Day 3 of 6

A....

The letter "A" stands for awesome. Shawna LaVelle Lynch, you are totally AWESOME. When you sing, you put others in awe of your beautiful voice. When seen with me, you put others in awe and they often times find themselves wondering how I got so lucky to find such a special woman as you... Your personality about is awesome! Everything about you is awesome! Thank you for being Awesome!!!

Day 2 of 6....

H....

The letter "H" is for your healthy love and dedication to God and me. It has been this healthy love and dedication to God that has brought you through so many trials and tribulations of life. A man would literally have to be a fool to pass up such a woman whose "price is far above rubies." Yes you are a virtuous woman!!!

Day 1 of 6....

S.....

The letter "S" is for how sweet and sassy you are. Your sweetness intoxicates my life and I just cant get enough of you! Your sassiness lets the world know just how independently elegantly you are... I appreciate you for being the sweet and sassy Shawna LaVelle Lynch!!!

Reflections of God's blessings...

It is approximately 1:20am and I am still up. Every once in a while, God keeps me up in the wee hours of the morning in order for me to reflect on the things in life that are most important and then thank him for it. While thinking, I thought it would only be fitting to expose my thoughts to the world. Often times, we get so caught up in asking God for everything we want and need but forget to thank him for what he has already done and what he will do!

As I reflect on my personal life's history, I completely understand that every misfortune, set back, and failure was just God's way of taking a personal interest in how I turned out. God intended to use me for his service way back then, even when I didn't understand it, even when I ran from it, he was shaping and molding me for the future triumphs and future failures; both of which would bring him glory. By no means is this a declaration that I have arrived at his intended destination of moral aptitude, this is however a declaration that I finally understand that I am his instrument, his chosen man of God.

While I am on this road of reflection, it is only befitting that I take the time to thank the Savior. God I thank you for navigating my paths. God I thank you for allowing me to escape prison. God I thank you for allowing me to escape death. God I thank you for keeping my family safe. God I thank you for allowing me to cross paths with some of the most talented and wonderful people in this world. God I thank you for counting me worthy to preach your word. God I thank you for navigating me from Texas to Oklahoma. Thank you for the ministry, life and training of Minister Warren Blakney. Thank you for allowing me to cross paths with the most beautifully talented, dependable woman whom I soon pray I may call my wife... Ms. Shawna Lynch! Help me to be the husband as Christ is to his bride. Help her to be the wife as you have authorized in your word!

Thank you God...
In Jesus Name....

Psalm 111- Can a preacher be called Reverend? A true exposition of Psalm 111!

As with any biblical discussion, the conclusion of a matter must be drawn from scripture and scripture alone. Although this is true, if a person is unlearned in the art of how to skillfully and properly draw conclusions from scripture, then these individuals tend to find ways to support the conclusion they have within their minds before consulting God's good book. Unfortunately, many religious entities draw conclusions that meet their own agenda's rather then the agenda of scripture. With that being said, before reading the remainder of this blog, erase from your mind what you think you know concerning this particular subject and text and approach this study with a fresh mind. After all, it is by a fresh mind that enables you to receive a fresh revelation.

In order to understand the answer to this question, a proper exegesis of the context is necessary.

This Psalm is really more about praising God then it is about what you can or can not call a man. If I may use a skeleton outline, you may conclude three points about Psalm 111:
(1) The Call to Praise (v. 1)
(2) The Cause for Praise (v. 2-9)
(3) The Concluding Exhortation of Praise (v. 10)

The Psalmist begins by saying "Praise ye the LORD"....

The word "praise" according to its original hebrew language means to "make a show, celebrate or boast". By implication, there is nothing about this word that indicates that a person's praise to God should be silent.

The Psalmist continues by saying "I will praise the LORD with my whole heart"....

This phrase "whole heart" indicates that the psalmist has made a declaration that he will praise God with his mind. The intended message that the reader should seek to get from the psalmist is this... If the Praise of God starts in your mind, then the rest of your actions will follow. The mind is the seat of intellect. It is the starting point of which all other actions flow. If many of us could just get our minds focused on God in praise, our behavior would reflect such a change. God does not seek only those who will praise him with a loud mouth but he seeks those who praises him through your actions.

Secondly, the Psalmist indicates that "the works of the LORD are great..."

The word "works" means "the occupation" of God is "mighty or noble". The psalmist indicates that the Lord is to be praised because of who he is.

Thirdly, "his work is honorable and glorious; and his righteousness endureth for ever."

These attributes that have been attributed to God are things that God has done. In other words, the psalmist wants us to know that God deserves our praise because of who he is and because of what he has done.

Furthermore, "he has made his wonderful works to be remembered..."

The word remembered means "a memorial". In other words, a memorial should be set up in our minds that reminds us of the wonderful things that God has done. Particularly, such things as God's parting the red sea and causing the children of Israel to walk through on dry land or God feeding the children of Israel with manna from heaven or several other herioc biblical stories that speaks to the awesomeness of God. You really don't have to call the biblical role, however, just reference all of the great things God has done in your life and set up a memorial in your mind concerning those things.

Lastly, "He sent redemption to his people, he hath commanded his covenant for ever; holy and reverend is his name."

The Psalmist descends this praise passage by indicating that the Lord sent redemption (deliverance) to his people. The psalmist then reiterates the character of the Lord... Holy and Reverend. For clarity sake, the word "reverend" is the strongs conocordance number 3372. The word litterally means "awesome" or "to be feared". The english word "name" as found in the text does not mean what we understand it to mean within our english dialect but actually the word "name" literally means "a mark of individuality." In other words, there is no one else like God. There is no one that possesses the power and character of God.

With all of this being said, the question still remains, can a man be called reverend? The answer, a man cannot be called "reverend" if it is his intent or anothers intent on elevating him to the same position as God because God has incommunable attributes that cannot be passed on to man. However, there are several biblical instances where this same word that was used in Psalm 111:9 has been attributed to men and not God (Genesis 32:11; 42:35; 43:18; Exodus 2:14).

In conclusion, if the word "reverend" is to be used exclusively toward God, why is it that several passages records the usage of the same word in regards to mere men? I whole-heartedly believe that God's attributes as outlined in Psalm 111 speaks to the incommunable character of God. However, there is a such thing as the communcable character of God. And Psalm 111 speaks to those characteristics as well. For example, Psalm 111 calls God "HOLY and reverend" so if "reverend" was an exclusive "title" to God, then how is it that we can be called "Holy?"

We should be dilligent to study the scriptures for ourselves and see what the true meaning of scripture is rather than preach a regurgitated message.

Be blessed....

Evangelist David Watkins III

The Assassination of the Family...Husbands and Fathers

Satan has successfully kidnapped, held hostage, tortured and killed the family. The evidence is obvious. As a matter of fact, the evidence can be witnessed from every aspect of our lives. The evidence of this most hideous assassinations can be found within our school, churches, television programs, statistics of broken marriages, rising number of men and women in the penal system and so on and so forth. Satan has done a very good job of being bad.

With this particular blog, I intend to expose each component of the family that Satan has chosen to attack and several methods that he uses to launch an all out war against your family and mine. I must warn you, this blog gets pretty intense. I exposes all of the inadequacies of our society and the inadequacies of individuals who have not been living up to their god-given roles. Upon reading this, you must make a vow to yourself and to God that you will do better than what you have been doing as a father, mother, husband, wife, brother, and/or sister. Because of the length of this subject, I intend to separate this blog up into several parts. Please read all of it so that you may conclude this series with a panoramic view of the family.

Husband/Father
This role of the Husband and Father is perhaps the most vital role that must be played within the family structure. It is the husband and fathers job to be a protector, provider, and leader for the family. This can be seen through the biblical character of Adam. It was Adam who was made first (Gen. 2:7). It was Adam who was charged with the responsibility of informing Eve as to the commandments of God. It was Eve who was made to be a help meet to Adam (Gen. 2:21-25).

Satan knows the role of the husband and father and he also knows that if that role were to be carried out according to God's standards, the family could be an unstoppable force. Because Satan knows this, he focused himself on destroying the image of the man within the eyes of the man. He focused on this task with as much intensity as a bullet train pierces through the winds of life. Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that HE SUCCEEDED.


Satan succeeded by publicly stripping men of their dignity and respect in front of the women who loved, respected, and admired their strength. It was through this systemic stripping of love, pride, dignity and respect that gave place to the absolute opposite, which is, evil, wraft, strife, envy, jealousy. Somewhere along the lines, men ceased to care for their families. Men ceased to care less about the spiritual well being of the family.

How did this happen? It is my personal belief system that so much pressure was put into the minds of men to respond with overwhelming devotion to one of the god-given requirements that the others went lacking. For example, if a man feels highly and overly obligated to provide for his family, he then dumps his entire being into making sure his family is being provided for. Although this is an indisputable requirement from God, the other indisputable requirements from God go unfulfilled. If a man has devoted all of his time, attention, and energies to working, how then shall he be able to spiritual lead his family or even protect?

Being a husband and being a father is something that I have yet to experience so I may not be as sympathetic to the plight of both roles, however, one thing that I do have is tons of observational experience that allows me to speak from a unique position. It seems that what I have witnessed amongst men who are successful within their own families has a unique common thread. Men who tend to remain in relationships with their wives for long periods of time tend to understand the balance of maintaing all of the god-given responsibilities. Men who tend to neglect their post as leader of the family tend to neglect this notion of balance. When balance is abandoned and more emphasis is unhealthily put on one responsibility than another, individuals tend to feel pressured and overwhelmed, thereby feeling as if the only relief is to abandon.

This article is not meant to be the answer to all of your concerns. It is not the authority on the psychology of men, however, it is a brief discourse that I have chosen to write based on my experience and observation.

Look out for next weeks blog.... Part 2 of "The Assassination of the Family...Wives and Mothers"

Breaking the curse of Willie Lynch, Part 1&2

I was in the store earlier and picked up a copy of Alvin Marrow's book "Breaking the curse of Willie Lynch". If you have not read this book, I strongly encourage you to read this wonderful scholarly work.

Unfortunately many of my contemporaries are not familiar with who Willie Lynch is, so before I continue, allow me to introduce you to Willie Lynch. Willie Lynch was an individual who delivered a speech to North American Slave Owners on the banks of the James River in 1712. The aim of Mr. Lynch's speech was to inform slave owners of how to get and maintain control over the African American slaves. Although Caucasians had successfully brought black from Africa to America, they were having trouble controlling them, so Willie Lynch and his psychologists came up with an extremely successful way of controlling black slaves. With much hardness of heart, I regret to inform you this Willie Lynch's approach was highly successful, and the effects of his successful approach linger even today although we are no longer enslaved physically.

Willie Lynch understood the power of division. As a matter of fact, in speech his he said this:

I Have outlined a number of differences among the slaves, and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work through out the South. Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them. On top of my list is "age" but it is there only because it starts with "A"; the second is "color" or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantations, attitude of owners, whether the slaves live in the valley, on the hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, course hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences, I shall give you an outline of action- but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust, and envy is stronger than adulation, respect or admiration.

The black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self- refueling and self governing for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands.

It saddens me to know and understand that Mr. Lynch was correct. Even after we as a people have been freed from physical slavery, Mr. Lynch and those of his kind still have us enslaved mentally. Our spirit of divisiveness, haughtiness, envy, spite and jealousy continues to perpetuate the need to wallow in the pit of self hatred, much like a crack-head needs crack. In fact, we attack at the first sign of a progressive thinker suggesting anything different from the norm. We attack at the first sign of change on the horizon. We attack those who we perceived to be better than we, Willie Lynch has done an awesome job at dividing us.

Furthermore, we have witnessed the effects of this doctrine within our families even today. If you see a husband and wife within the same home, often times it is contentious. There are constant arguments, constant battles. Unfortunately, many of us have assimilated into our minds that "marriage is just hard". Which may be true, however, I would vow to say that marriage has become as hard because of the faulty but yet perfectly planned system of mental oppression. You have witnessed Willie Lynch at work within out neighborhoods that are increasing at a depressingly rapid pace of violence.

pt. 2
For those of you who did not get a chance to read part one of this note, please do read it so that you will be able to comprehend the vantage point of which this particular note was written.

Not only has Mr. Lynch and his idealogy of "divide and conquer" been highly successful but if the truth were to be told, Mr. Lynch stole this idea from the pages of inspiration, the Holy Bible. In fact, the apostle Paul understood that a divisive Spirit could destroy a group of people, which is why he penned in 1 Corinthians 1:10, "let there be no divisions among you". But unfortunately, the masterful plan of Willie Lynch worked and here we are as a people, divided!

One of the more obvious ways that we are divided is within the world of religion. Granted, by the mere fact that there are hundreds of active religions with active african american parishioners indicates that we will be divided within religion. However, can any explain why is it that we are so divided within each individual religious group? Why are the baptist fighting with the baptist? Why are the methodist fighting with the methodist? Church of Christ against Church of Christ? The answer is simple, we have become so used to a "crab in the bucket" mentality that the commonality of religion matters very little to us. Everyone wants to get ahead and no one minds getting ahead or being right even if it is at the expense of peace with a religious group.

Preachers fight against one another for position and prestige. Parishioners undermine the authority of religious leaders and very few people knows what it means to love and follow God. Even within the world of religion, an ideal that is supposed to be based upon following God and his commandments has now become a popularity contest. It has literally become a race to the top! And unfortunately, those at the "top" are those who havent noticed that they are standing only at the top of a mole hill with little or no success.

Willie Lynch's philosophy taught african americans that we were less than human. His theology taught that we should be treated less than human. And we were! As a result, millions of African Americans passed through the anals of history with this "im not good enough, I have to prove myself mentality" and as a result, it manifest itself within our relationship with God.

Unknowingly, we deal with God as if we have something to prove. We deal with God trying to assert our humanity. We deal with each other the same way. And many of us have not snapped back into reality to understand that God knows us better than we know ourselves. He created us and he know's our potential. And potential is what we squander in the religious world!!! He has called his children to be great but because we cant see past what we used to be, and what we've always done, we waiste the hope that he has given us all.... POTENTIAL!!!

How long will we sit and talk about what used to be? How long will we argue about what shouldn't be? How long will we oppose those who seek to do things differently? How long will we be "crabs in a bucket"? How long will we continue to waiste POTENTIAL?

Potential does guarantee you anything except that you have the ability to accomplish what you set out to do. What you do with that potential is what sets you above the rest!

Stay tuned for more on "breaking the curse of Willie Lynch".