Celebrating Black History, pt. 1

In honor of Black History Month, we want to give honor to Christian brothers and sisters of color who have helped lay the foundation of faith on which we now stand. As we celebrate contributions made by Blacks throughout the history of the church, let’s also acknowledge the amazing contributions of so many Black Americans to our present society and culture. Let’s not only celebrate Black History Month, but let’s also celebrate our amazing, multi-faceted God who created us all in His image!

Let’s begin our celebration of Black History by taking a look at some important Biblical figures who were black.

Abraham’s first son, Ishmael, was born to Sarah’s black, Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar. Abraham himself was born in Ur of the Chaldees, a land whose earliest inhabitants included blacks. The people of the region where Abraham came from can be proven historically and archaeologically to have been intermixed racially, leading scholars to believe that Abraham was of mixed racial descent.

Joseph’s Egyptian wife Asenath, a descendent of Ham, was mother to Joseph’s two sons, Manessah and Ephraim.

Moses’ wife, Zipporah, was from the historically black family of Cush. Her father, Jethro, was a key advisor to Moses, wisely encouraging him to distribute his leadership to more effectively meet the needs of the people.

The powerful and wealthy Queen of Sheba who visited King Solomon and marveled at his wisdom, was queen of Ethiopia and Egypt. Her role in scripture is to validate the wisdom and blessing of God on Solomon’s life. In doing so, she gave honor and tribute to God.

Solomon went on to write one of history’s most beautiful songs of love. The Song of Songs, metaphorically depicting Christ’s relationship with His church, is the love story of Solomon and one of his wives – a black woman.

Zephaniah the prophet and author of the prophetic book bearing his name, was an Ethiopian and a descendent of Cush, making him the only black author of a portion of scripture.

Ebedmelech, an Ethiopian eunuch saved the life of Jeremiah, the prophet. An unnamed Ethiopian Eunuch in the New Testament became the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity after speaking with Philip the Evangelist. Historians believe this man was responsible for establishing the Christian church in Ethiopia.

The New Testament includes several other important black figures as well. Simon the Canaanite was a convert to Judaism before he became one of Jesus’ 12 apostles. He is believed by most Bible scholars to have been a black man. Another black man, Simon of Cyrene, a country in Northern Africa, carried Jesus’ cross to Calvary. Additionally, Simeon called Niger and Lucius, both blacks, were amongst the prophets and teachers in the Antioch church.

Praise God for all of these powerful figures from Biblical history! It is clear that men and women of color have played vital roles in establishing the Kingdom of God. These saints now surround and exhort us in a great cloud of witnesses, encouraging us to continue running our race with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We celebrate the way in which our God continues to use many different cultures to build His Kingdom! Tune in tomorrow for part 2.

~Linda

Blessing of the Vine

In John 15, Jesus taught in a parable that He is the Vine and that we are the branches; that we abide in Christ and Christ in us. He spoke about the importance of bearing fruit and being His disciples. As we discussed last week, the ability to bear fruit is the blessing of Christ.

One characteristic of the blessing is that it is not for us alone. We do not abide in Christ for ourselves, alone. We are not blessed for ourselves; rather, we are blessed to be a blessing. As illustrated in Jesus’s teaching in John 15, walking in God’s blessing is two-fold. First, it involves drawing strength, empowerment, and blessing from The Vine – Christ in us. But it also involves drawing strength, empowerment, and blessing from the Branches – Christ’s Body!

Jesus reminds His disciples in John 15 that part of abiding in The Vine is loving one another. Each branch, each brother and sister in Christ, is blessed – empowered by Christ to produce fruit. Each one of us is blessed to be a blessing everywhere we go. It is essential that we recognize the blessing in each other’s lives and learn that we can draw from that blessing when we are all connected to the same Vine.

Face it – Christ’s blessing cannot be obtained by an isolationist. If you cut yourself off from The Vine, you wither up and die. The blessing that once flowed through you is now good for nothing. “Well, I want to be connected to Christ, but I don’t want to draw from other people,” you may say. Not possible. If you cut yourself off from the branches, you cut yourself off from The Vine, and your ability to produce fruit will cease.

Think about ways in which you are trying to pull yourself away from the branches around you. What do you need to do differently to ensure you are not severing your connection with Christ’s ability in you to produce fruit?

(Published 07.26.09)

Quit Being a Bastard – Part 2

A Revelation of Sonship

Part of the problem we have as Believers is that we don’t have a revelation of what it really means to be a Child of God. This post has never been published, but has served as a foundation for many articles on “Sonship” in The Celebration and as the basis for several sermons. It came to me during a worship service in 2003, and these notes appear here as I wrote them in my prayer journal at the time.

• Think on Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac
• Think about the spiritual father, Moses, commissioning his spiritual son, Joshua, to go in and possess the land knowing that there were giants in the land that he would have to overcome
• Think about Father God, being willing to give His Son for the world
• Think about Jesus telling His sons, the disciples, that they would be reviled, persecuted and martyred
• Think about Paul telling his son, Timothy, to endure hardship as a good soldier
• Think on Abraham tithing to Malchizedek and the writer of Hebrews [Heb 7:9] saying that, since we were in Abraham’s loins, we are , therefore, the children of Abraham; so, we gave tithe to Malchizedek. In other words, as the father gave, he was giving that sacrifice knowing that his sons [who were in his loins] for generations would be committed thereby to that same sacrifice of giving.

Just as these examples in the Word sacrificially gave their children, so we need to know that the pattern of the church is likewise so. Apostles are fathers who press into new realms- rooting out, tearing down, building and planting- dealing with principalities and powers in a territory. The OLD pattern (the religious one) says that fathers press through and build so that the sons don’t have to. So that the sons will have it easy and “not have to go through the things I’ve gone through.” That is not the pattern.

The true pattern is that we are modeling and demonstrating warfare, sacrifice, mortification, giving your life away to our children so that they will know how to do likewise. When you commit to being a father, you are committing your sons, both spiritual and natural, to all of the hardships that you also endured for the sake of the gospel. What have we thought: that the enemy would go away, that we are exalted enough to eliminate him? No! Jesus says the thief cometh; that the prince of this earth will come. Peter says you have an enemy. The enemy remains for the next generation to contend with also. If we tell the next generation that they will not have to fight the battles that we have fought for the sake of the gospel, then we are lying to them and setting them up for failure. We must teach them to endure hardship so that they might be sons.

Religion will not accept this because it wants to confess problems away. That is why there is a fatherless generation in the church, a generation of spiritual bastards. Fathers have to love to the point of the Heavenly Father-being willing to sacrifice their sons. We have come to a place where we are willing to give our life away, but are we to the place where we love the Lord, where we are hungry for the cause of Christ to be fulfilled so much that we are willing to teach our children the hardship and suffering they must endure in order to be sons?

We should not look at our sons, both natural and spiritual, and feel relief or security in the falsehood that they are safe from any dealings with the enemy or hardship. That is a religious mindset and stronghold. Instead, we should look at them knowing that they will endure to the end if they have been prepared and trained, knowing that we can trust God as Abraham did to preserve them no matter what, knowing that our actions and decisions of faith have committed them also to this path of hardship and contending. This is true fathering and sonship…this is the pattern for Apostolic fathering…this is the way the true church is built…

Change your thinking!