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“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” —General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865

When Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued the above order, he had no idea that, in establishing the Union Army’s authority over the people of Texas, he was also establishing the basis for a holiday, “Juneteenth” (“June” plus “nineteenth”), today the most popular annual celebration of emancipation from slavery in the United States. After all, by the time Granger assumed command of the Department of Texas, the Confederate capital in Richmond had fallen; the “Executive” to whom he referred, President Lincoln, was dead; and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was well on its way to ratification.

But Granger wasn’t just a few months late. The Emancipation Proclamation itself, ending slavery in the Confederacy (at least on paper), had taken effect two-and-a-half years before, and in the interim, close to 200,000 black men had enlisted in the fight. So, formalities aside, wasn’t it all over, literally, but the shouting?

It would be easy to think so in our world of immediate communication, but as Granger and the 1,800 bluecoats under him soon found out, news traveled slowly in Texas. Whatever Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered in Virginia, the Army of the Trans-Mississippi had held out until late May, and even with its formal surrender on June 2, a number of ex-rebels in the region took to bushwhacking and plunder.

That’s not all that plagued the extreme western edge of the former Confederate states. Since the capture of New Orleans in 1862, slave owners in Mississippi, Louisiana and other points east had been migrating to Texas to escape the Union Army’s reach. In a hurried re-enactment of the original Middle Passage, more than 150,000 slaves had made the trek west, according to historian Leon Litwack in his book Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. As one former slave he quotes recalled, ” ‘It looked like everybody in the world was going to Texas.’ ”

When Texas fell and Granger dispatched his now famous order No. 3, it wasn’t exactly instant magic for most of the Lone Star State’s 250,000 slaves. On plantations, masters had to decide when and how to announce the news — or wait for a government agent to arrive — and it was not uncommon for them to delay until after the harvest. Even in Galveston city, the ex-Confederate mayor flouted the Army by forcing the freed people back to work, as historian Elizabeth Hayes Turner details in her comprehensive essay, “Juneteenth: Emancipation and Memory,” in Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas.

Those who acted on the news did so at their peril. As quoted in Litwack’s book, former slave Susan Merritt recalled, ” ‘You could see lots of niggers hangin’ to trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom, ’cause they cotch ’em swimmin’ ‘cross Sabine River and shoot ’em.’ ” In one extreme case, according to Hayes Turner, a former slave named Katie Darling continued working for her mistress another six years (She ” ‘whip me after the war jist like she did ‘fore,’ ” Darling said).

Hardly the recipe for a celebration — which is what makes the story of Juneteenth all the more remarkable. Defying confusion and delay, terror and violence, the newly “freed” black men and women of Texas, with the aid of the Freedmen’s Bureau (itself delayed from arriving until September 1865), now had a date to rally around. In one of the most inspiring grassroots efforts of the post-Civil War period, they transformed June 19 from a day of unheeded military orders into their own annual rite, “Juneteenth,” beginning one year later in 1866.

” ‘The way it was explained to me,’ ” one heir to the tradition is quoted in Hayes Turner’s essay, ” ‘the 19th of June wasn’t the exact day the Negro was freed. But that’s the day they told them that they was free … And my daddy told me that they whooped and hollered and bored holes in trees with augers and stopped it up with [gun] powder and light and that would be their blast for the celebration.’ ”

Now if you made it this far a reminder that God wants us all to be free to choose Him and life in Eternity. Jesus bridged the divide for us and it was and is immediate. Once you accept God as your Savior, you are no longer bound but, free.

Accept His love, grace and, peace today. Come and fellowship with other believers. You need us and we need you.

Be blessed,

Pastor Gregory Cheeks

There was a man, like any man that did not want to pay others to do work on his home after a storm. He said I can do it myself. It will not take that long . Any of you ever feel that way? Of course, you have. So he went on the roof and trying to clean off the limbs  and the leaves . But, it was harder than he thought and it took longer than he expected. He got hot, tired and, dizzy. and he lost his footing. So, as he is falling ,he is able to catch the gutter with one hand.

As he looks down and sees how far it is to the ground he does a smart thing and he looks up. He says to the heavens, My God can you help me? So, then the clouds parted and the voice of God answers and says, I am here my child just let go.

The man looks down and then looks up again and says, Is there anybody else up there that can help me?

Now, we can all laugh it up at his foolishness but, we all are guilty of the same thing. Saying we believe but, believing half-heartedly. We sing, “Take Your burdens to the Lord and leave them there” at church. We go to the altar and pray for all the issues in our life and then, pick  them up and take them back with us.

Try these 3 Steps and watch your FAITH increase.

1.Keep Looking Up to GOD (PSALM 121)

2.Let Go and Let GOD (Hebrews 12:1-2 )

3.Take A LEAP of FAITH.-GOD will never leave you or forsake you. If GOD says LEAP -JUMP TO IT.

I John 3:11-18

The old folks used to say, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”

vs.16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

vs. 17 For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

vs.  18 He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Point 1: Christian love is always in keeping with His word and the commandments he left us.

Point 2: Christian love is always in mission/movement vs. 17 (If you have all of this worlds richest and see your brother in need and don’t lend a hand then, that is not love.

Point 3: Christian Love is always a response to God’s love for us. vs. 18 Not to love in words but, in action and in deed for by this will all men know that we are Christ’s disciples by our love for our fellow man.

Love in action is what really counts!

We preach truth with compassion and love.