There is a major concern that is on the minds of many Christians who are African American. That concern is the “generation gap.” The generation gap consists of African Americans who are in the ages of fifteen through forty. Unfortunately, it seems that there are very few people representing for Jesus in the generation gap. A lot of us in the generation gap know about Jesus from childhood experiences in church whether it is Sunday school, vacation bible school, occasional church service and different holiday events. What is sad is that there are VERY FEW activities for the generation gap! Don’t get me wrong, it does say in I Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV), “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” On top of that, it does say in Colossians 3:17 (KJV), “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”
According to Scripture, we ALL should be living a life full of joy through Jesus Christ! What is difficult for the generation gap is that we do recognize that there is suffering involved to live a life for Christ. It even said in James 5:10-11 (NIV), “Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.” Brother Job in the Old Testament was a man who was well blessed financially, physically and spiritually. Then he lost all of his children, his wealth was stripped away, his friends used Scripture (like a lot of us “so-called Christians”) to beat down Job, and his wife wanted him to curse God and die. How foolish! Sure enough, Brother Job did not turn his back on God. He questioned Him, but he did not forsake God! Job ended up being restored by God with much more than what he had originally and even forgave his friends who talked bad about him. As you can see, there is a reward for suffering in God’s will. Now, the question is: “how do I have fun in the name of the Lord?”
I’ve noticed that in many churches, there are many activities for children who are under the age of fifteen and people that are over the age of forty. Sure enough, it is good to have elderly people in the church because they can minister to you in their lives about a few things that Christ was able to deliver them from. It is also a good thing to have young children in the church because you can be able to relate to them about what it was like when you were their age. That is very effective to them because you are not too old.
Satan has a stronghold on the generation gap because he is able to make earthly pleasures seem more exciting than being able to involve yourself in different activities within and outside the church. I do applaud churches in larger cities that have singles ministries, intramural sports, praise dancers, youth choirs and other activities that are focused on the generation gap. My heart goes out to the various places that do not have those options available. A lot of us in the generation gap are guilty of going out to the nightclubs, strip clubs / prostitution houses, gambling establishments, and other places that compromises our spirituality. It is also very easy for us to get caught up in the movies, music and video games that we watch, listen or play. A lot of us seek alcohol and drugs as socializing tools, something to pass time and ways to escape the pressures of reality. I have noticed that it is even worse in the rural areas of this country because the Christian activities are SO FEW for the generation gap! A lot of us in that generation live a double life by going to church on Sundays (and sometimes Bible study during the week) and do EVERYTHING else that is against the will of God! We learned that from older, hypocritical church people and/or knew Scripture ourselves yet rebelled from the Word.
Another factor in the generation gap is vanity or “bling” as we would like to call it. A lot of us have problems in being involved with Christianity because I’ve noticed that there is many highly devoted Christians with severe financial problems. “If we are supposed to be rich with God in Heaven, then why can’t we have some riches while on earth?” It says in I Timothy 6:10 (KJV), “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” It turns out that money ITSELF is not evil. It is the motive on how you acquire and use money. Let’s be real on one thing: you have to have money to survive. Almost everything in life involves money. When you were born, your parents had to pay the doctor for his or her services. When the Lord calls you home, your surviving relatives and/or friends have to pay for the funeral arrangements. Even to use the bathroom involves money because you have to pay the water bill; you will also need towels, soap, toilet tissue, household chemicals to keep the restroom clean and some air freshener in case it gets funky! What has been helpful to me is tithing. “Why are you tithing?” “If God already has everything, then why does he need money from you?” “Is God broke or something?” It turns out that tithing is a form of gratitude toward God by saying “thank you” to Him in monetary form. You cannot buy your way into Heaven nor are you trying to “hook up” the local pastor by your tithes. It all started in Genesis 14:20 (NIV): “And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand. Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.” Abram (who later became known as Abraham) showed God how much he appreciated Him in monetary form. A lot of people are hesitant of tithing (and offering) because of the fear of corrupt church officials embezzling the money and/or being so far buried in debt to where they cannot hear the guidance of the Holy Spirit which allows them to make foolish decisions in handling the money. It turns out that when you give your tithes, it is no longer in your hands. It is up to the clergy and appointed laypeople to be accountable of the financial gifts from the people. If the clergy and appointed laypeople are not accountable, they will receive God’s wrath. There has also been discussions about should you give 10% of your net salary or gross salary? When I started to tithe back in 2003, I gave 10% of the net salary. When I did that, I noticed that the Lord began to bless me with plenty of earthly possessions! As time progressed, I learned from Pastor Steven R. Lake, Sr that it is preferred to give 10% of the gross salary. I sought guidance from the Holy Spirit about his advice and received confirmation. It turns out that when you give 10% of the net salary, there is a possibility that you could unknowingly shortchange God. Reason being because along with taxes, you may have benefit packages like 401K, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, pension and etc. Those benefits mentioned are geared toward you. Maybe not in the immediate fashion, but you ARE pocketing that money as time progress. When you give 10% of the gross salary, there is no room for ANY doubt! Be sure that you give with a willing heart because you are not “buying a favor” from God nor are you “buying a favor” from the local pastor. Don’t get me wrong; you will still have some financial turbulence in your life. What is cool is that you will see so many blessings in abundance that will blow your mind over time! I am a living witness of that. I don’t have a sport utility vehicle with leather and wood along with some wheels that exceed twenty inches although the Lord has all of my needs and quite a few wants taken care of! Yes, you too can enjoy riches like King Solomon in the Old Testament. He asked God for wisdom and God was very impressed! He hooked Solomon up with riches and honor. Like Solomon, we need to be careful and do not allow Satan to step in to steal our riches from us. Solomon was probably the biggest player of all times because he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. In other words, he had one thousand women! What made it tough besides having the multitude of women is that they did not worship God and had Solomon building unholy altars for them. That distracted Solomon’s relationship with God and his earthly possessions ended up being stolen from his estate after he passed away. As you can see, that is why we do not need to be heavily attached to our earthly possessions. Solomon did say throughout the book of Ecclesiastes “everything is vanity!” There is nothing wrong with having nice earthly things as long as our relationship with God is tight. Another thing that is cool about tithing is that if everyone tithes, the need for the “building fund” or “da budget” will not be stressed as heavy. Reason being because the church will have what it needs to survive. How about that? Now you have free spiritually financial advice.
I asked my associate minister, Bro. Robert Jackson, about the generation gap. He told me “a lot of people are trying to find their identity within that age range.” It does say in I Corinthians 1:30-31 (KJV), “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” Sure enough, we ALL can find our identities in Christ because He is the one that provides us with all that we need and cover many of our wants that are within His will! I am not a perfect man because I am a human being and there are many times where I have to fight myself to avoid sin as much as possible. I am thankful that Jesus is able to forgive me of all of my sins (and yours) by Him sacrificing Himself on the cross. All He wants from us is to trust Him.
A lot of people are quick to argue that Jesus was only a prophet or another “good man” in history. Christianity is also viewed upon as a “doormat religion” because Jesus was constantly persecuted and was murdered for crimes He did not commit. “If he was the Messiah, why didn’t he save himself?” “If there is power in Christ, why couldn’t he defend himself?” “If God had to come in three different forms (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), then why is God divided as three?” Jesus allowed Himself to be sacrificed for ALL of our sins because the sacrificial system at that time was not enough. If you look at the Old Testament in the Bible, you will find that many people had to slaughter cattle, birds and other animals as a sacrifice per person for forgiveness of sin. Also, only a priest back then had permission to be in the presence of God to receive forgiveness of sins for the people. Obviously, people kept pursuing sinful desires. When Jesus came about in the Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament), He performed many miracles! He healed people who were possessed with demonic spirits, He healed the sick, He restored a blind man’s vision and He even fed a multitude of people (5,000 men the first time, and 4,000 men the second time – not counting the women and children present on both occasions). He also raised a man from the dead! After performing so many miracles, NO ONE has the right to say “if you’re the Messiah, then do this for me.” I would also like to mention that Jesus is not a punk, scrub, weakling or any other title used to define the extreme weakness of a person. This is proved in John 2:14-16 (NIV): “In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” When I first read that, I was like “WHUT!?!” It did not say in the Bible that Jesus struck anybody. I could tell from that passage that somebody would catch a physical “beat down” from Christ Himself if they did not leave the Temple! Christ did that because the moneychangers were pimping the people by selling unclean animals for sacrifice – which is a disgrace in the Temple (also mentioned in the other books of the Four Gospels). Jesus had the right to protect His father’s house, as you can see.
No one fully understands why God takes on three entities: the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. The only interpretation that I could come up with from my personal studies of the Bible is that God was only accessible to His specially selected people throughout the Old Testament like Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon and many others. As mentioned earlier, God came in the form of man (Jesus) to allow the final sacrifice needed to atone for all sins that man has made in the past, present and future. While in human form, Jesus could only save so many people at a time because He traveled mostly by foot and rode on a donkey once (listed in the Four Gospels). Finally, the Holy Spirit took place after the physical death of Jesus. When the crucifixion took place, God Himself tore the veil from top to bottom (which was used to allow only priests to enter God’s presence) allowing EVERYONE; and I do mean EVERYONE access to God’s presence! In Acts 2:1-13; the Holy Spirit of God came onto man on the day of Pentecost as a form of confirmation of God’s presence to all of mankind! What’s ironic is that while you have the Holy Trinity, there is also an unholy trinity. In the book of Revelation, you will find the unholy trinity: Satan the accuser, the antichrist, and the false prophet. Of course you will find A LOT of calamity in this world and it is becoming more and more like Revelation each day. The most important thing that we have to realize is that Satan is doomed! That is proved in the 20th chapter of Revelation so we need to have hope and trust in Christ while we are fortunate to live. In the end, there are no more gray areas in Christianity. Either you are for Christ, or you are against Him. I don’t know about you, but I am making sure that my relationship with Christ is on good terms because I grew up in Arkansas and it is extremely HOT during the summer! I don’t need to go to Hell because I can’t turn on the air conditioning down there!
I pray that this essay will help someone realize that a life with Jesus Christ is the most rewarding life available in this world. I also pray that people who are in the church will recognize the “generation gap” and make serious efforts to make change. It takes more than eloquent speakers and writings like this to make a difference. It involves the guidance of God Himself and our physical efforts to make things happen. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”---Philippians 4:12