In Total Shock

So I am on my evening commute home and listening to Al Sharpton on MSNBC.  I'm at a red light and a commercial comes on that I quickly write off as a spoof.  Then it came on again and I quickly realized that it was a serious advertisement for a serious company.  The commercial featured an African-American man asking Santa Claus for a special gift...a mistress!  He says, "it's been a while Santa, I need a mistress for Christmas."  I was floored.

Ashley Madison is a company that promises that any married person can get hooked up with someone and have an affair.  They promise discretion and they promise that you can find someone with no problem.  I don't even know where to begin.  I was so shocked, I drove all the way home with my mouth open in disbelief.  Their slogan is "Life is short...have an affair."  Wow.  I mean there are no other words but...wow.

Let's see, biblically, marriage is the first institution, coming before the church was even established.  Marriage is the analogy that God uses to describe His relationship to His people.  Marriage is the analogy that Christ uses to illustrate His relationship to the church.  I mean, marriage is SACRED.  It's actually the one thing left in the world that actually means something to people.  Yet, this company has chosen to dismiss all of these things and set up a business that is in the business of breaking up marriages.  They tout the fact that you can find someone to meet your needs, someone that will listen to you, someone that matches up with you.  My advice to you if you are married and your needs are not being met...it's time for you and your spouse to have a meeting and lay EVERYTHING on the table.  Before going out seeking fulfillment outside of the marriage bed, find out what the problem is and why the fire has gone out.  Bringing that other man or woman into your situation is Satan's trap for you and won't benefit anyone.  It will only cause sorrow for the wife, husband and children if there are any.  Something else to consider, you might be the reason that the fire has gone out...it might not have anything to do with your spouse.  The best way to keep a marriage healthy is to constantly be working on yourself and making sure that you are constantly walking in love.  We have to always be evaluating ourselves and making adjustments so that we are the best possible person that we can be.

The bible says this in Hebrews 13:4, "Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous..."  Marriage is to be held in HONOR among ALL- married and unmarried.  The marriage bed is to be undefiled.  There is no room for a third person to fit into any marriage.  The final statement is enough to cause this website and any like it to shut down- God's judgment will be upon the sexually immoral and the adulterous.  That's very plain and simple.  Jesus even went so far as to say that even lusting after a person, without even committing the act, is just as bad as committing the act of adultery. 

Quite simply, this website is leading people into sinful relationships and causing married folks to have sinful desires.  That temptation is serious and this is just beyond bad.  How can anyone be so wicked as to lure a married person to sin.  But this shouldn't be a shock because the prince of the air, Satan, is in firm control of the media, the airwaves, the music industry, etc. 

Ok, so if you're reading this and you've considered visiting Ashley Madison or you've already been there, my prayer is this: That God would deliver you from the lustful desires of your heart.  Their slogan says a lot about what they think of their patrons.  "Life is short...have an affair."  The more appropriate thing to say is this, life is short...have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?  Life is short...are you encouraging one another as we see the day approaching (Hebrews 10:25)?  Life is short...Jesus is coming back like a thief in the night (1 Thess 5:2)...will you be ready?  Life is short...are you living a life that glorifies God (Ephesians 4:1, Colossians 1:10)?  They are absolutely right, life is short but that's no reason to have an affair.  It is, however, a very good reason to have a RELATIONSHIP with Jesus.

Momentary Atheism

Proverbs 3:5-6 says this: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path."  These are wise words from King Solomon and words that every Christian must live by.  To trust in the Lord with all of our hearts is a daunting task.  We get weary, we get worn down and we carry burdens that are, at times, unbearable.  However difficult things get, we are still supposed to trust God above all else.  Many times, we let the flesh or the physical man win out and we end up as momentary atheists.  This term came from a good friend of mine, Brother Ken Moore.  We were sitting in bible study and talking about worry and he said, "worry is momentary atheism" and I totally agree.  It is a fitting euphemism for those of us that place circumstances above our God!  We forget that God works all things to the good, we forget that God is the Sovereign Ruler of the universe, we forget that God can simply think about us and things change!  Most of all, we forget that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and that there is nothing that comes to us that hasn't come through Them! 

Jesus had sage advice for the worrier- he says the phrase "do not worry" or "don't be worried" five times in 10 verses through Matthew 6:25-34.  Worrying won't add an hour to our lives, but it can actually take years off because of the stress that it causes.  Worrying won't change our circumstances, but it can actually make them worse because of the stress that it causes.  Worrying won't put food on the table, but it can cause you to lose your appetite because of the stress that it causes.  Worrying about tomorrow won't change what tomorrow holds because tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.  These are words from the Lord of glory and we would be wise to take heed to them.

Lest I sound like a hypocrite, I have been worried about things.  I have stressed over situations and I have had moments of "momentary atheism".  My worry made my problems bigger than my God and that was an even bigger problem than the problem that I had!  Try saying that three times fast.  My worry caused me to spaz out on my family, to snap at my kids and my wife and it caused me immense physical stress.  Then I had a moment alone with God where He spoke peace to my soul.  Once I remembered WHO GOD WAS and that I actually had a relationship with Him through Jesus, my worries dissipated and my faith went to work!  God spoke plainly when He said for me to live in faith and not in fear.  That's why Paul's words mean so much when he says that we walk by faith and not by sight.  Walking by sight creates emergencies for us and rather than understanding that God has already fixed them, we bug out and start trying to solve the problem ourselves.

Having an unyielding trust in an all powerful God is essential to the Christian walk.  When those moments of doubt and worry come up, remind yourself that God's name is Jireh, the great provider.  Remember that His name is Nissi, the banner in battle.  His name is Shalom, the peace that surpasses all understanding.  Be blessed and please keep me in prayer.  I will do the same for you!

A Grand Success

Thinking back on the 60's and 70's when the Black Panther party was in full force and J. Edgar Hoover was the director of the FBI and "street" organizations were becoming popular, I can't help but see that there was one operation in particular that has been a major success.  It was not the Black Panthers.  Both of the original leaders of the group are dead, one of which, Huey Newton, succumbed to the exact same thing that eventually tore the Black community apart.  I recall reading in Richard Pryor's memoir "Pryor Confessions" about how he and Newton had a fight over Pam Grier and how Newton was an abuser of cocaine.  Tragic stuff considering that Newton had the potential to change the way the world thinks.  Make no mistake, they had a great impact on the consciousness of of Black America but nothing to the extent of what could have been were those men still alive today.  The New Black Panthers do not even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as the founders.

The "organizations" that rose to prominence in those days, supposedly to protect the residents of their respective communities now hold those residents hostage with senseless violence.  The crips and the bloods both started as community organizations and not violent, murderous bands of killers.  Those days are long gone.  Older residents now are afraid to even chastise the younger generation for fear of being violently assaulted or even killed.  The front porch, which used to be a haven for us, a safe place to shoot the breeze and enjoy the company of family and friends is no longer an option.  Even sitting in the living room in some "hoods" is dangerous because of assault weapon bullets that can penetrate brick and sheetrock like a hot knife on butter.  These men and women that are a part of these gangs are simply pawns in a grand chess game that has dire consequences.

During the era of the Black Panther party, a plan was put in place to infiltrate these groups.  Fear started spreading among White America, particularly at the government level, that if Blacks got organized, we would be a political and econimic force the likes of which this country had never seen.  Hoover, who I am certain was not acting alone, devised a grand scheme to systematically destroy the communities where these "heroes" lived and dash all hopes of organization and political power.  The aim was to prevent the rise of a "Black Messiah" that could lead the people to become independent thinkers and rational voters that used discernment rather than emotion and that saw through the propaganda that was offered as truth.  That plan was called COINTELPRO or COunter INTELligence PROgram.  Using COINTELPRO, leaders of any sociopolitical movement within the Black community were targeted, wrongfully imprisoned, killed and smeared to prevent folks from galvanizing behind them.  Other "subversives" were targeted as well, but this program left an indelible mark on Black America.  People like Huey Newton and Stokely Carmichael were pitted against other African-American community leaders and organizers and a divide and conquer strategy was implemented.  Whether it was fake letters sent from the FBI using the names of others to spark controversy or moles coming into meetings and stirring dissension, it worked.  The division in the community was evident, the beefs were real and the downfall of these organizations was monumental.  This was exacerbated by the fact that the government had also begun flooding the streets with cheap drugs that were consumed in large part by those living in the lower-income communities where many of these movements began.  As stated earlier, even Newton was eventually taken out by the "white horse" which cocaine is affectionately called by those who "take the ride".

Fast forward to the 1980s when Oliver North, the Fox News contributor who should be IN JAIL, oversaw an operation in which money from weapons sold to Iran was used to fund anti-communist operations by the Contras in South America.  Some of that funding also came from cocaine sales here in America which the government not only turned a blind eye to, they allowed to happen.  Guys like Freeway Ricky Ross, who was recently released from prison after a second stint, along with a host of characters that are profiled by the now deceased Gary Webb in his book "Dark Alliance" all played a part in fueling the 80's drug craze.  We still have not recovered from that as a community.  Ross and his cohorts were working, probably unknowingly, hand in hand with the U.S. government to kill off their own people.  We were collateral damage that was not even counted when the cost of the effort to root out "communism" was added up.  The money from Ross's crack cocaine operation is all gone, he's a shell of his former self and so is the community that he calls home.

What the crack craze did in Los Angeles in causing scores of young men and women to choose a color, get armed to the teeth and hustle from the cradle to the grave spread like wildfire across the country.  The movie "Colors" did not help!  After that particular film, gangsters, not gangsters in the sense of mafioso or just tough guys, but gangs that modeled themselves after the bloods and the crips, were popping up all across America.  Gang banging was the new thing to do.  My family was affected by it.  My neighborhood, who couldn't seem to make their minds up to be bloods, crips or disciples changed gangs depending on who was out of jail. Each time a brother from the neighborhood was released from prison and brought something new home, the younger guys fell right in line with it.

Now, think if you will to the current situation in Chicago.  The gang violence there is just unreal.  Larry Hoover, who played a huge role in organizing the Gangster Disciples (GD's) and turning them into a multi-million dollar drug cartel can, in my opinion, be viewed in two ways.  For someone that has a hood mentality, Hoover is a hero that kept it real.  For someone with good sense, Hoover and any other African-American that causes the destruction of their own people for profit, is not a hero but a villain.  Look at the aftermath of what he did in Chicago.  Count the bodies.  Think of all the potential that has been snuffed out in an effort to keep it real.  The fire that he started did not stay in the fireplace, it has gone wild and is now uncontrollable.

Here we are 56 years from the inception and implementation of COINTELPRO and the drugs are still selling, the gangsters are still organized drug cartels and the bodies are still dropping.  Brothers and sisters that join gangs as a way out of the hood can be likened to people that get into a car that is driving off a cliff.  There is no "getting out" and there is no happy ending if gang banging is the mode of escape.  There are two places, as cliched as it sounds, that gangsters end up- prison or in a pine box.  The ones that do make it out are left only to rue, if they have any conscience, the devastation that they have caused and usually try to do some community service as a way of saying "I'm sorry."  What many of these men don't realize is that they were set up from the beginning.  NO one makes big money in this country without the government knowing about it.  Legal or illegal.  The question to ask before entering into the drug trade is this, "Who is at the top?"  Most times that is unknown when you are dealing in drugs.  It's better for it to remain unknown in that lifestyle.  Judging from the deeds of North and his cronies, I'll go on record and say that there are shadowy elements of government or in high places where the thought process is simple: the ends justify the means.  If the means require that entire communities are destroyed so that the ends are accomplished, then that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Success is measured in different ways.  If the goals and objectives of any particular undertaking are met, then that task can be considered a success.  If the wholesale destruction of a generation of Black mothers, Black fathers, Black children and Black communities was a part of the plan, if the endless cycle of violence, death and revenge was an objective, if the destruction of independent thought and intellectual growth was a goal, if mounting body bags full of Black bodies were objectives of COINTELPRO, then it can be said with certainty that this project was a grand success.  The battle is still raging.  I don't want to oversimplify the issues here but it cannot be overstated that African-Americans have been hit hard by certain policies that look tailor made to destroy us.  Wake up people, wake up.  

Ruffled Feathers

OK, so school is taking the lions hare of my time.  I am usually swamped with work and I can't breathe at work because I am inundated with students that "need" something.  However, don't take that as meaning that I don't love my job.  I really do, it's just that sometimes I want to blog but I don't have the time.

So, I taught bible study at church last night and we dealt with the "spiritual" milk that Peter refers to in 1 Peter 2:2.  We talked about that milk not being elementary teachings that are referred to in 1 Corinthians 3 or Hebrews 5 but simply being nourishment that comes from the word of God.  Every baby (born again Christian) needs to be fed and where we are fed is in the word of God.  How we are fed is by the Holy Spirit making the word of God come clear to us and become applicable to our lives. 

Somewhere in the mix, it was said that Jesus only spoke life and that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.  I wholeheartedly agree with that scripture.  Someone else commented on the fact that that life is not based on things or materialism.  I immediately chimed in and agreed and said that as soon as you start believing that the materialism is what abundant life is about, you will start sending all of your money to Creflo.  I said it in a joking way but I was so serious because those guys, the prosperity preachers, live for folks that believe that following God is all about accumulating material possessions. 

Later in the study, we were discussing sources of milk.  I mentioned that television ministries are a good source of biblical teaching but I said that TBN was a bad source.  Boy, did that ruffle some feathers.  I didn't get much of that last night, but there was some serious blowback today according to the Assistant Pastor.  I was scratching my head.  TBN has been a source of pure drivel for years.  Any network that still shows Kenneth Copeland AFTER he has blatantly blasphemed Jesus should not even be on the air.  Some of the things these people say and do while on this network are pathetic.  I mean all of the "name it and claim it" gospel, the false doctrine and teaching that happens there on a daily basis is unreal.  No preacher or Christian that holds to sound doctrine lives on a heavy diet of TBN.  To be sure, there may be a few times when someone on there will say something that might bless us but too many times I have had to listen to Jesse Duplantis lie about going to heaven in a rocket ship, sipping coffee with God (he hasn't said this but he has made up some quite fanciful stories), or going to heaven and coming back after high-fiving Jesus.  I have heard much more bad than good whenever I tune in to that network.  This is possibly because I actually know what to listen for and the fact that the Holy Spirit has given me discernment in this area.  The fact that people still hold the network in high esteem is quite troubling in my opinion.

I think that we simply must test everything in light of scripture and hold fast to that which is good (1 Thess 5:21).  If we apply the test of scripture and not our emotion, Christians will be a lot better off spiritually.  Emotionally, some of the things that God allows us to endure, are too hard to handle and cause us to forget that all things work together for good.  Spiritually, we realize that those same things are sent to steel us and strengthen us.  Paul said it plainly, tribulation works patience, patience proven, character and proven character, hope and hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:3)!  We cannot get bent out of shape every time someone smashes a golden calf.  TBN is held up as a golden calf and we are quick to jump up in a huff when someone sheds light on something that we hold dear to our hearts.  Truth be told, the network has become a feeding trough for false prophets and false teachers.  I stopped watching it a long time ago.  Someone even went so far as to say that I was saying that watching TBN is a sin...I NEVER SAID THAT.  What I did say is this, if you want pure milk, that's not a good source.  That cow has been tainted for a long time.

Money Talks

So, I blogged about the whole Chick-fil-A/"anti-gay" issue a while back (Faux Discrimination) and I stood behind the company's president for his stance against gay marriage.  Well, so much for that stance.  Apparently, the need to open another restaurant in Chicago and the need for more cash trumps biblical values.  They have buckled to pressure to stop funding "anti-gay" groups.  The funny thing is, everyone that does not see eye-to-eye with the LGBT folks is considered an "anti-gay" group, even if you don't do anything but disagree with them.  Not only do they back down from the LGBTQ community, they also allow those same folks, who probably won't support the restaurant financially, to tell them where to spend their money.  That's why I don't really jump on bandwagons because things like this happen all the time.  I did support them and I tried to eat there on the day that Mike Huckabee suggested but it was too crowded.  I also contemplated going there to evangelize during the "kiss-in" but was unable to get there.   The president has now agreed to put a "respect for all" clause into a company memo being circulated and the Alderman, Joe Moreno, that actually blocked the plans to build in his district in Chicago is now playing ball and will approve the plans to build (Chick-Fil-A folds).  I agree that we should respect every man/woman and their "right" to live however they want to but when you OWN the company, YOU call the shots.  I am sure that another city would have welcomed Chick-fil-A with open arms and welcomed the jobs that come along with starting a new business in a new location.  All I can say is wow.  Money talks and you know the rest. 

Perfection

So, I was watching Apollo 13 on AMC and had a thought about the planets.  Have you ever noticed that the planets are all spheres?  Although they have some areas that bulge out slightly around their equators, every planet is essentially a perfect sphere.  Have you ever noticed that all of the planets in our solar system, although composed of different elements, compounds and mixtures of materials, all do the same thing, rotate on an imaginary axis?  All 8 (9 if you still have an affinity for  Pluto) planets are perfectly aligned, rotate perfectly on their axes and orbit the sun in a perfect ellipse.

Why am I saying this?  In looking into the solar system, what we see is an example of God's magnificent creative power and His might.  We also see His attention to detail.  Each planet, although rotating on an axis and orbiting in an ellipse, do not do so at the same rate.  In 24 hours,  the earth rotates once on it's axis and in 365 days it orbits the sun once.  Contrast that with Jupiter which rotates once on its axis in about 9 hours and takes about 11 earth years to make a full revolution around the sun!

Have you ever wondered why planets are spherical in shape?  Gravity basically causes all of the planets to have the same shape.  If the planets were cubic in shape, the corners of the cube would eventually collapse which would be a disaster on a planet that was inhabited. Since gravity pulls everything toward the center every planet is shaped like a sphere.  It just makes sense that the planets are spheres.  The sphere causes gravity to be evenly distributed on the earth's surface which is very important for those of us that live here.

Is this random or is there a Creator at work?   You know the answer and so do many who choose to deny the answer.   God created the universe and he did it in His own way and in perfection.  God gave the planets their shape because He understood that in order for all things to hold together and for the gravitational pull to be exactly as it should be, the sphere is the most efficient shape possible.  Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation, which says that two objects in proximity exert a gravitational pull on each other and the larger the objects, the larger the gravitational force is between those objects, comes into sharp focus when we consider that all of the planets are pulling on each other therefore stay where they are rather than falling out of orbit.

 When God finally answered Job in Chapter 38 of the same book, God spoke of His awesomeness.  One of the things that God boasted of is the hanging of the constellations:

"Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens?  Can you set up [God’s^f] dominion over the earth?"

 

Psalm 147:4 says that God knows "all of the stars by name."  Imagine that, billions of stars in our galaxy alone and God is responsible for placing every one of them where they are and "naming" them!  WOW!  Our astronomers are still discovering stars that God already knows the names of.  He measured the heavens by the span (distance between His thumb and forefinger, Isaiah 40:12), He laid the foundations of the earth and heavens are the work of His hands (Psalm 102:25), He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and to top it off, He loves us.  God, the awesome and life-giving Spirit has put his hands to every piece of the universe, His understanding is infinite and yet, He lives in the hearts of each and every believer!  That is worth shouting about!

 

If you don't know anything else, know that you serve an AWESOME and MIGHTY God.  Regardless of what many try to do to minimize Him, He has not changed and He is still as mighty today as He was before he said "Let there be light."  There is NO other God, there is NO other Creator and there is NO other way to God except through His Son Jesus Christ.  Jesus is spoken of in several places of "holding all things together through the word of His power (Hebrews 1:3)" and Colossians 1:16,17 where it says "For by^f him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."  Can you see the majesty and the beauty of divine cooperation between the Father and the Son and how everything in the universe is dependent on this cooperation?  Can you see the perfection in that?  The universe was formed in perfection, the planets have the perfect shape for their purpose, the physical laws that govern their movement were created in perfection...God is perfect.  God is great and greatly to be praised.  Grace and Peace. 

A Subtle but HUGE Difference

Reading a newspaper article recently regarding the uprisings/protests at the American embassies in the Middle East, I read something that struck me as very odd.  In the article, there was a young man quoted as saying “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger, we will sacrifice ourselves for you." [See paragraph 4]  Let me say this, these acts are deplorable!  Considering the vast sums of money and resources that we have committed to the Middle East, this is a quite ungrateful response in my opinion.  Conversely, we have also done our share to destabilize that region as well so maybe our chickens are coming home to roost.    In any event, this is still very disgusting behavior.  I have not seen the video but if Terry Jones is involved with it, I am sure that it is probably distasteful as he has disrespected Muslims on numerous occasions.  However, Christians are defamed every day and yet you don’t see us storming mosques, burning down atheists’ homes or killing people that don’t agree with our beliefs.  In the past, there have been some reprehensible acts committed by “Christians” for very selfish purposes (the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the burning crosses of the KKK come to mind) but Christians that actually live lives that imitate Christ are not prone to violence.

Before I write anything else, I have to say that I have friends that are Muslim and we have very cordial and friendly relationships.  We have had brief discussions regarding Christianity and the differences between Islam and Christianity.  I am not writing this to offend them but I have to say what is on my mind.

I was floored when I read the statement, “We will sacrifice ourselves for you!” because the Lord immediately revealed a critical difference between Islam and Christianity.  In the mind of this man and probably many that think like him, they feel that they are doing a service to God by killing themselves and others that they deem as “infidels”.  I don’t know a lot about the Muslim faith but I do know this, not all of them are terrorists.  Most of them are peaceable men and women but there are some radical Muslims that actually think this way.  They are works based rather than faith and grace based.  In the same way, there are some ultra-radical "Christians" like the Klan that see violence as a means of accomplishing an end, never once stopping to realize that their acts are based on their own selfish, hateful motives and are not ordained by God.

Here is the difference and I thank God for it: God does not ask us to sacrifice ourselves for his sake, he desires obedience more!  From a dissenting perspective, Abraham and Isaac may come up but in that scenario, God was testing Abraham’s obedience and his faith and in the end, God sent an angel to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac.  The ram in the bush that was sacrificed in Isaac's place points directly to Jesus Christ and his substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind.   Someone might even bring up Jepthah and the fact that he sacrificed his own daughter.  While this is a very odd story, the context makes it clear that we cannot barter with God and that Jepthah, in his zeal and in exchange for a victory in battle, had not thought of the potential consequences of what he was saying when he told God that he would sacrifice the first thing that he saw upon his arrival home.  Couple this with the fact that during the time of the Judges, “every man did what was right in his own sight”, and we have a clearer picture of this situation.    

God does not need anything  (Acts 17:25) and He is not dependent on our works.  Therefore one of us sacrificing ourselves for Him will not change his status at all.  If 100 Christians decided to strap bombs to themselves and blow up a mosque, they will not only have committed the sins of murder and suicide (self-murder), they will dishonor God by their actions!  God does not need us to sacrifice ourselves for him.  God does not need us to fight for Him!  As a matter of fact, God tells us to “stand still and I will fight your battles.”  If we were in a situation where we had to die for Him as in being martyred at the hands of another, then he would be glorified.

“We will sacrifice ourselves for you…”

Jesus NEVER asked us to sacrifice ourselves for Him, Jesus sacrificed Himself for us- He set the example therefore He stands in position to say the following, “Blessed is the man that is reviled because of my name, great is your reward in heaven.”  Jesus set the example therefore, He stands in position to say the following, “If they hated me first, they will hate you also.”  Jesus never asked us to do anything that He did not do first.  Hebrews 4:15 “For he was tempted in every way yet He was without sin...therefore we have a great high priest that sympathizes with our weaknesses…” 

The apostle Paul says, and advocates that Christians do the same, that he bore the marks of Christ in His body (Galatians 6:17); he filled up the suffering of Christ (Colossians 1:24) - not in a sacrificial way but in a way that imitated the Lord of glory!  Paul suffered at the hands of others for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of the church.  Paul never blew up a synagogue, on the contrary, he actually rejoiced in being persecuted for Christ's sake.  He never retaliated; he understood and articulated the same, in 2 Timothy 3:12, “All who seek to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted.”  Peter said the same thing in four different places in his epistles: suffering for doing good is commendable, carries a reward, brings favor from God  and that we should rejoice in the fact that we are called Christians (1 Peter 2:20, 3:14, 4:15, 4:16).  This is not a call to altruism or self-sacrifice; it is a call to imitate the pattern set forth by Jesus Christ. 

Mohammed did not sacrifice himself for his followers; he actually died from poisoning at the hands of a Jewish woman who poisoned him and his army.  According to historical documents (The poisoning of the Prophet Mohammed), his men died on the spot but he took three years to die.  Some Muslims believe that the fact that it took three years for him to die means that God protected him from the poisoning.  But he still died.  Unlike Jesus, he also did not rise from the dead.  He died in 632 AD and that was that.  Jesus on the other hand, died and got up from the grave with all power in heaven and in earth given unto Him and promised His followers that they would imitate him and rise again also. 

Here is the rub, these men that are willing to “sacrifice” themselves for the prophet Mohammed are dying by their own hands; committing suicide.  But Jesus Christ died, not by His own hands, but by the hands of godless men who placed a crown of thorns on His head, slapped Him in His face, drove nails into his hands and feet and pierced His side with a spear.  And while God the Father sent Him (John 17:3, 17:18) and sacrificed Him (Acts 2:23) and it was pleasing to God to crush Him (Isaiah 53:10).  Not pleasing in a sadistic sense of but in the sense that God was satisfied with his sacrifice which is evidenced by the fact that he got up on the third day (Romans 4:25).  Christ’s sacrifice served one purpose, to reconcile sinful man back to God so that all that believe on Him will be saved and brought back into fellowship with the Father.  One man died so that all might live.  He did not kill anyone in the process, he did not die through selfish, self-serving means but He tasted death for everyone (Hebrews 2:9).  There is the subtlety that is often overlooked.  God has never asked us to sacrifice ourselves because there is no sacrifice that we can give that would equal or be greater than the sacrifice that Jesus made.

Should Christians be zealous to the point of sacrificing ourselves in the name of Jesus?  Our idea of sacrifice is totally different.  We deny ourselves certain pleasures not because of great discipline but because we understand that we cannot be in the world and of the world simultaneously.  We die a figurative death like the kernel of wheat only to yield a 100-fold harvest both here and in eternity.  We sacrifice for the sake of others in that if we have more than others then we are to sacrifice to ensure that none goes hungry or naked.  That is the type of sacrifice that Christians are called to make.  Denying ourselves means not retaliating when the opportunity presents itself but humbling ourselves before God knowing that our reward will be great in heaven.  That is the type of sacrifice that Christians are called to.  What Jesus did at Calvary, none of us could ever do- but what He did on earth, we are to imitate his love by loving one another, not killing those that wrong us or disagree with us.  Grace and peace be upon you as you continue the Christian journey.     Egyptian