Racial Reconciliation Part 3

Please make sure you have read my two previous post on racial reconciliation before reading this one.
I've talked on how my sin against God and the African American race grew, even after my salvation, and grew totally different than it was before Jesus saved me. My prejudice started developing even further, and at a rapid rate, once I got a glimpse into the "name it and claim it" heresy. That is what the black people at my job held to. It was, and still is, so prevalent there. It's the only religion that I noticed coming from my African American coworkers, and it made me sick. Now mind you, as I stated before, this false doctrine knows no racial or socioeconomic boundaries. But it was, at the time I was becoming aware of it, only blacks whom I witnessed holding to these false teachings. Their whole lives, everything that they called "Christian" revolved around the "name it and claim it" prosperity gospel. My bitterness and prejudice grew so fast for my coworkers who held to and lived by this lie. It made me sick to even hear them say the name of Jesus. And in my little world, I hadn't yet heard any white person claim this heresy. Now, I get just as sick to my stomach, grieved and angered whether the person is black or white, when the "name it and claim it" starts. And while I was watching and listening to my coworkers talk in that all-to-familiar heretical language, my hostility towards the African American race grew. This was sin! It isn't sin to stand up for the truth of the gospel. It is sin to have hatred and judgement in my heart for an entire race! And let me just go ahead and lay it all on the table...I was prejudice anyway. My heart was and still is so very dark. I was going to be prejudice against this race of people, made in God's image, no matter what it was. I have had to come to grips with that fact. God would have it no other way because God is all Truth. There is heresy in every shape and form here in America, and I don't have those same negative feelings against any other race or nationality. I lived in Dallas for almost two years. There, both blacks and whites are prejudice against the Mexican people. I never understood that. And yet, my heart is so prone to a depravity that has left me dripping with bitterness and prejudice against African Americans. SIN!! Wickedness! There is nothing in the world that lends to credible excuse for my feelings against this people, no matter what they do. Period!

It is true that the prosperity gospel is killing us here in America. Let me quote my pastor, Bryan Loritts, in a sermon that was preached to Baptist ministers entitled "Preach the Word". Bryan said, " The prosperity gospel is killing the church of Jesus Christ. It makes you wonder what bible are they reading. These prosperity heretics must literally cut out the whole book of Job. They must literally cut out the teachings of Jesus....cut out the teachings of Paul. I say to the 'name-it-and-claim-it' prosperity teachers what Paul says to the Judaizers in Galatians chapter 1, 'Let him who preaches another gospel be (anathema) eternally condemned.'"

But I don't want to come across as making excuses for my wicked sin. It's not the fact that I hated the prosperity gospel, it was the fact that I hated the people themselves, the people that I saw as nothing else but color. It was about race and prejudice, not about standing up for the Truth, in the love of Christ. It was wickedness. It was sin. It IS sin. I can't put it in the past tense yet; I still struggle with it every single day. I have to ask God to forgive me several times at work each and every day. I have to plead forgiveness so much, just living and interacting with the African American community here in Memphis. But are we whites even a tiny speck better? No, no, a thousand times NO! Sin isn't bias, it wants everyone. And sin has a strong hold on black and white alike in our beloved city. So why do I struggle more with the wicked black than I do with wicked white? I hate and grieve over what my sin cost Jesus Christ. I hate and grieve over what the sin of those who follow the prosperity gospel cost Him also. But am I not to have God's heart for all the lost, regardless of color?. Yes! But I still have a prideful heart. For it is only wicked pride that makes me think better of myself than any other person on earth, including this race of people!

So then comes another part of my prejudice heart towards the people of this race; the music I hear them play at work. They would have Hallelujah FM blaring throughout the warehouse, and I just became so hardened to the whole thing, hearing wonderful praise and worship music, when all I could think of is "Who ya praisin?, not the God of the bible." I became hardened to a whole RACE of people made in the image of God!! I wanted nothing to do with their "religion", but also, I wanted nothing to do with THEM. In my heart, it became all about prejudice against this entire race of people.

I know this is hard to read. Believe me when I tell you that it is hard to say. I have to face the fact that all of this vile, wicked sin is coming straight from the heart of none other than ME, Dana Greenslade. I am so ashamed. I am so grieved. I am so sick of myself and my self-righteous pride! I don't want to reveal this, but my Lord wants me to. And He will be glorified! So let's press on...

In March of last year, Central Church (my church at the time) sponsored a huge event for women called Redemption 2009. Our director of women's ministries, Ellen Olford, and Priscilla Shirer teamed up to put this event together. It was to bring about racial reconciliation in the Christian community. It was talked about a lot in the weeks prior. A tremendous amount of people in my church were so very excited. I wasn't. I was struggling. There was a war being raged in my heart. And I have to say, I don't believe that I wanted Jesus to win that battle in my life at that time. I don't think I wanted to have my sin removed. I was standing quite firm on my self-righteous platform. My heart was so hard, and I wanted to fight against the Holy Spirit, working through His holy conviction. I wasn't ready to repent. Why would I want to go hold hands all weekend, and sing praises together to MY Lord with a bunch of heretics? Why would I want to join together with them and pretend that we were all worshipping the same God? But you know what...if you are a child of God, every single week in church you are worshipping alongside believers and non-believers alike. God knows who belongs to Him. The wheat and the tares grow together. (Matthew 13:29,30) We weren't being asked to agree with every single woman in the place with where she stands on the true gospel of the bible. We were asked to come together to start a healing process, a racial reconciliation process among the body of Christ, and even beyond. It was to reach across the pew, to whomever you might be sitting next to, and love that person where they were. It was to be hand clasping hand, black and white mingled together. If they were your sister, greet them as such. If you didn't know, tell them how glad you are to meet them and open a door. Be the salt and light of Christ!! Come and plead for God to MOVE among all the women there! It won't be until we get to heaven that every single person around us, while worshipping the Lord, will be only the redeemed! That doesn't stop me from joyously going to church every single week, lifting my hands to the heavens and praising the King of kings and Lords of lords. So why did I let something stop me from wanting to go that weekend? SIN!

I had to work that Friday night, so I didn't even have to wrestle with going. I live right down the street from the meeting place. Saturday morning rolled around. I got off work and wrestled within myself about walking down there. I decided to go. People were just starting to show up in pretty good numbers, a few hundred. The day hadn't officially start yet, but there was already a choir singing on stage. The song was great, one that I liked. My heart was rebelling with every ounce of wicked energy Satan and I could muster, but because the song was good, I tried to listen to it instead of the sin in my heart. I did fine for a few minutes until the choir started singing a song that I thought I remembered hearing at work, from Hallelujah FM. The hatred and bitterness started bubbling even harder and faster in my heart and in my spirit. "Here we go", I thought. My sin was so tremendous, so grievous. I allowed that sin to dominate my entire being that morning. My heart was stone-cold. I HATED those people. I imagined every single African American woman in that building thinking all the "name-it-and-claim-it thoughts while she was singing that song, with hands lifted high. I had to get out of there fast. I made a beeline for the exit and got home as fast as I could. I wanted to be alone in my horrible, prideful, selfish sin. Yet while I was walking, the Holy Spirit was convicting me. I argued, OUT LOUD, with Him all the way home, which, fortunately for me was only a few short minutes. The tears that I couldn't stop from flowing were coming from emotions that ran the gamut. I didn't WANT to let go of my sin, my bitterness and prejudice! I WANTED to hate. And I wanted to hate for the sake of God, but there was no way He was going to be untrue to His nature just to appease me. Amen for that!! God was NOT going to pat me on the back and tell me that it was ok, that He understood and I didn't have to worry about it. NO, God laid me so low; He laid me flat! He gave me a spiritual body slam, which I needed. If left to my own, I would have justified my heart and my actions over and over again to myself for the rest of my life. BUT GOD!! Don't you just love those two words,"But God"?

That was the day that God started really dealing with me hard, straight to the point on my sin of prejudice. It has to go if I am to lead a Spirit-filled life. It has to go if I am going to live in close communion with my Father and with my Savior and Lord! And as you can tell from my previous posts on this subject, I still have a long way to go. But God has not forsaken me, even in my most shameful sins! I praise Him for that. It is an every single day, pleading with the Lord of glory, Very God of Very God, to deal with me however He decides best, in ridding me of this sin of prejudice. And He has been working in my life so much in this area. It amazes me, His mercy and grace, to someone as vile as I. So undeserving of anything but everlasting punishment in hell.

And so, after everything I have revealed in these three posts, I want to bring you up-to-the-minute details of where I am, and what God is so lovingly doing to me and for me, all for His glory and my good. Sunday, I went to hear pastor Bryan preach and incredible sermon. I worshipped the Lord of life and glory, with hands lifted high, among my white AND black brothers and sisters in Christ. And God blessed me in this worship with more joy and peace than I have ever known in my LIFE! My son was there of course. He brought a friend of his for the second week in a row. She is the sweetest woman! She is raising four children by herself, working, and doing it all with cancer, and while undergoing treatment. And she is doing it all with a smile in her heart! She is precious! And along with my son, his friend and her four children, my niece Casey, the darling girl of my heart, came too. Her husband and children couldn't come, so she road with Joshua and Melody. It was wonderful. And then, Sunday evening I went down the street to Downtown Presbyterian to worship with black and while alike, from all different backgrounds. And I was fed by God through the preaching of Richard Reives. And can you guess what a good portion of his sermon dealt with? He preached from Galatians. He preached from a heart filled with the Holy Spirit for the body of Christ to stop dividing! He spoke to so many things that God is working on in my life, dealing with my wicked, prideful sin of prejudice. WOW!! Awesome...God is so awesome. I was truly in awe of my Lord the entire sermon. I had to go talk to Richard afterwards. I had to tell him how deeply grateful to God I was in the fact that He wanted to grow me even more, that very moment while listening to the sermon. I spoke to him from my heart of how gracious and merciful God is when He is bringing about the holiness of Jesus Christ in the heart and lives of His children. Think about it...my sin has been going on for so very long. And I nourished it and protected it, and even loved it, wanted it and didn't want to let it go. God could have struck me dead! He could have struck me leprous. He could have opened up the ground to swallow me whole, then closed the ground back over me. No matter what He decided to do about my continual sin, He would have been righteous and just! But He has been so loving and gracious, even when He chose to spiritually gut kick and body slam me. Think of how we react when someone has sinned so terribly against US!! Or maybe against someone who is precious to us. If we don't take it immediately to the cross, we could end up wanting BLOOD! Can you think back to the last time that you wronged someone that didn't want to be nice about your offense? It is possible that they wouldn't want anything to do with you until you came to them and gave them an entire confession...outlined with power points of how you messed up, how you realize all the ways you messed up, and what you plan to do over the next hundred years making it up to them. Or how about the way I tend to be as a woman. When someone I care about really wrongs me, yet I am too stubborn and prideful to go to them and tell them how what they did made me feel. I just sit back and wait for them to figure it out, and then come up with a plan, all by themselves, on how they will get back in my good graces. Hopefully now, as a child of God, this would no longer be an example of how I would react, but hey, ya never know with this sinner!

My point to Richard was this: When God convicts His child of a sin, He doesn't then tell us to run along and figure it out all by ourselves, and don't come back to Him until we do. He doesn't convict of sin and then turn His back on us until we have made everything right and worked it all out. He doesn't break us over our sins and then not give us any understanding or any help. No, He loves His children so much, He shows such grace and mercy, and He stays right there with us every step of the way in getting this sin out of our lives. He lights the way. He reveals His truth about the sin, and about His holy standard for our lives as we walk with Christ, ever becoming more like Him. He is our Teacher and our Guide. And when He does have to crush us, wound us, and break us in order to bring us back into right relationship with Himself, He is right there to hold us and comfort us through those tears of brokenness, and we kiss the Hand that wounds us! We love and adore Him for His holy, righteous and just corrections. God could have been so mad at me that after He thoroughly revealed my sin, He left me to figure it out all by myself, and not return to Him until I did, and until I had put a solution into place, and had a proven working track record of improvement. But that would go against His very nature. "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5) I pointed out to Richard in a very brief summary how God has been the One who so graciously has been leading me to all the people and all the places where He wants me, in dealing with my sin of a prejudice heart. Look at all He has done and is doing for me! It's amazing, but it's just like our great Jehovah God, my Father, my Savior and Shepherd, my Teacher and Comforter. His patience, grace, mercy, and love abound to me, His child. I stay in awe of Him for what He is doing in my life to not only change me, but to bless me in the midst of those changes. The change is necessary as a child of the One True God. It is necessary for Him to deal with this besetting sin of mine in whatever way He deems appropriate, through His perfect wisdom and knowledge. But in His sovereign grace, mercy, and compassion, what amazes me is that He chooses to BLESS me in the midst of this necessary change! It could have been a long term punishment that I certainly deserved. No matter what He chooses, I praise His holy Name for whatever He decides.

God wanted this revealed. And He didn't want me to wait until I had time to ponder the fallout from revealing the vileness of my heart. Satan has had a FIELD DAY with me since my first post of racial reconciliation. Every fear he could think of, he has tried to wreak havoc in my heart and mind. He has tried to steal my peace and my resolve to obey my Master, no matter what the cost...no matter! All God calls me to do is obey Him, to serve Him faithfully, to follow my Shepherd wherever He leads. He wants me to obey with all joy, and leave the results in His sovereign, capable hands. He wants me to trust Him and praise Him, even if the world punishes me greatly for revealing this wicked sin in my life. Hey, even if it means that some in the church turn their backs on me. What is that to me? Has the Lord Omnipotent turned HIS back on me? No. Never. So why would I allow Satan to torture me with worry of what might come of this? Is it not all in the hands of Jehovah God? Yes. And even with the comfort that God is in control, my heart doesn't cease from breaking over all the African American people whom I have hurt from the prejudice daggers coming from my heart. I am exactly where God wants me in regards to putting to death this wicked sin and exactly where He wants me, from all the years of letting it run rampant..broken. And in my brokenness, God reaches a loving hand down to me, and strokes the face of His child, even me. Oh, how I will sing all the days of my life of His goodness! Won't you, black and while alike, my brothers and sisters in Christ, please take my hand and sing with me? The Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth!! Hallelujah, Amen!