February 26, 2003

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February 26, 2003

Theme: “Celebrating Where God Has Brought Us From”

He Brought Us Out!

February is the month we pause to celebrate events and people in the history of African American people in these United States.   As black people, we were held captive in a strange land without rights, lived in poverty, were abused, and were condemned to a life of slavery.  Taskmasters cruelly drove slaves to do backbreaking work in the fields and other jobs on the plantations.   The taskmasters set unreasonable demands upon the slaves and then punished them for their failure to meet these demands.

It is out of these deplorable conditions that God began to raise up leaders that spoke out against slavery.  Our history is rich in God’s deliverance of a people held in bondage against their will.

Now is a time to reflect and see where God has brought us from.  We live in a day of portable computers, cellular phones, pagers, heart, and lung machines, organ transplants, communication satellites, and space travel.  In this whirlwind of scientific change, the basics of human nature have not really changed.  Mankind still has the same essential physical needs - food, shelter, and clothing- and he still has the same spiritual needs.

We, as a people, can still be held in the bondage of slavery.  Man is still fallen from grace, contending with a corrupt nature, and in desperate need of a heart transformation. 

“ The heart is desperately wicked who can know it?”  (Jeremiah 17:9). Man still needs salvation from his sins and freedom from his guilt, fallen nature, lust, and pride.  The only solution is through the atoning and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ the Savior.

As Saints of God, we have a powerful legacy to leave to our children; therefore we become the leaders for an even greater cause, an end to the bondage of sin, through Jesus Christ. Just as it was hard work for the leaders for the Black cause, it will take hard work and prayer on the part of parents, pastors, and the church family to build spiritual and moral strength of the next generation. 

Let us be diligent in propelling the apostolic message of hope. Jesus rose from the dead on the third day that we could receive new life, spiritual comfort, and guidance.  After we have applied through faith the blood and gone through the waters of baptism, then we can share in His resurrection presence by being filled with the Holy Ghost, which is accompanied with the sign of speaking in tongues. Then we can cry out, “free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I am free at last!”

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