For the Love of Afros

Somewhere in the middle of a pandemic, it dawned on us. We love afros. For many years people with kinky hair have been buying into the LIE that the natural ratio of dry to oily, meeting in just the right places and creating a work of art on a human head; is something to spend time, money, energy and stress on in order to cover it up, straighten it out, secure it by braiding or just cover the whole thing with a wig. LIE! Afros are incredible feats of aerodynamic impossibilities. So besides those reasons, why do we love Afros so much? Because an Afro is a visual spectacular of what it means to throw all of the rules out. Just let it go and let it grow, crowning the human head like a kingdom standard.

We speak a lot about shedding the logical human ways of doing things and opting instead to live according to biblical standards (the standards that Jesus died for, so we are able to do so); when we talk about these logical ways, we are talking about methods and thought processes. We are not referring to the ways in which some things just come naturally (like natural beauty or that natural talent). Because the TRUTH is that there IS a natural order to things, as well as a supernatural. One of the greatest examples of this is found when Jesus was a little kid and He ended up a lost child, mom and dad were searching for Him for a few days and when they found Him (we know the line) He told them that He must be about His Father's business; but prior to this, we see His supernatural instincts taking over, naturally; which compelled Him to seek out the temple.

Luke 2:43-47 (NIV)

"After the festival was over, while His parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking He was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find Him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers."

He was at the temple for three days! All parents reading this are cringing at the thought of not knowing where their twelve year child is for such a long period of time. But see, even Jesus was naturally drawn to the temple because of His need to get busy on a spiritual level (as well as a supernatural level). And wouldn't you know it, WE have the same draw that comes naturally to us as well.

One of the biggest and most effective LIES that we have been misled to believe is that the things of God are difficult, complicated or out of our reach. The TRUTH of the Kingdom is that God has been reigning over the universe eternally, as well as over our planet and every single thing that is on our planet ever since He made it. God has simplified all things for OUR sake (not His), and as is the case with all that God does on our behalf, we go through a phase of mind blowing disbelief that anything so incredible could actually BE THE TRUTH; so we choose the complicated version of who God is instead. Where it gets complicated is in the place where we humans reject God as our King, our Ruler and our final Authority. But even those complications are too simple, because effectively what we have done by rejecting God and His oversight of our lives, is make the way for the enemy to corrupt everything THAT MUCH EASIER. We are doing his job for him when we get involved with our natural strategies and methodologies and ways of solving problems, instead of taking the situations in our lives and placing them within the realm of faith (within the Kingdom of Heaven).

See, Jesus as a boy and Jesus as a man had two VERY different experiences at the temple. In those days the closest thing to the representation of the Kingdom of God on earth was the ancient temple of God within the palace complex. As a boy He followed His spiritual instincts to hang out in the presence of His Father; as a Man He did the same. It would seem that the difference between the two experiences are obvious. As a boy He dominated the temple with His teachings and understanding and as a man He dominated the temple by turning over tables and rebuking; actually we find, great similarities.

Luke 17:20(b)-21 (NASB)

"...The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' for behold, the Kingdom of God is in your midst."

Look, let's get one thing clear, the Kingdom of God has existed forever, the Kingdom of heaven coming down to the earth was established by the presence of Jesus here. This has everything to do with changing, altering, fixing and restoring humans and everything else that is broken on the earth (all the way to present day). As a boy, Jesus put Himself into the midst of the temple; as a man He put the temple into the midst of His Father's Kingdom. Did we catch that?

Luke 7:6-10 (NASB)

"Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, "Lord do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to the one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it." Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, "I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith." When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health."

This particular miracle that Jesus performed is a masterpiece in the art of placing things into the Kingdom of Heaven (while still here on the earth). The centurion had a few things right instinctively that to him (a soldier) came naturally. It made perfect sense to him. He did the same thing Jesus did when He cleared the temple courtyard; He brought the unjust LIES into the realm of faith. This soldier, under the Roman kingdom, recognized that Jesus operated the same way under His Fathers kingdom. The Kingdom of heaven is literally "the Kingdom of the Heavens upon the earth." So long as Jesus was walking on the earth, and as long as His Followers are walking the earth, we are to continue to do the same as Him. We are to establish the Kingdom of heaven here and now on earth by taking every situation, circumstance and personal challenge and placing these UNDER the principles and RULE of our Father's Kingdom (Daniel 7:27).

God created a built in (as it were) "magnetic pull" within the human heart. This has been specifically designed to draw us into His simple, uncomplicated, powerful and unstoppable way of living as an active member of His Kingdom. So how do we activate this magnet? Hebrews 11:1-11 says it all from Enoch to Noah to Abraham and Sarah. Faith is our access point into the Kingdom of heaven, because faith has NOTHING TO DO with the ways of the world and everything to do with the ways of God. The outrageous thing about many of our legends of faith (from Hebrews 11) is that they wound up putting their situations into the realm of faith, but only after they tried to pull faith into their situation, spoiler alert: things didn't go so well for them when they did this. Some people think that all we need to do is wave the magic faith wand and everything changes, when actually by applying the principles of the Kingdom of heaven by faith we submit our situation under the rule of our Father; we act accordingly and we get results.

Although we have absolutely no way of proving that Abraham had an Afro, we can imagine that if he had tight curls and zero hair products, he most likely would have let his follicles grow and flow in the hot desert air. He strikes us as being someone who was low maintenance and equally stylish, naturally. Here's the REAL deal, wherever our earthly/spiritual authority reaches (family, property, health, finances, workspace, possessions, animals, etc.) we HAVE THE RIGHT to place all of these things inside of the Kingdom of heaven. Why? Because inside of God's Kingdom, God's rules apply; not the rules of logic. Kind of like our favorite hairdo, the Afro.