Hi, remember me….. Yeah it’s been a while, but life! Lets just start by thanking God and giving Him all the glory for the fact that I am still here and able to come back with another post! This world has gotten a little crazier since I last posted and I have been paying attention to it all! Whether it’s celebrity antics or the war currently taking place, there is a lot happening right now. Firstly I wanna acknowledge and send prayers to those that have lost their lives, and those who don’t know whether tomorrow will come in the Ukraine. Without wanting to feel like I am jumping on another hashtag bandwagon, it’s important to acknowledge that there have been plenty of conflicts and war, this one right now seems to be getting more traction in news and media. So my prayer is not only for the people of the Ukraine, but for all the voiceless and faceless all over the world who have been victims of tyrants, who have lost so much and become displaced, for all refugees!
For the last few weeks this topic has been heavy on my heart, the issue of cancel culture amongst Christians. I have started to think that maybe we were the originators of this cancel culture we see today! That might seem extreme to say but think about it! For as long as I can remember; and this is before I knew the Lord, when I thought of Religion I always equated it to judgement and condemnation, which is the opposite of what Christianity is supposed to be! I remember I was never alone in that thinking, it seemed that was the general assumption amongst non believers. How sad is that!? But why did “we” believe that?? It’s how Christians conducted themselves, it’s how the Church would quickly turn their backs on you if you somehow didn’t meet the standards they had placed on your life. It had nothing to do with Christ but had everything to do with man’s opinion of right and wrong! Sad to say I am seeing the same thing today. What I am noticing today, and to be honest its always been this way, but there are too many Religious people and not enough Christians. Let me explain what I have worked out in my short time on this walk with Christ. When I started to get to know the Lord, I mean really get to know Him through bible study, I saw the difference of what it meant to be Religious and what it meant to be a Christian. In the bible, the Religious leaders in the time of Jesus (the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Scribes) were what Religion looked like, to be fair it still looks the same in present day. But these Religious leaders would look holy and devout from outside appearances because of the “works” they did and the laws they followed. But when you looked inside of their hearts, their hearts were hardened, they were self indulgent, full of greed and worldly desires. They looked down on others that didn’t meet their standards, standards passed on through tradition. They ignored the important issues that God required from them and focused on minute details that had nothing to do with Gods word.
Jesus said this in the sermon on the mount ” DO NOT THINK THAT I HAVE COME TO ABOLISH THE LAW OR THE PROPHETS; I HAVE NOT COME TO ABOLISH THEM BUT TO FULFILL THEM.” MATTHEW 5:18. He came to build upon what was already established, so that we were no longer legalistic, so that we would have a deeper understanding of who God was through Christ, so that we could be in relationship with God through His Son. Jesus came not only to teach God’s word, but to be a doer of God’s word, something the Religious leaders had not grasped. That to me is what makes a Christian. We are to know God’s word and apply it to our daily lives. So the question I pose to you is this, are you Religious? or are you a Christian?
Now I don’t know how much of social media you intake, but I find it interesting watching from the side-lines. Before Christ I was heavily influenced by culture, social media was my bible. Now it makes me cringe when I see what used to move me, when I would agree with people online thinking they were wise and speaking truth. Now that I see God’s truth is the ONLY truth that matters because it is everlasting, it is clear to me what it really means to be a new creation. Which leads me onto what triggered this whole think tank….Kanye West! Whether you who reads this blog even knows who Kanye West is, is irrelevant. What you need to know is that he is a very big celebrity who publicly converted to following Christ a couple of years back (don’t quote me on time of conversion) What I know about him was that he was brought up to know God thanks to his mother who sadly passed away in the prime of his career. Being a big part of rap culture today, it was a shock to see him really give his art over to serving the Lord. His new Christian music and the Sunday Service Choir brought a lot of celebrities to Sunday service which was basically a praise and worship service that he put together. I remember reading an article that said he had held a concert and over a thousand attendees gave their lives to Christ that night! You can not deny that God was working through him. When he was doing all of this work for the kingdom he was met with apprehension from fellow Christians, he wasn’t trusted by Christians, they questioned his authenticity, some thinking he was just using it to make money and it was fake news. I did understand the doubt over whether he was being genuine but in the end I decided it was none of my business and I would leave the heart issue to God to judge, remembering Jesus when he said I would know His people by their fruit. Fast forward to present day, where Kanye is going through a messy public divorce with his equally famous wife. As a celebrity nothing is private as you know so its been sad to watch the mental decline of Kanye West on social media. His now ex wife is dating another public figure and Kanye who didn’t want to divorce in the first place is now using his art to incite violence towards the new guy. It’s all very messy like I said, but what makes it even more messy is that the Church is watching and judging and the the world is watching the Church!
Watching the critique from fellow brothers and sisters has been shocking! I have been really disappointed in the lack of grace shown, I expected that from the worldly not from Christians! What’s even more damaging is watching the rest of the world react to us Christians reacting to Kanye. Imagine when you first came to Christ, remember what the beginning of your journey was like, how easily you would fall from grace. Now imagine that whole journey being documented for the whole world to see! for everyone to have an opinion and have a say about who you are and the state of your heart for Christ even though they don’t know you! We have all been Kanye, but the difference is we had our privacy!
I know in the bible it says we should pull our brothers and sisters to the side for correction, and I know that is what some will think they are doing, but let me be the one to tell you that, that is not what you are doing. What I see is public judgment and condemnation. The very thing that used to turn me off from Religion. That is not how we win souls! To be a Christian means to be like Christ, so stop being a religious Pharisee! MATTHEW 7:1-5 “DO NOT JUDGE, OR YOU TOO WILL BE JUDGED. FOR IN THE SAME WAY YOU JUDGE OTHERS, YOU WILL BE JUDGED, AND WITH THE MEASURE YOU USE, IT WILL BE MEASURED TO YOU. WHY DO YOU LOOK AT THE SPECK OF SAWDUST IN YOUR BROTHERS EYE AND PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE PLANK IN YOUR OWN EYE? HOW CAN YOU SAY TO YOUR BROTHER, ‘LET ME TAKE THE SPECK OUT OF YOUR EYE’, WHEN ALL THE TIME THERE IS A PLANK IN YOUR OWN EYE? YOU HYPORCRITE, FIRST TAKE THE PLANK OUT OF YOUR OWN EYE, AND THEN YOU WILL SEE CLEARLY TO REMOVE THE SPECK FROM YOUR BROTHER’S EYE.” I know we are all familiar with the phrase “Only God can judge me” now you see where it was born. Usually people stop at the part of the scripture where it says do not judge, but that is what we call cherry picking, when you take scripture out of context to push forward your own agenda. When we Christians are wagging our fingers and turning our backs on our brothers and sisters lets remember this teaching. You will be judged with the same measure you use to judge the Kanye’s of the world, so before you start looking at the faults of others, look at yourself first. Are you faultless, are you without sin? We already know that as Christians the answer is NO! So when you are dishing out that judgement make sure you dish it with a side of grace. As you see from the scripture it doesn’t say we shouldn’t judge our brothers and sisters, but it says before we do anything, before we can bring correction, lets address the faults in our life first, so we can be a better help to our brothers and sisters. Our plank is much more serious than the speck of dust in our brothers eye!
We have to be careful not to cause harm to the body, the Church. God will use whoever He choses, even the unsaved to bring forth His Kingdom agenda. Remember Satan can not cast out Satan! We are all so weary of being led astray by false teachers, as we should be, but we are too quick to call everyone false, quick to cancel! Let’s remember that we are all human, and the struggle on this walk is the same for all, it just looks different for others. Satan knows what to use against us, and when we turn away from him and turn to Jesus, he hates it and sends everything our way to bring us back to him. We know what that was like in the beginning when we were weak, to be honest it something that never stops, it just gets easier to deal with as our faith increases! Leave the matters of the heart to God, no one can deceive our Father, He knows all, He see’s all! MATTHEW 7:22-23 “MANY WILL SAY TO ME ON THAT DAY ‘LORD, LORD, DID WE NOT PROPHESY IN YOUR NAME AND IN YOUR NAME DRIVE OUT DEMONS AND IN YOUR NAME PERFORM MIRACLES?’ THEN I WILL TELL THEM PLAINLY, ‘I NEVER KNEW YOU. AWAY FROM ME, YOU EVILDOERS!” Let’s remember to extend love to our struggling brothers and sisters, lets remember in the same way we struggle and our Father loves us and gives us grace lets do the same for the Kanye’s of the world. But most of all lets not forget Christians, THE WORLD IS WATCHING!
MY CONVICTIONS 