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There is no other institution in the black community or the world that is more perfectly suited to spur the restoration of our men than the Church of Jesus Christ! The Church has a compassionate commission from Him to do so. But so many Christians, churches and their pastors in our community do not fully obey the Lord or embrace His Kingdom priorities. Indeed, rather than a source of deliverance, too many churches have been a contributing cause of the trouble our men are in. Hence, the Lord´s call to immediate, heartfelt repentance and Holy Spirit enabled revival among us if there be any hope left for our men at all.
Representing Christ as a member of His Church, I have asserted that the priority and core need of our men is a remedy for spiritual poverty (Matthew 4:4). I stand firm in this assertion not just because I am a preacher, but because I am a college educated black male who has tasted working in corporate America.
Before I met Jesus Christ, neither my education nor the prospects of corporate success were enough to deliver me from my sins or the mental and emotional legacies of slavery and racism. I was morally lost, flawed in character and valued nothing except self-gratification. I was empty and self-destructing. After being introduced to the Lord in 1977, He forgave my sins! He transformed my thinking about the world, the black experience, the future and myself. He gave my life meaning and purpose that have withstood racism, hardships, set backs and persecution even from family.
For this reason, I have difficulty with those including many preachers who make education and jobs the priority needs and salvation of our men. I suspect they do this in many instances because it is another way to get white Americans to shoulder the major responsibility for helping our victimized men. Today, in spiritual poverty, however, many especially young black males have turned not getting an education or having a regular job into urban virtues and a triumphant side stepping of what they claim is the "white man´s system." Where did they get this? From themselves!
It seems the promoters of personal morality in and outside of the churches have failed to anticipate that without absolute, transcendent moral standards everyone adheres to and enforces, society breaks down into the chaos of every man doing what is right in his own sight. If men do not want to work to support the families they create for example, what and whose moral standard makes them wrong?
This lawless approach to human community is not new and brought the wrath of God upon the world of Noah´s day (Genesis 6:5-12). Israel also painfully learned God gave spiritual principles, moral laws and order for reasons that were all for their good (Deuteronomy 5:1-22, 12:1-9; Judges 17:1-18:31; II Chronicles 36:11-21 and Daniel 9:1-15). Now, the world of these last days is rebelling against God and His Anointed along with so many who claim to be Christians and their churches as foretold (Psalms 2:1-3; Matthew 24:10; II Thessalonians 2:3; I Timothy 4:1-3).
The true Church of Jesus Christ understands spiritual poverty and the folly of attempting to operate any human social unit without the principles, laws and order of God! As a marvelous creation of God in these last days, the Church has been commissioned to take the Gospel of sin forgiveness in Jesus Christ to and make disciples of all the nations. No other group, body or institution of man has been given this responsibility. If the Church is prohibited, fails or refuses to fulfill the commission of Christ, no other human agency can or will.
In the Gospel message is also the joyful news the Kingdom of God has come in the Person of Jesus, His Anointed! After baptizing new disciples, the Church begins the process of teaching them to observe all things the Lord Jesus has commanded leading to full deliverance from spiritual poverty (Matthew 28:18-20).
The Church is governed by Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23). Every local church is to be a manifestation of the Church universal since Jesus is Lord over the same. Living as though the Kingdom and its attending spiritual principles, moral laws and order have arrived (for they have in the heart of every Christian, Hebrews 8:10), the Lord directs that Christians and the churches they make up be salt and light in the earth (Matthew 5:13-16). The Word of God, the Bible as illuminated by the Holy Spirit serves as the Church´s authoritative source for the knowledge of Christ´s will and commandments (Isaiah 40:8; Matthew 24:35).
From the Bible then, faithful Christians and their churches know with certainty what the will of Christ is regarding marriage and family. They know He has ordained that men have four responsibilities before Him regarding their families. First, men are to govern their families as the head. Christ is the head of every man. The family is the breeding and proving ground for men who will serve under Him as pastors and leaders in the churches.
As the wife does not usurp, undermine or take authority over her husband in the home, women are not to do so with men in the Lord´s churches which is the apostle Paul´s point in I Timothy 2:11-15. It is not about inferiority, inequality, our worldly concept of fairness, second class citizenship or capability. It is about the Lord´s sovereign will, design and order He instituted at the creation of man!
To Be Concluded Next Issue
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