African-American Preaching
African-American preaching arises out of the cultural and religious experiences of the oppressed. It reaches people in their dislocation and relocates them in God and in the promise of a brighter future.
African-American preaching arises out of the cultural and religious experiences of the oppressed. It reaches people in their dislocation and relocates them in God and in the promise of a brighter future.
So, of Jesus’ identity there can be no mistake: He was/is the Lord Christ, our Savior and our only hope in this life — and in the one to come. This is critically important to know and be assured of in our day, for every attempt imaginable is being employed to erode, dilute, to syncretize Christianity, to make Jesus one of any number of paths to God and ways to make sense of life.
“Until we offer everything we have and are up to God and say ‘It’s Yours LORD; take it all and do with it what You will’, we will be stunted, stalled — indeed stuck in our spiritual growth.”
The atheistic philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that if God is all-powerful and also good, then God could not allow a world of evil and suffering. If God is all-powerful but does not stop evil, said Mill, then God is not good. If God is good but does not stop evil, said Mill, then God must not be omnipotent.
We affirm with absolute certainty that Almighty God answers prayer. The vast possibilities and the urgent necessity of prayer lie in this stupendous fact that God hears and answers prayer. And God hears and answers all prayer. He hears and answers every prayer, where the true conditions of praying are met. Either this is so or it is not. If not, then is there nothing in prayer. Then prayer is but the recitation of words, a mere verbal performance, an empty ceremony. Then prayer is an altogether useless exercise. But if what we have said is true, then are there vast possibilities in prayer. Then is it far reaching in its scope, and wide is its range. Then is it true that prayer can lay its hand upon Almighty God and move Him to do great and wonderful things. (Adapted from E.M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer)