The Price of Being A Traditional Christian...
The Price of Being A Traditional Christian….
One of the popular songs I used to listen to was Losing My Religion by the Georgian contemporary rock group, R.E.M., but in reality when one is trying to live the Traditional Christian Life -Traditional, meaning that if a given behavior was a Sin when Christ Jesus came in the flesh, it is still so now - you may lose even more. I have conveyed how Prince, the Minnesotan genius musician, used to be my favorite musician, but the truth be told is that I can no longer listen to most of his musical hits anymore because most of those songs are down-right vulgar and anyone who knows me know that I am passionate about the movies and music… whereby my album collection used to look like the United Nations. But again, these are the little things that you will give up at first until it becomes an easy burden… and then the stakes become higher.
I have also mentioned my Panamanian best friend in this forum and who taught me about the New York streets when I first came here on a NYU scholarship from California… he literally saved my life several times while we were battling gang bangers when we were both employed as security guards at a hospital in the gang infested East New York area in the nineties. My friend knew every girlfriend and almost every one of my secrets like is the wont of a best friend. When I went to law school, I was so out spoken concerning my race down in Ada, Ohio… that I told him that if they ever found me hanged… like in a suicide… that he must remember that to off myself was totally against my religion… this is that same best friend who came to my graduation, while some family/ blood relatives did not. With all that said, we are no longer close, even though I would have liked our friendship to have remained the status quo.
About three years ago, one of my mentors, a pharmacist, who, was also employed at the same hospital my best friend and I used to work… told me that he saw my friend and when my pharmacist mentor asked about me… my best friend told him that I was acting ‘funny’ since I became a Christian. Now, I did not know this because now and then my best friend would call me up for my take on a legal issue and I would tell him what to do. What my best friend did not tell my mentor was that I could not run the streets with him anymore… chasing women and all the stuff we used to do before I gave my life to the Lord… yet, I still fervently pray for my best friend, notwithstanding the fact that we no longer hang out.
There are those who I know who read this blog and have lost much more than I have for the Gospel of Christ Jesus - but that lost of my best friend stung. But those of us who are Christians must get accustom to such losses. I know the lost of my best friend cannot compare to my brothers and sisters who are literally dying for the Christ (my prayers for my Coptic Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt and the Christians located in the 10/40 window) and those who are doing hard jail time for spreading the Word of the Christ. We should not be surprised of the personal losses and the attendant persecutions because we were told so by the Lord that these things would happen.
I write this blog to support my United States Army Christian soldiers who are given a difficult time to worship the Lord; I write this blog to support my preacher brother in Albania… I know of your difficulties; I know of the difficulties many suffer on the job because of their Faith in Christ Jesus and some of those who carry out these persecutions actually think that your being a Christian is a weakness - little do they know that if you were not Christians, you would have dispatched them to meet that same Jesus (I am speaking to you my former thug brothers).
There are no more books we need to read because the Bible has shed the Light and made us to know that Calvary is the ultimate epiphany. We take refuge in the Biblical Words of 2nd Timothy 3 that told us ahead of time that perilous time would come… and moreover, the Christ warned us in Matthew 10:21: “Brothers will turn against their own brothers and hand them over to be killed. Fathers will hand over their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and will have them killed. Everyone will hate you because you follow me. But the one who remains faithful to the end will be saved. When you are treated badly in one city, go to another city. I promise you that you will not finish going to all the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes again.”
I sincerely pray that none of us will go back to our spiritual vomit but maintain the walk of Faith in Christ Jesus and chalk up our losses in this world as nothing compare to the manifold, unspeakable blessings that await us. Remember even the Christ was crucified and the Apostle Paul and all of the Lord’s Disciples - save for John - were also martyred. And If you are not a Christian and you think that Verily Prime has lost his proverbial marbles… ask the Christ to show you what this Jesus Freak is babbling about and He will show you. I leave you my brothers and sisters with the comforting words that my very own beloved mother sings on Wednesdays in Intercessory Prayer meeting, taken from Zachariah 2:10: Sing and Rejoice, O daughter of Zion… [for] Lo I come….
