Ain’t Got No Respect

Over in Acts 10:33, the Apostle Peter makes an interesting comment. He says:

“Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons” Acts 10:33 (KJV)

In the deliverance ministry, I have the privilege of working with all kinds of people. Most of the time these are new-found friends. I work with the young and the old, males and females, educated and uneducated, and those with a wide variety of religious traditions including Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Charismatics, non-denominational, and even some miscellaneous. I get to work with different ethnic and racial groups, and the rich and the poor. I am privileged to work with God’s kids, regardless of their stripe or color.

Recently I found myself out west working with a significant group of new friends. These families were primarily professional people. They lived well, had good-paying jobs, were well educated, and most were white. One of them, however, had had a very rough life. She was poor, a minority had experienced a lot of violence, and had simply not been loved by many people. She lived on a day by day basis and struggled just to get by. I was amazed and impressed by her resilience. She was determined to make it in spite of all the pain in her life. Fortunately, today she has a lot less pain because her Heavenly Father reached out to her and touched her.

In the midst of the process of seeing her set free, we mentioned that we had seen a particular demon in another one of the individuals with whom we had worked. She said, “I didn’t think rich white people had demons.” Apparently, God is not the only one who isn’t a respecter of persons.

The enemy has as his primary goal the destruction of everything that God loves. He seeks to destroy children, individuals, couples, marriages, nations, the environment, in short, everything that God has said was good. He doesn’t care what our income level is, how much education we have, or how much we love the Lord. If God loves it, the enemy wants to destroy it. We each have a target painted on our backs.

Neither God nor the enemy is a respecter of persons. Yet we are. We allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking, as this tormented woman did, that demons don’t bother rich white folks. The enemy goes after those who are unlike us; those who do drugs, those who are promiscuous, those who live in poverty and are surrounded by violence, those who aren’t educated, those who aren’t white, those who weren’t blessed with being raised in Christian homes. Yet we, because we are deluded, are as vulnerable as those who have suffered much more than we have because we believe that the driving force behind many of our problems isn’t demonic, in fact, can’t be demonic, because we aren’t “one of them.” We are good “church-going” people. Well, I am one of those who needed deliverance. If you are getting this newsletter, chances are that you are also “one of them.” We have experienced God’s unmerited favor and have been set free. That’s something that we need to share with others who are like us; in need of God’s touch. We have much for which to be thankful.