March 16, 2023
Happy 77th Birthday to our beloved senior pastor, Bishop Owens! We heard you clearly at the Joint College of Pentecostal Bishops Wednesday night! “I Am Still Optimistic About the Church!!!!”
“I pondered the direction of my life, and I turned to follow your laws” (Psalm 119:59 NLT)
Since my grandfather founded the church, my mother named it, it met in the living room of my family home, and my father eventually became the pastor, you could say, the church is just about all I have ever known. The principles and core values I learned at home were nurtured and reinforced in church. I am who I am because my family and the church prayed for me! At the end of my senior year in high school, my life was about to take a turn. I would be leaving home and living on my own away from family and my home church for the first time in my life. I did not know what was awaiting me on the big college campus.
The Church, the Serpent, and Uncle FG!
A friend of our family, Evangelist Carrie Hunter [Bolton], was preaching in revival there. One night, at a juncture in her sermon before she reached a high point, the entire congregation suddenly jumped up, erupted in a loud shout, and started climbing atop the pews! Was it the Rapture? No! A large serpent had slithered into the packed little sanctuary!
Now, we had gathered at the end of a hot summer day of school, farm, and factory work to do good. While we were worshipping and praising God, this evil devil suddenly came switching in across the floor– just like he did in the Garden of Eden!
How do you handle the frightening, evil stuff that comes into your life suddenly and unannounced? Well, the church congregation panicked that night. The people started jumping up on the pews and screaming. But one little man, my Uncle FG, whom I wrote about last week, ran toward the snake. He began jumping up and down on its head with the hard heels of his shoes until he immobilized it. Then, I watched in amazement as he grabbed it by the tail, took it outside, and began slamming its head against a tree.
The mental picture of my uncle jumping up and down on the snake’s head is an image that lives in my mind to this day. Whenever I find myself veering off course, or thinking the worse because of sickness, stress, or depression, I ponder the direction of my life, then turn and follow God’s law, His word, Jesus. My uncle FG had the church in him. When the serpent came and tried to bruise his heel, he confronted it, attacked it, and bruised its head, as Jesus did at Calvary!
When the devil sends evil, frightening stuff to scare and bruise you, don’t lose control. DO NOT PANIC! Do like Uncle FG. Follow God’s laws, the same ones you learned in the church. Look that evil in the face! Confront it; attack it and kill it!
Focus Quote: “He shall [fatally] bruise your head, and you shall [only] bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15b AMP
Standing on the promises of Christ my king.
Through eternal ages let His praises ring.
Glory in the highest I will shout and sing!
I am standing on the promises of God.
“Understand, therefore, that the LORD your God is indeed God. He is the faithful God who keeps his covenant for a thousand generations and lavishes his unfailing love on those who love him and obey his commands” (Deut. 7:9 NLT).
Understand This!
My uncle, FG had been our Sunday School teacher since as far back as I could remember. Although he and my dad had been forced, by the demands of farm life, to end their formal schooling much too soon, they were two of the most brilliant men I have ever known. Freeland Grandford Sumner, Jr., my dad’s oldest brother, was born in 1916 when Woodrow Wilson, one of the nation’s most racist presidents and a defender of the Ku Klux Klan, was in office.
Uncle F, as we called him, had encountered many barriers, endured much racial discrimination, and garnered a wealth of experience in the process of his forty-something years at the time. He was a no-nonsense gentleman who would quickly set anyone straight around him at work or wherever he was, if they disrespected him by trying to tell inappropriate jokes or using foul language. He loved teaching Sunday school and would often pause while reading a particular verse and say, “There is a sermon in that!” While explaining, he occasionally smiled and said, “Now the devil don’ like nothing like this.”
Uncle F did not just teach the material; he wanted us to understand what he was teaching. Hearing was good; knowing was better, but He wanted us to internalize it and act on it. “Don’t just sit there and look at me but understand this!” Those scriptures in which he saw so many sermons were about the One who is indeed God, the one and only God. He wanted us to understand that man will fail you, even the president, as President Wilson has demonstrated, could be racist, but you can always stand on the promises of God. All we had to do was to love Him and obey His commands. So, we sang:
Standing on the promises that cannot fail.
Though the howling storms of doubt and fears assail,
Through the living word of God, I shall prevail.
I am standing on the promises of God.
Standing! Standing! I am standing on the promises of God!
Focus Quote: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10 NKJV).