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VOL VII  NO. 4  APRIL 2006

REV. ROBERT KELLEY

 


Releasing the Strong Man! - Part V

 

Rev. Robert Kelley is the founder and president of Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc. and pastored the St. Mark Baptist Church of Portland, Oregon at the time this was published.

 

(Editor´s Note: This is the conclusion of an article proclaiming the way of release to every man who will trust in Jesus Christ!)

 

I wish I could tell you I lived happily delivered in Jesus ever since my February 1979 "death" and subsequent baptism.  Not so!  To my shame, I returned like a washed pig to the mud of my old, sin-controlled coping habits just a month later.  However, I was truly different and filled with an insatiable desire to walk with and learn more about Jesus Christ through His Word.  In short, I was on fire!  I was also introduced to another means the Lord uses to deliver His people, discipline (Hebrews 12:3-11)!

 

By August of 1979, the Lord had made it very clear He wanted me to give up my dependence on alcohol and drugs as a means of coping with or even recreationally "experiencing" life.  I disobeyed for the last time with dope when after smoking a joint I took a shower and found myself having what I learned later was a panic attack. Whatever it was medically, I understood it as the Lord´s no to my "getting high."  In a similar "panic" I was set free of alcohol use in the Fall of 1980.  Finally, after quitting many times and even paying money for a cessation seminar that didn´t work, the Lord exercised His great power and liberated me from cigarette smoking on April 7, 1985! 

 

That was a gloriously joyful day for me.  Satan had had me convinced that I could never be free from his shackles of dependence that enslave so many.  Truly, in the eight-year process of struggling in the Lord to be free of alcohol and drugs, I learned how really weak I was, but how incredibly strong He is!  Along the way the Lord had also given me purpose by calling me into His service.  Loneliness was taken away in marriage to my wife Mary, of 25 years.

 

Being alcohol and drug free did not make me perfect, of course.  I wanted so desperately in the end to be free because I was going to be licensed and ordained to the gospel ministry in June of 1985.  I did not want to declare freedom to others while I was still a slave!  I have since painfully learned that Satan´s negative mental and emotional ties that bind men are numerous and run deep.  Among the Lord´s subsequent acts of deliverance in my life have been an anger control problem, inferiority complex and unforgiving spirit.

 

The Lord´s work of delivering me continues because it as with the whole of the Christian life, is a lifelong process.  I, who am so very weak, am being made over into the image and likeness of the Strong Man of God, Jesus Christ!  In Him, I have come a very long way.  I trust, in line with Scripture, that He who has started this great work of deliverance in me will also finish it in all glory and eternal perfection (Philippians 1:6).

 

The Vision Of Strong Man Ministries
I hope readers who have read my testimony from the beginning have noted my coming to Christ was a process.   Additionally, there are two other important facts of note.  First, God wonderfully used women to sow the seed and reap the harvest of my salvation!  In this I rejoice and am at the same time saddened with the heart of God when His perfect will is not carried out.  Where were the men in my family?  Were they not all bound up by Satan as we have contended in this article?

 

I have no official statistical data to support the following assertion, but I believe many readers would agree with me that for every ten men who describe how they were introduced to Christ, easily eight will credit a female in their families.  Most churches including the one I pastor also reflect the lopsided reality that more women than men are serious about Jesus.  Yet, while Jesus ministered to males (who brought their families to hear Him) and females, His hand picked apostles (sent ones) were men.  "So, what´s your point, preacher?"

 

My point is that God´s perfect will is that men reach men who in turn reach their families and other men! The fact they are few in and women fill the churches is not an improved change in God´s game plan as some would claim, but actually an indictment of and a scandal within 21st century Christianity!

 

As a man, I am deeply burdened to reach other men with the gospel of Jesus Christ!  This newsletter, Releasing The Strong Man Seminar, our web site, Strong Man Institute and new men´s weekly Bible Study are all intended to fulfill our vision to see as many men released from Satan´s ties that bind and shackles that enslave as possible!  I am heart broken as I see so many men living below their potential and far from the destiny of freedom and victory God has prepared for them.

 

I have no doubt but that if our strong man vision were to be fully realized the demise of our families could be halted and our community slip into darkness reversed.  Why?  Releasing the strong man frees him to fulfill his role as God designed in the family and community.  As this article has shown, when the strong man is tied up, his home is ripe for plunder.  In the black community, we are seeing this truth played out with destructive results.

 

This leads to the second fact about my coming to Christ.  The local church was part of God´s plan to draw me to Him.  This was done through the preaching and teaching ministries of the church.  Strong Man Ministries is pleased to partner with St. Mark Baptist Church of Portland to bring willing men to Jesus. 

 



©2006 Open Door Communication Ministries, Inc