love is the 100 fold fullness of God. Listen, don't just settle for 30 or 60 fold. Let's go all the way.
Jesus said in a prayer, "we are in this world but we are not of it". We are ambassadors for Christ and we are a city set on a hill that cannot be hid for "we are children of light and of the day. We are not of night nor of the way of darkness". We are born of the Spirit so let's walk in the spirit and by doing that, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. What did Paul say? "We know no man after the flesh". Jesus asked, "Who is my mother or my brother?" In other words, he was asking, "Who is my family?" Not that Mary, James and the rest were not his family but rather, he was putting the things of this earth in their proper perspective. These people were his earthly family or his family after the flesh. But Jesus then began to talk about his eternal family when he said, "My mother and my brothers are these which hear the word of God, and do it."
Let's remember to keep the things of this earth in perspective.
Let's remember to keep our affections set on heavenly things and not on those things which serve to only promote the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. If we will only "seek God's kingdom first and his righteousness, then all the things the nations of the world seek after will be given to you as well.''
Always remember, that as a child of God, your steps are ordered by the Lord and though you may slip and stumble, you will not be utterly cast down. Paul tells us in Philippians 3:13,14, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching for those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Then he tells us in Galatians 5:1 to "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Jesus has set you free and he has made you a brand new creation. Let's stand in that! No more slavery to sin, no more unhealthy entanglements to the flesh and no more beggarly things that would keep us from God's best in our lives for Him. For we are free and whom the Son has made free, he is free indeed.
