RESHAKING AND REMAKING CHRISTIANS IN THE 21ST CENTURY
It’s still fresh in my mind and most likely I have told it before but it’s always worth sharing: Granny Canup with her blue bonnet upon her head was our neighbor in Anderson, South Carolina. When I was nine years old, she took a liking to me and taught me gardening before she taught me something far more important.
As a gardener, she showed me how to hoe corn, fertilize tomatoes, plant squash. She even taught me how to fry a squash bloom! Pick the bloom, spread it out, wash it in the sink, dip it into a mixture of corn meal and flour, deep fry it, and then when crispy place it on white paper to soak up the excess fat, cool it off and eat it like you would fried fish. Try it, you might like it!
Also, as a devout member of the Church of God, Granny Canup asked received mama’s permission to take me with her to a revival meeting. The benches on which we sat were made of wooden planks - very uncomfortable; but that didn’t matter because no one stayed seated.
Up and down, praising God! So ecstatic that some even danced in the aisles or stepped from one bench to the other. In the midst of all that, Granny Canup got so caught up in the spirit of the moment that she grabbed hold of me by both shoulders, prayed over me, and supposedly shook the devil out of me!
Maybe what the Body of Christ needs is for God to reshake us until we let go of the grip the devil has on much of “Christian” America today! Let this be our prayer: O God, we need your reshaking . . . your remaking until we are like Thee and so filled with the Spirit that it can be said of us as it was said of “all believers” in the first century - “after they prayed”: They “were one in heart and mind . . . and much grace was upon them all.” Acts 4:31-37 . . . No doubt about it! Christians need to be shaken until filled . . . thrilled . . . spilled!
For a lifetime we have sung this prayer to God: Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way, Thou art the potter, I am the clay; mold me and make me after Thy will while I am waiting, yielded and still.
Folks: genuine, heartfelt praying actively “waits” on the Lord to do great and mighty things . . . While “waiting” for direction from the Lord . . . courage . . . the right moment, we must keep on doing all the good we can do. Actively wait!
To be filled with the Spirit is: first, to reconnect with the Lord by asking and letting Jesus come into our hearts if we have not already done so; secondly, to ask the Lord to remake us after His will; thirdly, once He reveals to you (and He will) what He would have you do, then do it with all your heart, with “enthusiasm” (a word which literally means “God in us”) - which, to use a T. D. Jakes expression, “unlooses” Satan’s grip . . . unleashes God’s power . . . !
Why shouldn’t we “unloose” and unleash God’s power? The more we do so, the more God’s grace will be upon us – “much grace”! Why not take some of that “undeserved favor” that God has shown to us, and pass it on to others even though they do not deserve it either?
When it comes to the need for grace - shed abroad in the lives of we who comprise the Christian community - we are all in the same boat. We all stand in need of some type of shared expression of Christian love of which there are many. In regard to our need for grace, none of us is different from anyone else.
My oldest nephew and I were playing at Adams Park alongside a creek bank next to a huge tree whose limbs spread out over the creek down below. He pipes up and says, “Charlie, let me see you climb that tree and crawl out on that limb over the creek.” “No, I’m not going to do that.” He comes back at me with “What’s the matter, are you a coward?” So I say, “Okay, Mr. Smart Guy, why don’t you do it?” To which he responded, “Because, I’m a coward too!”
Folks, we all are like each other when it comes to need, but the fact is that some folks are needier than others. If people around us deserved to be loved . . . blessed . . . treated well, then it wouldn’t be grace. When we owe something to someone, we are not being noble by paying it. We are just doing what we are obligated to do. However,
As the Spirit of God shakes us into seeing the plight of people in dire need due to dire circumstances, and, at the same time we remind ourselves of our own plight apart from God, and how the Lord responded to our need in love, it is then that God’s kindness and favor so thrills us that it spills all over everyone around us! God’s grace finds expression in the ways we treat people and possessions!
The Bible does not teach against personal ownership of that which the Lord has provided. The Bible does teach a believer’s ownership of our Lord’s solutions to the “problems” (challenges) we face – obvious needs for food, clothing, shelter but also other basic needs of humanity including spiritual. Regarding the latter:
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus!” All we do as good stewards of that which God has blessed us with, and all we do to bless others, must be done as a witness to Jesus Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us, even death on a Cross, but was raised from the dead to the glory of God the Father! Rise from the dead! Come Alive! Ye shall be witnesses!
What we see being practiced by the early Church was our Lord’s solution to helping people, until it can be said “There were no needy persons among them.” In essence, they saw a need and met the need! Good Samaritanism!
Our Lord’s solution to the challenge of meeting needs was given to us in a parable so that we might see how simple it is: See a need. Find a way to meet it. Do not ignore it. Do not evade it. Do not make excuses. Do not be selfish.
Either meet it yourself or get together a team of volunteers to participate in an organized effort. “It takes four persons to carry a four-cornered pallet . . .” The key to Good Samaritanism is voluntary initiative and teamwork. No one in the early church community was forced to go the first mile let alone the second mile. They acknowledged blessings as gifts from God . . . possessions as belonging to God . . . caring and sharing as a God-given privileges.
Good Samaritanism is superior to government socialism - a system of tyranny which, carried to the extreme, becomes communism. No one can honestly make a biblical case for either socialism or communism - both of which take away and tax away to the nth degree until God-given incentive, creativity and personal responsibility exist only as a figment of imagination.
Why would freedom-loving people even consider becoming a robotic-type society based on fear of whoever the ruling class headed by a dictator happened to be at the time of their “dash” on earth!? (Birthdate, death date separated by a dash)
It would take too long and be a waste of time for me to try to name all the socialist governments and dictatorships that have failed throughout the centuries since Jesus put us on the right path and headed us in the right direction.
Christians, therefore, live in the year of our LORD who taught His followers Good Samaritanism, not the year of Karl Marx whose doctrine of Marxism gained favor with atheistic and agnostic academics in the 1800s as the alternative to the Christian doctrine of free will which gave rise to capitalism - by no means a perfect system of governing, but a proven way for allowing the free expression of one’s religious beliefs and practices.
Be aware that nations whose God is the LORD do grow and develop into becoming communities of respect for all people as “persons” with God-given rights and privileges the same as all other “persons”. If we take the early church as our model for how we are to relate to “persons” of kindred minds and hearts, there will be unity. But if we succumb to antagonistic voices of bitterness and divisiveness, there will be just that – bitterness that divides us – at a time when “Christian” nations are being confronted by worldwide “anti-Christ” movements.
Let us choose the way of God’s Grace, bringing people together in the bond of love, sending them into communities to bear one another’s burdens and share the load of taking care of one another - until everyone’s needs are met, not the least of which is the need for encouragement. Be a Barnabas! Amen.
