Thursday, August 13, 2009

I doubly belong to Him.

I doubly belong to Him.

This blog post is in response to a response to one of my facebook status messages.

My facebook status message on 08/13/09 which captures the message on my heart that morning reads:
"He made me, after Adam I strayed, He bought me with the down payment of His life, being the priest, the altar and the sacrifice of that ransom for my guilt... I belong to Him doubly... I have nothing, nothing good... all I have is His... I am only a ...custodian under His tutelage... I own nothing... thank you Jesus!"
In response a friend sent me this note!

"Dear Hilary, “Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama could run. Obama is running so we all can fly.” Jay-Z

Wars have been fought to eliminate slavery and all forms of oppression. Slavery till date remains the most indellible stain on the conscience of America. Africans unshackled themselves from the ... Read Morebondage of colonialism and REgained their independence. The storming of the Bastille in France is celebrated as the day of liberation for of the oppressed-- Victory of the Commoner over the Aristocrats. I can go on.

Here you are; born and raised a freeman, but affirming a love for the shackled life. You were not bought. No one kidnapped you. You committed no crime. You belong IN a community of family & friends. Don't wish evil on yourself. You have EVERYTHING for which you worked hard to achieve. You're young, educated and living in a freeworld. Celebrate THAT. Don't follow fairy tales which can never been proven. Free your mind."


I wobbled and floundered in my mind, unsure how to do justice in response to a mind so brilliant, about issues which even the most brilliant minds unaided cannot fully grasp and comprehend.

Martin Luther King whom you mention in your first quote was minister in Chief of what you call unproven fairy tales... Where has that walk in the land of supposed fairy tales taken the world to today?... I have followed some of your writings and am familiar with your adulation of Barack Obama who also has in no uncertain terms made clear his following for the same.

I refer not pointedly to the kind of slavery which moved people from place to place against their will and forced them to servitude, neither do I refer pointedly to the kind of colonization which you mention in your note. I highlight a slavery of sometimes subtler forms which does not necessarily involve physical movement or service of fellow man but that which has from the beginning of time trapped many in the vice-like grip of spirits and principalities and powers, sin, foolish rabid unbridled passions and insatiable appetites. I refer to a kind of colonialism which human eyes do not readily see which subjugates a people to the King of evil himself, the devil.

I was neither born free nor raised free, and even Jean Jacques Rousseau's 'Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains' is a half truth for me because I was conceived in iniquity, born chained and raised bound to sin - I believe that is true for every person whether they realize it or not, until the great liberator, Christ Jesus sets free. By this acknowledgment I am not acknowledging a love for shackles but embracing a liberating acceptance of a fact as true as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. If a patient does not realize and accept his/her disease he/she will never go to a doctor. It is in fact in this realization and acceptance that my liberation is born. If a person takes a look at a tree fully clad in the garb of spring and says that tree is naked, the problem is not with the tree, but with the person. If a person is born in extended dark periods of the polar icecaps and because he fails to see the sun rise day after day after day, concludes that the sun does not exist, that doesn't make it true.

Oh yes my crime is sin, I strayed to the decoy of the evil one and he kidnapped and used me and only Jesus could pay the ransom which set me free, He paid with His life, after creating me, He bought me and no person in the world could have redeemed me. I doubly belong to Him.

I am young with a little education maybe but I am NOT living in a free world... it is a crazy chaotic world to say the very least... On one of my facebook status messages I wrote "Antagonizing as it sounds, there must be such a thing as the boundaries of freedom or else it accelerates mankind on a downward spiral of self destruction...without the apparent antagonizing boundaries of freedom, it(freedom) becomes agonizing...without boundaries the free world becomes a recipe for mindless chaos. Only God knows enough about the unseen and futurities to literally exercise freedom in the totality of the word."

I do not have everything which I have worked hard to achieve - that is a devastating fallacy... there are kids who begin to work harder than I will ever dream of working from their womb and never get the things I get... there are geniuses roaming streets and living in holes who will never get the chances I have... there were thousands conceived on that same moment with me who have slipped into eternity by no fault of theirs and I am still alive by no merit of mine... I have had experiences which many my age will never come close to and it is not because I am better... Everything worth the while in me I have received from the hands of an Almighty God, gratis.

To cap my response, some of the finest minds and thinkers of the world have followed the same fairy tales to borrow your words, which you claim can never been proven and there could have hardly been freer minds than these Christian minds: In literature, John Donne, T. S. Eliot, George Herbert, John Milton, Samuel Johnson, C.S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy Sayers; in music Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friederich Handel; in the arts some of the finest world art is housed in the legendary cathedrals of Europe, gloriously beautiful stained glass windows, colorful altars , produced by Christian artists and Rembrandt van Rijn and Albrect Durer represent some during the renaissance and reformation; in politics - the founding fathers of the great USA; in philosophy - Anselm of Canterbury, Saint Augustine, Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham; in Science Isaac Newton, Johann Kepler, Robert Boyle, Lord Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, Michael Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, Blaise Pascal, amongst others...

The fairy tale you say is unproven has been proven more times than I can keep track of in my life, He gives me all I ever need(not want) and He is so real to me, to call Him a fairy tale is preposterous and to say the very least laughable. I never once found Him to be a liar. My freedom in Christ has given my mind fleet wings and more freedom than I bargained for. I may disagree with you but in the spirit of the sages who have gone before me, I will defend your right to your opinion to the grave. Before all things I am a believer, not an understander if there is a word like that - Saint Paul tells me that "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." - I believe. We can still agree to disagree my friend. No offense was taken and none is intended.

3 comments:

  1. AMEN!!! What a strong rebuttal beloved. Blessed is he who defends and stands up for the TRUTH.Just incase they don't get it, you've done well to re-assert and to educate. HE(CHRIST) is real and alive!! Amen!!

    From a Jesuscrat
    Pascal G. Tanyi

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  2. Afeseh, once again a brilliant piece! But you keep projecting your beliefs as facts… I'm a straight shooter so you'll understand I say this lightly...

    You said it best in your conclusion that “before all things I'm a believer...” We believe in that which is not absolute or universal... We believe in that which can't be determined as a 'fact'.

    You mentioned a lot of great minds (which I must confess I'm too shallow and haven’t had any prior encounter with about half of your list) to support your subtle but central point that Christianity is not a 'belief' or what for the sake of this discussion has been called a 'fairy tale'...

    We believe in that which can not be 'understood', we believe in that which can not be 'explained'... We believe because of our life experiences and our convictions... something personal not shared. Thus you would agree with me that while we all have a right to our beliefs... the veracity of our beliefs is not determined by the quality or quantity of brains that share or embrace our beliefs...

    Great minds once believed the earth was flat... Likewise there are dimensions of our 'existence' that are yet to be explored... So until then we all have our beliefs (or ‘non-beliefs’) to hang on too...

    Remember I'm not supporting the position that "Here you are; born and raised a freeman, but affirming a love for the shackled life..." nor do I see anything wrong with your belief that "I doubly belong to Him."

    My beef is with constructs/arguments like this “… - I believe that is true for every person whether they realize it or not... By this acknowledgment I am not acknowledging a love for shackles but embracing a liberating acceptance of a fact as true as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West”

    Some disclaimers: i) I’m not the author of the “reply” on facebook. ii) Afeseh you have one of the best brains I have ever come across, so I’m not going to try to get into a mental brawl with you...

    Keep believing Bro...

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  3. Fon - argued in a way that only you would...

    I love logic and your logic looks very sound...

    I agree with you that "the veracity of our beliefs is not determined by the quality or quantity of brains that share or embrace our beliefs" - I mentioned those great minds only to dismiss the hint that I could perhaps be wasting away my life or run the risk of doing so by 'chasing fairy tales'...

    My experience is that God specializes in cutting the thread of human logic... many a time I have only understood things, especially spiritual ones after I believed them...

    I might believe without a whit of doubt that I am correct on the issues we disagree on but until you can be won over, with every cell in my body I respect your stance...

    In many other things we probably agree more than we disagree :) I appreciate/laud/applaud your focus on the issues despite the fact that we debate an issue with potential to whip up emotions out of control... I still have quite to learn from you bro ...

    Your perspective, whether we agree or not always enriches mine so keep the debates alive ...

    afeseh.

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