Pastor Leo Colon's Blog

Tag: Christian

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    Happy Thanksgiving

    Profile Picture Leo (2).Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom.

    We are in the month of November. In this, what Frederick Haynes calls “these dis-United States,” we as a nation tend to celebrate what we now call Thanksgiving. The whitewashed version is that we are commemorating the providence of God to early settlers who have come from Europe to these shores and celebrate God’s provision for them and their progeny. What we are really celebrating is hegemony, murder, and cheating of indigenous people, in order to take what did not and does belong to these now white Americans. For our purposes, we take the time to celebrate how God has continuously provided for us as African American survivors of marginalization, oppression, and racism by the occident in times past and today. The scriptures give us so many examples of text of actual thanksgiving, and I thought I would share some of them with you. 

     

    O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.

    (1 Chronicles 16:34 KJV)

     

    Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

    For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

    (Psalm 100:4-5 KJV)

     

    O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

    (Psalm 107:1 KJV)

     

    And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.

    (Isaiah 12:4 NRSV)

     

    Beloved, while we have no reason to engage in the celebration of America’s need to rewrite history and celebrate the lie that is the American construct of truth, we do owe our God praise and worship for his mighty acts of sustaining us in the face of American hegemony. For this, we should give thanks. In that light, I say to you all, even though we are a week away, Happy Thanksgiving. 

     

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I endeavor to post regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

     

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center this Sunday at our new home. That’s right, we have moved into our own building. Join me at IHP. We now meet at 11 Woods Place, (formerly Johnsons Place) in Brooklyn, NY. Join us at 10 a.m. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first. And, visit our website to get more information about In His Presence Family Worship Center. 

     

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

  • Walk in God’s Rest for Your Soul

    Walk in God’s Rest for Your Soul

    Profile Picture Leo (2).

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. This week was week three of Women’s Month at In His Presence Family Worship Center (IHP), and again, it was a privilege to be in the room with such powerful women. It was an opportunity to hear some of the gifts that God has placed in our midst. This week’s gift was Pastor Alva T Allen. She was our speaker for the morning. Pastor Alva Allen is a pillar of our church, and we thank God for her and her ministry. She took the time to bring tension from the word of God, during a month where the theme is Rest for Your Soul, Pastor Allen told us that some of our unrest is a result of our own disobedience. Let’s look at one of the texts that Pastor shared with us. 

     

    Jer. 6:16 Thus says the LORD: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.” NRSV

     

    Pastor Allen taught that “disobedience to God’s directives causes unrest.” The text gives a clear mandate from God that tells us that obedience to his word gives us “rest for your souls.” With that said, she defined “soul” for us. Biblically, the soul is the place where decisions are made. It is the seat of reason, logic, the mind, and the like. This is why a troubled soul can look like depression, negative thinking, and poor attitudes. Imagine that we can avert much of the negativity by trusting God implicitly. Here is how we should do it. 

     

    Look and ask for the ancient path. There is often a good reason why ancient things persist. The path that was here when you got here and is still here serves a purpose bigger than you or your problem. The ancient ways, or path, often mean they derive from God and are determined to be profitable to those who would obey them. I remember a pastor saying once:

     

    “There is a difference between tradition and traditionalism. Tradition is the living voice of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead voice of the living.”

     

    The living voice of God telling us our new way will not work is the very fabric of wisdom, and we would do well to obey it. We should prefer and inquire about the old ways rather than the stuff we come up with, especially when those ways do not include the word of God. For example, it is still better to get married than to live together. It is still better to invest wisely than to follow an unproven trend. 

     

    The ancient path is where the “good way lies.” I want to know that when I make a decision about my life, my career, even my church, I want to choose the path where the “good way lies.” When I find that good way, I need to walk in it. Beloved, I have walked a bunch of paths that I thought would work. The one thing these wrong paths had in common is that I did not seek God for direction. Not only did I end up in places I never wanted to be, I discovered that I found “no rest” there.  

     

    Beloved, do not be that believer who tells God no, I do not want to obey you, and I want to find my own path. I want to walk in a way that affords me the privilege of God’s rest. Walk in God’s rest for your soul. 

     

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I endeavor to post regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

     

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center this Sunday at our new home. That’s right, we have moved into our own building. Join me at IHP. Remember, this is Women’s Month. We now meet at 11 Woods Place, (formerly Johnsons Place) in Brooklyn, NY. Join us at 10 a.m. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first. And, visit our website to get more information about In His Presence Family Worship Center. 

     

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

     

  • When rest is not enough, we serve a God who restores

    When rest is not enough, we serve a God who restores

    Profile Picture Leo (2).Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. This week was week two of Women’s Month at In His Presence Family Worship Center (IHP), and it was a privilege to be in the room with such powerful women. It was an opportunity to hear some of the gifts that God has placed in our midst. This week’s gift was Evangelist Meredith Boyd. She was our speaker for the morning. Preceding her was one of our gifts, Marchette Swindell, who is a daughter of the house, who with her husband has relocated but this week came back to share with us a sermonic solo. After her, another daughter of the house, one born in IHP, was the actual daughter of our speaker, who did a sermonic dance for her mother before she spoke. Evangelist Boyd has two daughters who are a delight to our church, and we thank God for them both. Let’s look at the text that the evangelist shared with us. 

     

    Psa. 23:3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. KJV

     

     

     

    Her message, “When rest is not enough, we serve a God who restores,” centered around verse 3 of this familiar Psalm. She made a point of saying there is a difference between rest and restoration. She said, “You can rest your body and still feel weary at heart. You can pause your calendar and cancel your meetings and still feel empty inside. You can sit down and stop moving and still not be settled in your spirit.” The difference she articulated is “rest is what we do to stop and take a break.” Restoration is what “God does to heal us.” She said, “ Rest is your pause, but restoration is God’s power.” 

     

    Restoration is to rebuild, to repair, and to revive. “God doesn’t just calm you down; He starts fixing what’s broken.” She made the correlation: when your car starts making noises and driving strangely, you can pull over and shut the engine off. That will quiet the motor, and you will not hear noises or see it drive strangely, but that does not fix the problem. In order to fix the problem, you should take the car to a qualified mechanic. In order for him to fix the problem, you will have to give up control of the car. So, in order for you to be restored, you need to give up control of your situation, your life, your ideas, and leave it with the qualified mechanic, Jesus. 

     

    Also, I know from experience that it is not a good idea to try and be “Co-Mechanic.” Leave the car with the mechanic, then leave the garage. When I bring my car in for service, I listen to the qualified people who are going to fix my car. I do not go into the garage to show them where everything is. They know my car better than I do. I take their advice. When they tell me this is going to take a while, I ask them for a ride home. I leave the car with them. I do not text them what I think they should do. As a matter of fact, when I get home, even with my car in their hands, I do whatever I want. Watch television, clean up the backyard, or even get some rest. 

     

    Let God restore you. Do not try to be Co-Mechanic. When I go back to get my car, it operates like new. I can go on long trips, stay out all day, and I know I can depend on the car. When God restores you, you can operate like a new creation. You can go on long trips and not get weary. Let God restore you. It’s more than just rest. “When rest is not enough, we serve a God who restores.”

     

     

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I endeavor to post regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

     

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center this Sunday at our new home. That’s right, we have moved into our own building. Join me at IHP. Remember, this is Women’s Month. We now meet at 11 Woods Place, (formerly Johnsons Place) in Brooklyn, NY. Join us at 10 a.m. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first. And, visit our website to get more information about In His Presence Family Worship Center. 

     

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

     

  • Christianity is Radical

    Christianity is Radical

    Profile Picture Leo (2).Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I would like to encourage you from the book of Matthew. We have been looking at the Sermon on the Mount for a few months at IHP. Today, I thought we would look at something our God has inculcated to the disciples and to us as subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

     

    We have been looking at the “Kingdom of God/Heaven for the entire year of 2025, and as such, we have learned that the way to be a good subject of the Kingdom is to know what your King demands and obey those commands. In so doing, we are looking at what Christ has to teach us. 

     

    The beatitudes are how he begins the sermon, and the beatitudes are radical in how they changed my perspective, even in 2025 as to what being a Christian is. They have changed everything for me. I cannot be passive and be the kind of believer Christ demands because he said:

     

    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

    (Matthew 5:6 NRSV)

     

    The Beatitudes create in me a propensity to become an activist because they do tell me: 

     

    “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

    (Matthew 5:9 NRSV)

     

    We have learned that I cannot be a peacemaker with unrighteousness if I understand that I need to be one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness. It means that I cannot follow the solution of staying out of issues that confront or try to lull my community into complacency. I must take a stand, not only in my own life but in the life of those I care about. My family, my church, my community. I am called to activism and to be what God calls me to be. Jesus said:

     

    “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.”

    (Matthew 5:14 NRSV)

     

    God needs for this world not to operate in darkness. This is why he called you, the believer, to prevent your family, your community, your nation from operating in darkness. Beloved, be assured that this world would rather be in darkness. 

     

    “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”

    (John 3:19 NRSV)

     

    What radical truths! It means that although men would rather that Christians stay out of politics, determining how resources in communities are disseminated, Christ says we are called to this. We need to speak up and demand righteousness in government, in community, and in our nation. We are not called to complain on the side about how helpless people have made us. We are called to be a solution. Instead of complaining about how schools are teaching your children, you should be a member, even a leader, in the PTA. Why are you not running for the school board. Instead of complaining about ICE, why are you not a federal judge who took your law school experience and fought to protect the community? Why are you not a district attorney or police officer? Complaining about it is not the solution. 

     

    Even Christ, the meekest of us all, turned over the tables of the money changers when it was clear that these men were cheating the community. Why have you not done what Christ commands? Whatever this means to you— student government, PTA, city government, county government, police department, military, school board, or even in your church— are you part of your church administration, helping your pastor move your church forward? Christianity is radical. Blessed people are activists. Engage your community and be the light of the world. 

     

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I endeavor to post regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center this Sunday at our new home. That’s right, we have moved into our own building. Join me at IHP. We now meet at 11 Woods Place, (formerly Johnsons Place) in Brooklyn, NY. Join us at 10 a.m. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

     

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

     

     

  • To Every Thing There is a Season

    To Every Thing There is a Season

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I would like to encourage you from Ecclesiastes.

    “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:”

    (Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV)

    I presently find myself an administrator in academia. For academia, May-June signals the end of a season. Graduation/Commencement ceremonies have concluded. Graduates are looking forward to college or graduate school. Some may be looking forward to entering the workplace. Whatever the situation, I want to encourage you to celebrate all that you have accomplished this year. You planned well, and you executed those plans. We have lost friends and family, but we have also gained new ones. We should be both commended and encouraged.

    Remember, to everything there is a season. Seasons can be distinct or congruent; they can differ in time or occur simultaneously. With that in mind, recognizing the season you are in is crucial, as it allows you to let go and move forward. The worst thing you can do is practice old ideas in a new season. It is problematic to head north with a southward mentality. For us, June marks the end of one season and the beginning of another.

    Take on the challenge and meet this new season with a determined mind, knowing that you will achieve, succeed, and do well. I decree that you will surpass even what you imagined you could accomplish.

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I endeavor to post regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center this Sunday. Join me at IHP. We meet at 2418 Church Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. We meet at the Goshen Seventh Day Adventist Church. Join us at 10 a.m. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

  • A Marker and Purpose

    A Marker and Purpose

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I would like to encourage you from the Gospel of Matthew, the fourth (4th) chapter.

    “Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,”

    (Matthew 4:12-14 KJV)

    Today, I would like to talk about the difference between a maker, and purpose. This is important because we can create huge problems when we mistake a maker for purpose and purpose for a marker. This marker in verse 12 identifies time, a point in time, not why Jesus moved. Verse twelve helps us understand context and not purpose. Purpose was not given to us until verse fourteen. In verse twelve we are told John was cast into prison, but this is not why Jesus left and went into Galilee. It tells when Jesus left. He went to dwelt in Capernaum. The reason he did this was given in verse 14. In the NIV, it is rendered “to fulfill what was said by the prophet Isaiah.”

    Sometimes we find ourselves focusing on the wrong things. If I am focusing on the maker, “John was cast into prison,” then that information alone is a cause for panic. If we think that Jesus moved on because of John’s predicament, we would base our actions on the perceived chaos. But after reading verse 14, I now focus not on the moment of verse 12, but the fact that even in my perceived chaos, there is a word. God operates to fulfill what was spoken. Because there is a word that really defines your circumstances, the momentary maker does not cause me to fly off the handle. I can look toward purpose when I know there is a word over my life. The momentary chaos does not define me or my actions. I can sing when it’s raining. I can strive in a famine. I can bring an umbrella to the desert where no rain is expected, because I have a word.

    God is not moved by what you see, or by what scares you in the moment. There is a word that defines your circumstance. Isaiah lived approximately seven hundred (700) years before Christ. Imagine that what you are going through now, God spoke a word about your situation, 700 years ago. You are tripping now because you just found out. God spoke over your situation several hundred years ago. Go after purpose. Go after what God has for you, not this current mundane worry that easily sets you off course. Trust in God’s word for your life and not a momentary maker that has nothing to do with God’s plan. Trust God Purpose for you. Know the difference between a marker and your purpose.

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I will be posting regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center, this Sunday. Join me at IHP. We meet at 2418 Church Avenue in Brooklyn NY. We meet at the Goshen Seventh Day Adventist Church. Join us at 10 AM. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

  • Seek the miracle in God’s Word

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I would like to encourage you from this text that I shared for Resurrection Sunday.

    Luke 24:5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

    This Resurrection Sunday, I preached from this text, and thank God, God truly met us at IHP. I thought it might be a good idea to re-emphasize a key point or two. The context of this pericope is that two women went to the grave to anoint Jesus’s dead body. This was a common tradition for people to go to the gravesite and bring herbs with which they would treat the body of their dead to delay as long as possible the inevitable process of decay. In so doing, it is and still is normal for these ladies to come to the grave site to engage in this activity. If we today felt the need to visit our loved one who has died, it is entirely reasonable to come to the grave site of our loved one. So, we should view their coming to the grave site as entirely normal except for the fact that Jesus is unique in that he had spoken a word concerning his situation.

    When God has spoken a word over our situation, normalcy no longer applies. We need to stop looking for the living among the dead. We need to stop expecting the miracle among the deadness of normalcy. We are so used to death that for us, there is nothing strange about deadness in our lives. So much so that we expect deadness, and when we do not experience it, we turn away from the miracle to comfort ourselves with the death we are used to. Many look for relationships at the gravesite because we cannot envision ourselves in the presence of a miraculous relationship. If we find someone who wants to get married, we would think them strange because we are used to the deadness of the “baby-daddy” paradigm. If you met someone willing to respect you, you would think of them as weak and find the “bad-boy” to commit you to a life of grief. We talk ourselves into the benefit of the dead-end job because the miracle of being a business owner is too much to imagine.

    Seek the living where the living are. Look for the miraculous and expect that as your new normal. Expect God’s best. Except perfect and without blemish, the way God gives. Expect the miracle to happen, just as God said it would. Don’t seek the living among the dead. Seek the miracle in God’s Word.

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I will be posting regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center, this Sunday. We meet at 2418 Church Avenue in Brooklyn NY. We meet at the Goshen Seventh Day Adventist Church. Join us at 10 AM. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

  • Please God

    Please God

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God our Father and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I want to encourage you as we consider seeking the Kingdom of God. Make it a point to “make the most of every opportunity.”

     

    Ephesians 5:16 (NLT):

    Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.

     With this imperative in mind, let’s reflect on this text as we pursue our goal. Consider also:

    Ephesians 5:10 (NLT):

    Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.

     The Apostle Paul teaches us, through his letter to the Ephesians, that we should consider what pleases God as the guiding paradigm for our lives. We are called to search the Scriptures and engage in prayer and fasting to gain clarity on what “pleases God.” The nuance in the NLT version urges us to “carefully determine” what pleases Him. Make it a point to understand fully—leave nothing out, and do not simply trust others, especially if they have no relationship with God.

    It is possible that what pleases the Lord in your life may differ from what pleases Him in the life of your brother or sister. Whatever you discover, pursue it diligently. Pleasing God requires faith (Hebrews 11:6). Pleasing God means believing His word and putting it into practice. Remember, faith in God and in His word is not blind faith—God has always been faithful to us, and His word has always proven true. Trust God, believe God, and do what pleases Him. I want to please God—do you?

    Remember, your orthopraxy is informed by your orthodoxy. In other words, what you do is shaped by what you believe. You will please God because you believe there is a benefit to doing what God wants and doing it His way. Please God!

     Once again, I invite you to subscribe to the blog. I will be posting regularly, with a new entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

     Also, remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center.

     This Sunday is Resurrection Sunday—arguably the holiest day of the year. Make this your opportunity to connect with God in a real way. Don’t go it alone. Join me at IHP! We meet at 2418 Church Avenue in Brooklyn, NY, at the Goshen Seventh Day Adventist Church. Our service begins at 10 AM. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

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    Yours, because I am His,  

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.  

    In His Presence Family Worship Center  

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

  • Loose Him. The project for a disciple.

    Loose Him. The project for a disciple.

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I would like to encourage you from this text that speaks to our duty to be engaged in our community and seek to be a positive agent of change in our community. 

    Luke 19:30 Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. KJV

     This is the most holy season for the Christian believer. This Sunday, we celebrate Palm Sunday. It is the Sunday before Resurrection Sunday, what many people refer to as Easter Sunday. 

    It means we are coming to the close of Lent and celebrating on Palm Sunday the Triumphant Entry, and on the Friday after that, Good Friday, and ultimately, next Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate the fact that Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again, in a unique victory of the sin that has until then ruled our very existence.  

    It is in that vain that I look at this text, as we celebrate the doings of our God. In this text, we read this fascinating text that precedes Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. This text teaches us so much, even about our contemporary context. It is an opportunity to examine so much, but today I am fascinated by what Jesus says to his disciples. Before he achieves the purpose for which he came, he passes through two towns. In the Lukan corpus, the writer tells us in Luke 19:29 that he passes between Bethphage and Bethany. The meaning of that is very telling, but for brevity, I dare go down that road. Jesus in the text tells two of his disciples to go into a village and lose a donkey and its colt. The donkey and what the donkey gave birth to, its colt. 

    Jesus tells them to bring a specific donkey. I would imagine that there are many donkeys in a given town as they were useful animals. Donkeys were primarily used to carry heavy loads from one place to another. In this text, Jesus made a point of saying to his disciples find the donkey that no one has ever sat on. One that has never been used in the capacity that it was born for. Get the donkey that has never achieved any meaningful achievements in its life. Find the one that has been prevented from success. The one that has been summarily oppressed, suppressed, prevented from doing what it was born to do, and bring that donkey to me. 

     The first question I have when reading this text is: as future ministers of the Gospel, were they expected to recognize oppression? Are those who are disciples of Christ somehow meant to recognize the cruelty of men and sent to do something about it? Is it common for a disciple of Jesus to be confronted with this status quo, and it be expected of the believer to not only recognize, but to engage that oppressed person by doing his or her level best to free one from oppression, without the approbation of the “owner” of the donkey? They have no authority from those committing the oppression, but they do have a directive from the God who created even the oppressor. Loose him and bring him. 

     I do not, as a disciple, need to function within the confines of oppressive paradigms, but I am called to recognize oppression and confront it, loose and bring that oppressed person to Jesus. Knowing that doing so will cause consternation in the community of those who are comfortable with that oppression. I cannot get my clue from those who are comfortable tying up those for their convenience. I am committed to loosing those tied up by society. As a disciple, I am countercultural, not compliant with the notion that certain people should be tied to what makes me comfortable. I am called to loose them and bring them to Jesus. Do you confront oppression as a disciple? Do you engage in your community to ensure that opportunity is afforded to everyone, no matter who they are? I would say to you, we should loose them and bring them to Jesus. 

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I will be posting regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I would like to extend a special invitation to join us at In His Presence Family Worship Center, this Sunday. This Sunday the title of my sermon, The Prophetic Utterance of the Donkey. Join me at IHP. W meet at 2418 Church Avenue in Brooklyn NY. We meet at the Goshen Seventh Day Adventist Church. Join us at 10 AM. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

     

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org

     

     

  • Kep Your Focus on Your Purpose

    Kep Your Focus on Your Purpose

     

    Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God our Father and Jesus Christ. Welcome to my blog! I hope the thoughts you find here will encourage you and inspire you to diligently seek God’s Kingdom. Today, I want to continue reflecting on our foundational verse for this year, 2025. I desire to seek God’s Kingdom first and His righteousness so that all these things will be added to me. This week, let’s look again at Matthew 13 for more insight. 

    Matt. 13:27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? KJV

    I believe that any comment received without perspective leads to ruin. Often, people who are not owners of your purpose, who have no skin in the game, so to speak, will often have the wrong perspective about your purpose and context. Be careful whom you allow to define your progress. Be careful whom you allow to influence your perspective. The way you frame a thing depends greatly on whose purpose you are living by, and what word you establish your purpose on.

    This verse shows how people who have nothing invested in your purpose will question the value of your seed based on the weeds they now see. In verse 24, which is as much scripture as verse 27 is, it is clear that the man who sowed seed in his field sowed “good seed.” But people who are servants, not co-laborers, not invested in your seed, not part owners of your field, somehow have the audacity to question the value of your seed.

    Your seed is what God says it is. Your value is what God says it is. Because some “servant” does not recognize that you can have good seed, does not mean you should question your seed. They are focused on your enemies’ result and not your purpose. In verse 26, the scriptures said that blades began to sprout and brought forth fruit. So the intention of the seed is working, but servants will only focus on the intention of your enemies.

    Keep your focus on your purpose. Your seed is still good. God is not deterred by the actions of your enemy, and neither should you be. Keep moving forward. Keep expecting a harvest. Keep believing what God said to you, in spite of the evidence of tares. Tares do not define you; they define what your enemy wants for you. Hang in there. Believe God for your purpose and keep moving forward.

    Again, I would like to invite you to subscribe to the blog. I will be posting regularly, with an entry every Tuesday. You can subscribe at the bottom of this page.

    Remember to invite someone to church with you this Sunday. I look forward to seeing you there. Seek God’s Kingdom first.

    Yours Because I am His,

    Leo Colon, D.Min., M.Div.,

    In His Presence Family Worship Center

    http://www.ihpfwc.org