Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
If you are saved, you are part of Christ's body and your function in the body is not just going to church and listening to the mouth. Nor is it recruiting others to come and just listen to the mouth.
God, through Christ, has given you a ministry: "good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Eph 2:10
What has God given you a heart or burden for? How is the Holy Spirit leading you? How are you providing for Christ our Lord's House? How are you seeking His interests in the world?
Originally posted on Facebook on Thursday, May 5, 2022.
This is our son Roman (he's going to kill me).
I told him the budget for his car and that anything extra he'd have to pay. He started applying for jobs the very next day. He's already earned $500 dollars. And, now he's looking for another job!
I am posting this in case any of my Starkville friends can help him out.
The kid is driven:
He wanted a gaming computer. He saved for a year, bought the components and built it himself.
He wants to join the Air Force and heard they fancy Cross Country athletes. He joined the Cross Country team and has run for three years.
He wanted to go to The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. He initiated and completed the application process by himself.
He wants to graduate the Air Force Academy ready to buy a house. He saved $1000, met with Barbara Runnels Coats and opened a mutual fund at 13 years old.
I could go on…
Roman is putting in applications all over the place, but if any of our friends in Starkville are hiring or know of any opportunities for a smart, respectful and driven young man, we'd be grateful if you pass them along. He's ready to start immediately. Please feel free to message me or Melissa Luckett.
His resume can be viewed at the link below:
https://bit.ly/3P32ICs
Originally posted on Facebook on Thursday, April 28, 2022.
If I may be real, for years I struggled with whether to share my faith with my children.
First, because I was wrestling with whether I truly believed. I still am. (It is they that endure to the end that are saved.)
And second, because the most detrimental thing I could do to my children's prospect of authentic faith was have it based on mine (rather than on Christ).
It is too easy for my children to accept what I say and mimick what I do because they love me, trust me and want to be accepted by me, rather than thoughtfully examining the claims of Scripture and coming to their own authentic, personal, battle-tested faith in Christ.
One thing I did decide early on was to convey that I would love them the same regardless of what they believed, not only because I want to remove any stumbling blocks to my children coming to sincere faith in Christ, but because it is true.
Originally posted on Facebook on Sunday, April 24, 2022.
Being black, in my experience, is to be incessantly asked the question, "Do you belong here?" Unless of course you're in prison, in poverty or a position of subordination.
It's a question that makes my soul tired.
Even some of those who purport to be allies or to "help" readily relegate blacks to the lower rungs in their world or to the head of diversity.
It all swells in me a near infinite anger, one that would not be exhausted even if I were to kill everyone and raze everything to the ground.
This is yet another way I know there is a God to keep such a consuming fire in check. More than that, to also give me compassion for those by whom the offense comes -the perpetrators of my pain, because the enemy is not flesh and blood but sin that enslaves. I was once a slave.
My vision for my people are to have spaces (distinct from being in spaces) where our belonging is never a question but a necessity.
Let it start here and with me. Black people, I need you and don't want a world without you in every part of it.
Originally posted on Facebook on Saturday, April 16, 2022.
I used to be offended by the resurrection.
The notion that a man died and came back to life was an insult to my sensibilities and was a major stumbling block to my accepting wholesale the claims of this man called Jesus.
I would not have believed had the Holy Spirit not intervened through the Spirit-filled preaching of the Word, the Spirit-filled ministry of believers and other various means.
My encounter with the Spirit prompted questions I had not sincerely considered before:
"Is this all there is? Could there be more? And, what if this man called Jesus is not just a man? What if He's more?"
I'm eternally thankful for His intervention because without the resurrection, the Christian faith is just another philosophy. But there is power –not just for some future mystical event, but power that is real and at work in my life today because Christ died and was raised.
Christ's dying as the perfect sacrifice satisfied the penalty of sin so I'm no longer condemned,
His being raised conquered death undoing for me sin's ultimate effect,
and His living established His kingdom where sin has no power and I'm given power over sin.
So, because of the resurrection, today I live free, with power to resist sin and I have this hope for tomorrow to attain to this resurrection, being eternally free from sin and death and to live: enjoying God without hindrance or limitation forever.
So, to those in Christ I say, "Happy Resurrection Day!" And, to those being saved I say, "Come. You are invited into the joy of our Lord!"
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
If I truly care about reaching the lost then I need to understand that sophisticated arguments won't convince them but a demonstration of love will.
And, not just any love but Jesus' love.
Our Lord says,
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” -John 13:34-35
And, in another place it is written,
"If we love one another, God abides in us […]"
"and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world." -1 John 4:12-14
The love of Jesus is:
Love that is willing to give everything,
Love that prioritizes others,
Love that humbles oneself,
Love that settles for nothing less than wholeness,
Love that wages war on anything that attempts to put itself between us and God and each other.
When we love like that, that's compelling evidence.
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
On my own:
I am evil.
I am weak.
I am foolish.
My heart is wicked and I don't know how to live without being destructive.
I am an enemy of God, rightfully condemned.
These are all deeply offensive, true and absolutely essential to a right delivery and acceptance of the gospel.
But thanks be to God, I am not on my own because God sent His Son Jesus, who makes it so none of these things are true about those who receive Him. And, that's the good news.
Promises of health, wealth and a picture perfect life, ain't it. This is the #gospel.
Originally posted on Facebook on Monday, March 28, 2022.
We've all heard "Jesus saves," but saves from what?
Jesus saves us from the power and penalty of sin.
The power being sin's influence in my life to do harm that I'd rather not and my being powerless to resist it.
The penalty being God's wrath; His anger that burns against evil, the coming justice and final punishment for all wrongdoing which all sinners are condemned to.
But thanks be to God for deliverance through Jesus Christ!
Through belief in Him I am no longer a condemned sinner enslaved to sin but a sinner made saint who struggles with sin.
The difference?
There is no longer ANY condemnation! And, I am no longer helpless against sin. I can fight now.
As I learn to walk in my new found liberty as a saint I am now able, through Christ, to fight in the struggle against sin. Jesus teaches me to make war. By God's grace through Christ, I'm already more than a conqueror.
Are your hurting? Are you hurting others? Do you need to be saved from sin? God loves you and sent His Son so that you would not perish but have everlasting life. Turn to Jesus Christ and be saved.
Originally posted on Facebook on Friday, March 11, 2022.
I'm naturally introverted (solitude energizes me, most interactions with people exhaust me) but I also avoid people because I'm messed up and I'm afraid that I will be abandoned because of it.
But, rather than live in fear of being abandoned, I have instead decided to create safe spaces for others and that I won't abandon you.
I want good for you and I can't minister good things to you if I'm isolating myself from you. So, people are just going to have to bear with me, because I intend to give all that I am, jacked up parts and all.
I apologize for the messed up parts in advance (it's being addressed, I'm being made new in Christ), but be assurred that, by the grace of God, my innermost desire when I am with you is to help you and not harm you.
Originally posted on Facebook on Wednesday, January 12, 2022.
My heart is still on home and the Parable of the Prodigal Son is so rich,
"And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him." -Luke 15:20
Of all the homes I've ever known, they all had one thing in common: they already had their mind made up to love you even before you got there –what's more is that it isn't on the basis of what you've done or haven't done but rather on the basis of who they are: home.
