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Parents, Be Encouraged

Why you’re important In keeping with 1 Thessalonians 5:11, I want to encourage parents and build you up in the good work you are doing as parents. I think most of you know how important you are parents. Your role is important not only to your children. Most significant of all, your role as parents is also important to God. Your children are not your possession to do with what you will. The Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran wrote that our children are not our children.…they come through us but not from us, and though they are with us yet they don’t belong to us. Psalm 127 at verse 3 tells us that “children are a gift from the L ord ; they are a reward from him.” This verse reminds us that our children belong first to God. God presents each child to us as a gift. It does not matter the circumstances of their birth. Because nothing catches God by surprise. He has a place and purpose for every child that is conceived; a place and purpose for every child that is born. So when you
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Because HE Lives

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,   Because He lives, all fear is gone, Because I know He holds the future,   And life is worth the living,   Just because He lives! This is one of the songs you are sure to hear sung with gusto on Resurrection Sunday, the climax of Holy Week. And what a wonderful truth it represents! For more than 2,000 years, the truth of Jesus’ resurrection has given people the hope and confidence they need to keep on living in the face of weaknesses, hardships, insults, persecution, and death. Look at the verses of this poem written by Phillis Wheatley, an African girl who was brought to the United States of America as a slave in 1761 at the age of seven or eight. See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross; Immense compassion in his bosom glows; He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn: What matchless mercy in the Son of God! When the whole human race by sin had fall’n, He deign’d to die that they might rise again, And share wi
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Why Did Jesus Do It?

Why did Jesus do it? Why did He go through it all? There is a song about King Edward VIII of England, written and performed by a blind Bahamian musician whose stage name was Blind Blake. In 1936 King Edward gave up his throne so that he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcée . The world was shocked. “Why would he give up his kingdom, with all its wealth and power and glory?” people asked. Blind Blake answered their question with a cleverness that suggested that if he, a blind man, could see why King Edward gave up his throne, then it should be obvious to the seeing world! “It was love!” Blind Blake sang, “love alone that caused King Edward to leave the throne!” Why did Jesus leave His throne? Why did He give up the glory He had with the Father before the creation of the world? Why did He take on human life then suffer and die? It was love, love alone that caused King Jesus to leave His throne. God’s love for us was the reason God the Son left His throne, with all its glory and s
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EASTER MAKES SENSE OF CHRISTMAS

On Palm Sunday, I told my congregation that the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus is the mountaintop of the Christian faith. And from that mountaintop we can see clearly the landscape behind us and the landscape ahead of us. When we stand on the mountaintop of the Resurrection, we can look back on Christmas and understand why God came to earth in human form. Yes, I believe it is Easter that makes sense of Christmas. Let’s look briefly at these two epochal events and the king they portray. In the Christmas story, the Gospel of Matthew 2 states that After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem  2  and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 9  After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.  10  When they saw the star,
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Stop! Don’t Throw Away Half the Ham

Earlier this month I traveled to my home-country to attend the 94th biennial convention of the Church of God of Prophecy in The Bahamas. While I have traveled home fairly often the past seven years, to attend funerals and weddings, this particular visit got me thinking about traditions. We use traditions to pass on beliefs and values from generation to generation. Why do we hold on to certain traditions? How are we using our traditions to connect with people of different generations? I remember a “parable” I once heard Dr. Myles Munroe tell about a poor family that received a leg ham every Christmas. The mother would cut the ham in half, throw away one half and cook the other. She did this every Christmas, just like her mother had done when she was a child. In time the daughter got married and moved into her own house, and at Christmastime she bought a leg ham. She cut the ham in half, threw away one half and cooked the other. When her shocked husband asked her why she threw away
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The Fifth Element

When I was a young man, there was a popular American R&B group called Earth, Wind and Fire. My friends and I used to call this group “the Elements,” because, according to our science teacher, the four elements were earth, air, fire, and water. In 1997, a science fiction action movie was released called “The Fifth Element.” In this movie, a taxicab driver tries to save the world from destruction by evil. His weapon consisted of four stones that contained the energies of the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water), and a human-like being that contained a fifth element. In order for the weapon to be effective, the power of the first four elements had to be combined with the fifth element. Once they were combined, the weapon became a divine light that destroys evil. What was this fifth element? Love. And love is divine! The greatest of all the natural elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and the greatest of all the supernatural elements (faith, hope and charity
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The Marriage Charge

On November 19, 2016, I had the privilege of delivering the charge at the marriage of my nephew, Felix Beneby, to Aneka Rolle at St. Agnes Anglican Church in Nassau, The Bahamas. I want to share that charge with those of you who are thinking of marriage in this month of love and those of you who are already married. Felix and Aneka, the marriage you have entered into today is not just for yourself and it is not just for your physical enjoyment. Your marriage is for the glory of God, the strengthening of your community, and the continuation of God’s new society. Marriage for the Glory of God Marriage is God’s image on earth of Christ’s love for His church; His love for the new human race of which Jesus is the head. So whether you want it to be or not, your marriage will be a picture to the world of how Jesus Christ loves and cares for His people. This is a serious responsibility. Paul tells us just how serious it is in Ephesians 5:25-33:   Husbands, love your wives, just
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