1 Corinthians 6:19-20, What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price:therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
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Please take time to read the whole story below. "The First Decoration Day"
David W. Blight, Yale University Americans understand that Memorial Day, or "Decoration Day," as my parents called it, has something to do with honoring the nation's war dead. It is also a day devoted to picnics, road races, commencements, and double-headers. But where did it begin, who created it, and why? As a nation we are at war now, but for most Americans the scale of death and suffering in this seemingly endless wartime belongs to other people far away, or to people in other neighborhoods. Collectively, we are not even allowed to see our war dead today. That was not the case in 1865. At the end of the Civil War the dead were everywhere, some in half buried coffins and some visible only as unidentified bones strewn on the killing fields of Virginia or Georgia. Americans, north and south, faced an enormous spiritual and logistical challenge of memorialization. The dead were visible by their massive absence. Approximately 620,000 soldiers died in the war. American deaths in all other wars combined through the Korean conflict totaled 606,000. If the same number of Americans per capita had died in Vietnam as died in the Civil War, 4 million names would be on the Vietnam Memorial. The most immediate legacy of the Civil War was its slaughter and how remember it. War kills people and destroys human creation; but as though mocking war's devastation, flowers inevitably bloom through its ruins. After a long siege, a prolonged bombardment for months from all around the harbor, and numerous fires, the beautiful port city of Charleston, South Carolina, where the war had begun in April, 1861, lay in ruin by the spring of 1865. The city was largely abandoned by white residents by late February. Among the first troops to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the Twenty First U. S. Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the formal surrender of the city. Thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters' horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some twenty-eight black workmen went to the site, re-buried the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, "Martyrs of the Race Course." Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders' race course. The symbolic power of the low-country planter aristocracy's horse track (where they had displayed their wealth, leisure, and influence) was not lost on the freedpeople. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing "a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before." At 9 am on May 1, the procession stepped off led by three thousand black schoolchildren carrying arm loads of roses and singing "John Brown's Body." The children were followed by several hundred black women with baskets of flowers, wreaths and crosses. Then came black men marching in cadence, followed by contingents of Union infantry and other black and white citizens. As many as possible gathering in the cemetery enclosure; a childrens' choir sang "We'll Rally around the Flag," the "Star-Spangled Banner," and several spirituals before several black ministers read from scripture. No record survives of which biblical passages rung out in the warm spring air, but the spirit of Leviticus 25 was surely present at those burial rites: "for it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you… in the year of this jubilee he shall return every man unto his own possession." Following the solemn dedication the crowd dispersed into the infield and did what many of us do on Memorial Day: they enjoyed picnics, listened to speeches, and watched soldiers drill. Among the full brigade of Union infantry participating was the famous 54th Massachusetts and the 34th and 104th U.S. Colored Troops, who performed a special double-columned march around the gravesite. The war was over, and Decoration Day had been founded by African Americans in a ritual of remembrance and consecration. The war, they had boldly announced, had been all about the triumph of their emancipation over a slaveholders' republic, and not about state rights, defense of home, nor merely soldiers' valor and sacrifice. According to a reminiscence written long after the fact, "several slight disturbances" occurred during the ceremonies on this first Decoration Day, as well as "much harsh talk about the event locally afterward." But a measure of how white Charlestonians suppressed from memory this founding in favor of their own creation of the practice later came fifty-one years afterward, when the president of the Ladies Memorial Association of Charleston received an inquiry about the May 1, 1865 parade. A United Daughters of the Confederacy official from New Orleans wanted to know if it was true that blacks had engaged in such a burial rite. Mrs. S. C. Beckwith responded tersely: "I regret that I was unable to gather any official information in answer to this." In the struggle over memory and meaning in any society, some stories just get lost while others attain mainstream dominance. Officially, as a national holiday, Memorial Day emerged in 1868 when General John A. Logan, commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union veterans organization, called on all former northern soldiers and their communities to conduct ceremonies and decorate graves of their dead comrades. On May 30, 1868, when flowers were plentiful, funereal ceremonies were attended by thousands of people in 183 cemeteries in twenty-seven states. The following year, some 336 cities and towns in thirty-one states, including the South, arranged parades and orations. The observance grew manifold with time. In the South Confederate Memorial Day took shape on three different dates: on April 26 in many deep South states, the anniversary of General Joseph Johnston's final surrender to General William T. Sherman; on May 10 in South and North Carolina, the birthday of Stonewall Jackson; and on June 3 in Virginia, the birthday of Jefferson Davis. Over time several American towns, north and south, claimed to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. But all of them commemorate cemetery decoration events from 1866. Pride of place as the first large scale ritual of Decoration Day, therefore, goes to African Americans in Charleston. By their labor, their words, their songs, and their solemn parade of flowers and marching feet on their former owners' race course, they created for themselves, and for us, the Independence Day of the Second American Revolution. The old race track is still there — an oval roadway in Hampton Park in Charleston, named for Wade Hampton, former Confederate general and the white supremacist Redeemer governor of South Carolina after the end of Reconstruction. The lovely park sits adjacent to the Citadel, the military academy of South Carolina, and cadets can be seen jogging on the old track any day of the week. The old gravesite dedicated to the "Martyrs of the Race Course" is gone; those Union dead were reinterred in the 1880s to a national cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina. Some stories endure, some disappear, some are rediscovered in dusty archives, the pages of old newspapers, and in oral history. All such stories as the First Decoration Day are but prelude to future reckonings. All memory is prelude. David W. Blight teaches American History at Yale University where he is the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the author of the Bancroft prize-winning Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, and the forthcoming A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation. There are a lot of things in life that we face and go through. Good times bad times, hurts, happy or sad. We know how we feel when we are happy and when we are sad. We know what affects us. This is reality to us.
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself what is God's reality? God's reality says that he loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son to take away the sins of the world. Well how does that work? When Jesus gave his life for us, he took our place and paid the price for sin that we were supposed to pay but couldn't. Remember the bible says; for the wages of sin is death. Because of sin we were all sentenced to death, but he loved us with an everlasting love, the type of love that a parent has for their child. No matter how much our children mess up, we still love them and will always give them a second chance. Well God did, that for us, he has given man a second chance, but only if we asks for it. Hmmmm? When we become sorry for our sins and we repent and ask for his forgiveness he forgives us. But this is only done through the death of his son Jesus. When we repent and ask forgiveness through the name of Jesus, God forgives us and his reality is, he forgets it forever. Jesus took the beatings not us; it was Jesus that was pierced in the side, not us. It was Jesus that wore a crown of thorns on his head, not us. Yes it was Jesus that was nailed to the cross, nope it wasn't us. Jesus was the one that hung on the cross and didn't say a word concerning all the pain and suffering that he endured for us, you, and me. But he did asks this of the father; he said father forgive them for they know not what they do. That was his reality! Are your hurts and pains greater than his? Our reality says that when people hurt us we are to seek revenge, even though God's reality says vengeance is mine and I will repay. Our reality says when someone has wronged us and they ask for forgiveness, we say we forgive them but we are not going to forget it; when in all actuality we are saying no; I will not forgive you, this is our reality. God's reality tells us to forgive as he forgives us. We think about it this way; if God forgave us as we forgive each other, guess what; our sins are forever before us. Yes that would mean that we are all still in sin. Think about how much you have sinned since you were able to sin, and you went to God every time you felt bad about what you have done, and some of us have repeated those same mistakes over and over again. We still went and asked for forgiveness. Now if God was to do us as we do each other; just imagine all those sins are still there. Wow! Sorry, that's our reality. I thank God that our reality is not his reality. When we truly repent and ask him for forgiveness, he says yes I forgive you and he forgets it. That's God's reality. James Grimsley Truth and Guidance Ministries Revelations 3:14-16
14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. If this is the beginning of a new year, is it the beginning of a new life or just a new day? It has become a tradition throughout the world to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of a new one.What is the significance of this celebration, does something miraculous happen with the change of a day or a number? Do you find yourself waking up the next morning feeling the same way you did the day (year) before? With every seven days that pass a month goes by. With every month that passes us by, goes another year. For every day, month, year that goes by and we remain the same; that year becomes just another month, that month just becomes another week of being the same person. So then what are we celebrating? With the beginning of each passing year as we look at it as the New Year; it should be accompanied by a new you. Last years challenges should be this years victories. As you look to a new year, look to be a new you. Learn to love the one you once hated, do something good for the one that has done you wrong. seek to change the way you think about life in a more positive way. Look to rid yourselves of all the negative things, thoughts and people from your lives. You will find that this will be the beginning of the new you, not just the beginning of a new year. Most of all, if you don't know the lord Jesus Christ, please get to know him and make him your new beginning. I promise you, if you do these things; your new year...... will be much better, greater, and more fulfilling then your last year; because with God all things are possible!!! Then you will most definitely have a reason and see the significance of celebrating the end of this year and the beginning of a New Year and a New Life. Thank you for reading. James N Grimsley
There are people and things in your lives that can, and that are holding you back from your blessing. I know some may say; (what God has for me is for me)!! Just read the examples below. God also had something for them as well.
Examples; 1. Adam and Eve was driven out of the garden because they disobeyed God; Eve saw that the tree was good. 2. The children of Israel would not destroy the inhabitants of the land as God instructed them to; instead they cohabitated with them. 3. Saul did not do as God instructed him to; he told him to Kill all the Amlikites and their beast; he didnt, because of the people. 4. Moses did not go into the promise land because he did not obey God; he sinned, because of the people. 5. Achan took of the accursed things and that which belonged to God. DON'T LET PEOPLE OR THINGS CAUSE YOU TO MISS WHAT GOD HAS FOR YOU! SATAN WANTS YOUR BLESSINGS; DON'T GIVE IT TO HIM!!! LET'S NOT WAIT TILL 2014 TO TAKE BACK WHAT HE HAS ALREADY STOLE! TAKE IT BACK TODAY.... NOW!!! GIVE GOD PRAISE, GIVE HIM PRAISE!!! HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, SAINTS GIVE HIM PRAISE!!!!!!!! GOD BLESS YOU ALL IN THE NAME OF JESUS!! It shall be light in the evening time
The path to glory you will surely find Through the water way it is the light today Baptized in Jesus Name Young and old repent of all your sins and the holy ghost will enter in The evening light has come Tis' a fact that God and Christ are one!!! Get right with God And do it now Get right with God And He will show you how Down at the cross Where He shed his blood Get right with God, get right, get right with God. |
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January 2015
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Words of Truth
My goal as a teacher of Gods word is to help individuals and groups to get a better and deeper understanding of Gods word while guiding them thru life's difficult times.