Once upon a time there was a king named Hezekiah, he was king of Judah. One day the king of Assyria decided to invade Judah so he sent one of his messengers to flex on Hezekiah and his boys. “Look at how many nations Assyria has conquered. Look at how many we’ve crushed! All of them cried out to their gods to save them and we still annihilated them! What makes you think your God is gonna save you? You’re fooling yourselves and we’re gonna come for you” (Isaiah 37:10-13)

Sometimes I feel like the devil is tryna flex on me. He speaks doubt and discouragement into my ear, “Look at the chaos I’ve brought to this earth. Look at my power. I’ve murdered families with sexual immorality and devastated lives with idolatry. What makes you think your God whom you’ve never even seen is gonna protect you? I’m gonna get you with one of these temptations just watch.”

Hezekiah’s response in the face of his enemies was perfect; he immediately went to the house of the Lord and expressed his dependence on God through prayer. We can all learn from his actions. I’ve adopted and modified his prayer for myself:

“Father you alone sit enthroned above the earth, you are God alone over everything. Lord the devil mocks You saying You can’t protect me and keep me, and its true Lord he has spiritually slain many, but they weren’t depending on You Father so they were destroyed. But Lord I depend on you, protect and keep me Father so that all can see that you alone are God.” (Isaiah 37:16-20)

The night before the Assyrians prepared to invade Judah an “..angel of the Lord went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians” (Isaiah 37:36)

Depend on Him alone. Call on His name immediately. And smile as you picture Him sending his angels to slay the enemy’s workers. Then feel free to place your hands on the back of you head extending your elbows, swaying from side to side as you sing to the devil, “My Jesus hit you with tha flex, hit you with the flex!” Repeat process if necessary.

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RADIO RECONCILE, EPIDSODE 3 (Identity Crisis)

Episode 3 Below

Radio Reconcile

Radio Reconcile

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“Nobody’s Perfect”

We say this…a lot. And we should, as it’s true (mostly, but we’ll get to that later). We all know that each of us fall short of a standard we know we should be reaching. We mess/goof/[insert word] up everyday. But we reconcile our shortcomings with the statement “nobody’s perfect” and we somehow work ourselves to sleep for the night and repeat this imperfect process over and over….and (you guessed it) over again. We know we aren’t perfect, and consider that if we were to die, God will accept us because, well… “nobody’s perfect” right?

This is the Problem

The problem with this is that…God is Holy. Consider a white wedding dress ladies, or for the fellas a pair of those all white air forces. Would you still wear that dress or those forces if there was a small red spot on them? I’m going to guess not. Well in God’s economy, we’re those spots, but we aren’t small, we’re huge blots on God’s all whites of righteousness , so God really wants nothing to do with us. Let me park under the Christmas tree, sit down, and “unpack” it like this:

The fact that you are not perfect does not excuse the fact that God demands perfection to be in relationship with Him.

Do you see the problem? You’re not perfect, but the One true God demands perfection to be in relationship with Him. On your best day, God considers your good (avoiding “big sins” , praying, church attendance, helping at the old folks home) to be blackened bloody maxi-pads (Isaiah 64:6). You disgust a Holy God. So, it would seem as if…well…

You’re Screwed.

What is the answer? Well…it’s almost true that nobody’s perfect. There’s an exception to that  statement though-Jesus Christ.

He literally breathed perfection, not a stain on Him…ever, anywhere. And honestly, what does that have to do with you? He lived this perfect life, not you. But wait- He lived this perfect life on Earth…. for you, then died for…well you, if you believe in Him. Upon turning away from your old life and belief in Jesus, God takes the perfect life that His Son Jesus lived and gives it to you. Jesus takes your sin, and you take His perfection [2 Corinthians 5:21] so now in the eyes of a God that demands perfection, your are perfect.

Your life is now a lifestyle of being perfected and walking in that perfection, while being positionally perfect in God’s judicial system. It’s an amazing thing. All you have to do is repent and believe in Jesus.

Will you repent and believe in Jesus?

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baptism; the outward symbol of the commitment made in your heart. an outward demonstration of an inward transformation. the dip of death into the rise of renewal.

baptism is not the washing away of sins. baptism is not a representation of being saved. baptism is a personal commitment in your heart made with Jesus Christ presented publicly. committing your every word, every breath, and every action to Him. no longer living and walking in the old skin you were physically born into; but now the new skin that you are spiritually given and re-born into.

the baptism of our brother, oshioke odior, was refreshingly amazing.  it reminded me and brought me back to the day i was baptized and the power i felt come over me after being submerged into His holy water and risen into His holy presence.

this symbolizes New Life.  eyes seeing a whole new world through Gods immaculate Words.  liberation is stirred into the water and after rising, freedom rings.

the journey may be long and it may be challenging … but this time around, He will order your steps according to His will for you.  your life is in His hands.

thank You, God, for allowing us to participate in this act of worship and glorification of You.

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Silence is one of my greatest fears.

As I give you a peek into my soul please allow my sacrifice to be your gain.

I have been pondering on ‘why do I open my mouth?’  lately. My conclusion was that I am afraid of silence.

I yearn to be wanted and to be heard to avoid the idea of being alone to my thoughts. When caught in my thoughts my soul becomes chaotic. Anxiety attacks, tears through the night, and thoughts of wanting to see Jesus bombard my mind…with no remedy in sight.

but, God.

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God; And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Paul of Tarsus, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Is Paul asking the impossible? How is it possible to be anxious about nothing? Was Jesus not anxious in the Garden of Gethsemane?

When Jesus was in the garden He sweat blood out of deep anxiety. Seemingly, Jesus did not want to be alone to His thoughts either; He just wanted His disciples to stay up with Him and pray. Jesus’ remedy for His anxiety was prayer. Jesus talked to His Father in a manner most Christians are afraid to…“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Similar to Jesus, I felt as though I had no friends in sight to help me in my desperate time of need. Nothing ever felt so real, yet no one was there to help me. Even when I called on friends, my request was the same as Jesus’…“My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” All I wanted was a friend to be with me … but sometimes you are destined to suffer alone.

The remedy Jesus uses and the one Paul offers is prayer. Although Jesus was alone, He realized that His Daddy loved Him. Jesus knew the agony He was to feel on the cross the next day from the righteous wrath of the Father…but God loves Him. The sins of the world were to be placed on  Jesus’ back, and God was going to pour out His wrath: This wrath was stored up from an eternity of anger against mankind…but His Father will love Him.

It does not make any sense how Jesus was brutally beaten yet never made a sound, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. Jesus knew what awaited Him, but the peace of the Father was with Him.

Sometimes we make anxiety and silence into gods and allow them to determine our beliefs; your god determines your belief. Paul did not ask the impossible because he and Jesus went through hell but yet and still could say, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

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So, I have a story:

On my daily excursion to a University of Houston Cafeteria (go coogs), I saw a young devout man praying to….well for the intensive purposes of this blog we will say “his god.” As the picture shows, he had his head down, his rug laid out, and he was talking to allah for about 5 minutes.  I stood silent in the middle of the cafeteria with my mouth slightly agape.

May I Be Honest?

I was bothered.  I mean this person one minute is eating, then his timer goes off and he pulls out a mat in order to pray on it in front of everyone.  Afterwards, he gets up and gets on his cell phone…? I mean, come on! But then I felt #convicted. This is religion and make slaves of so many, and only by God’s grace am I free.

How is religion a slave master?

Religion is about doing things for the sake of being in good with your god, be it prayer, church attendance, avoidance of “big sins”, giving your time, money, talent…it is all a desperate, devout, serious and some times painful plea so that your god can say “well done my good and faithful servant.” There is no relationship, there is no love, there are simply rules that you do your damnedest to follow, so that you will not be damned.

So yeah, even though I know all of this, I did nothing. In my passive arrogance and hate took the picture, shrugged my shoulders and sat down and ate some food, probably some pork to spite this guy indirectly- I cannot remember (but I probably did).

What I Should Have Done

I should have told him there is a God (the true God) that is amazingly powerful. So powerful that He did the unthinkable, and  that  in that unthinkable power and love,  He sent Himself in flesh to live a perfect life for us to meet the standard of perfection that He Himself set long ago, before forever ago, by the simple nature of who He is. Not only did this God (the true God) do that, but also allowed Himself to be put under His own wrath for all the wrong that we have done so that we could escape punishment.

But wait, there is more: Remember that perfect life He lived? He gave it to those who turn away from their sin and believe in Him, so there is no more performance required because not only have you been forgiven, but you have also been given the righteous righteousness of GOD. So the good things you do are not out of fear or merit and demerit, but out of the love from the relationship you are now in, through Him.

*But remember, I did not say any of that, or anything like that.

I pray that I see him again, better yet I pray someone tells him about the True God. If I do seem him again, hopefully I will have the courage and love to tell him because this is truly Good News. I pray for those of you who know this Good News to tell folks about it. Also, I pray if you are in the same boat as those under religion that you see the God (again the true God) that loves you and sent Himself in flesh (#Jesus) to die so that you may not only live, but live more abundantly.

Grace. Peace.

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in this above video, we see rappers rapping extreme rhymes about, well, stupid things! dumb punchlines, animations, and “doing the most,” sum up the rapping!

#randomobservation it looks as if the rappers are located in a remote, “gangster,” area, as if they were on 8-mile road or something. these assumptions are shattered when the light comes on, and then reality sets in.

the rappers aren’t gangsters, in fact, they are in a spot that can easily be well-lit, but they chose to leave the light off. #message!

the rappers aren’t hard, in fact, they have wives, and they also have game nights in which they enjoy each other’s company over friendly board games such as scrabble.

in short, the rappers are “faking the funk.” #olschoolvernacular

according the urban dictionary, to fake the funk means “to act with a false ethos surrounding oneself in an attempt to win respect from a certain influential party.”

this is how i used to fake the funk. #thesearemyconfessions

i used to spit scriptures and lessons and worldly knowledge and worldy wisdom, all with dumb taglines. i used to force myself to act out these taglines, as if i were murda mook. i would go to maGoh’s fellowship/bible study, continuing to act out the “good boy” lifestlye (boy did i fail at that), and occasionally read all kinds of religious texts, all in effort to appear as if i were a “good person” and gain respect from “good people.”

then reality set in.

i was in a dark place in my life that could be well-lit, but i chose to dwell in that spot so that people wouldn’t see the true me.

#realization i wasn’t  a good person, in fact, i was, as charles barkley would put it, “terrible.” i was promoting wrong, doing wrong, and just flat out in the wrong!

in short, i was faking the funk!

then reality hit me.

none are funky, not even one! #ouch the wages of deodarizing is death, but the free gift of God is eternal funk! how is eternal funk possible to attain? well, God demonstrated His love for us, yet while we were faking the funk, Christ died for us! what can we do to attain this? turn to God, the ultimate funk, and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and we will be saved!

Jesus hit me with that true funk! as cornel west would say, lay off the deodarant, and as my east coast fam always tell me when i go back “home,” keep it funky!

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Erykah Badu certainly stirred the pot with her window seat music video. If you haven’t seen it, Badu is seen stripping down to her birthday suit and then being shot in the head. Interestingly, the word groupthink bleeds out of her head. Groupthink is this campaign she’s launching which is aimed at highlighting one’s individuality and one’s own thoughts over what the ‘group’ thinks or what peers are thinking.

I watched an interview in which Badu explained the video’s concept. Stripping off her clothes was meant to symbolize letting go of emotional baggage. When Badu is seemingly shot in the head and falls to the ground, that part, in her words, was symbolic of the fact that she believes we are all born with groupthink inside of us and when we let what others think take over our lives, our individual character and personality die. I’m not mad at the message, but I don’t think groupthink is the issue that we need to address. I think the much bigger issue at hand is worldthink.

See every one of us is born with worldthink inside of us. it festers on the inside of us. Everything we do is driven by what the worldthinks. We strive to be go-getters because that’s what the worldthinks is success. We have sex, drink, smoke, gossip, and curse because that’s what the worldthinks is acceptable behavior. We strive to align ourselves with what the worldthinks.

But if we let worldthink run our lives, much like Badu at the end of her window seat music video, we will find ourselves dead. And not just physically dead, but spiritually dead. I’m talking separation from God … forever.

For every wrong act that you’ve done, Christ undeservingly paid the punishment for it on the cross. When you recognize how significant that act of love was and give yourself over to Him, accepting His gift of salvation, then you will find yourself wanting to walk Christ-like. You’ll long to reciprocate the love. You will find yourself striving to please Him. All you will want to care about is Christthink. What does Christthink? What would Christthink of my actions, words, my relationships?

See, for believers, we too need to be shot and laid out on the cold hard concrete, but only because we need to die to ourselves, murder our flesh, and lay off our old sinful worldthink-ing selves. We need to let worldthink bleed from our bodies and get it out of our system! In this we are letting our Lord know that we don’t want to be filled by the world which doesn’t satisfy, we want to be filled with Him.  

And after we die to ourselves, we aren’t just left lying there on the concrete. Through the power, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross we are able to rise up as new creatures, new beings that are Holy Spirit filled, belonging only to Him. We arise walking in His light, totally submerged in Christthink.

Badu says groupthink is a movement, but worldthink and Christhink are lifestyles.

Christthink leads to a love-love relationship and an eternity with the God of the universe…..where has worldthink gotten you?

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Cheating men, cheating women, open relationships, swingers, and more cheating – then, you get caught!

April 22nd at 6 pm, The City, a young adult ministry at Good Hope Baptist Church, will be bringing an open and honest forum to Texas Southern University.  There will be engaging dialogue via spoken word and popular video clips relative to the topic on why men and women cheat on their spouses.

If you thought Cheaters was a must see show, think again. Texas Southern University’s Cheaters Forum will be an episode you do not want to miss.

Here is a brief interview with Kenneth Brown, the man behind this event. This interview highlights the inspiration of the Cheaters Forum and many reasons why you do not want to miss out.

The City: Briefly, can you tell us about yourself?

Kenneth Brown: Sure. I have a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in transportation planning. I was born the 14th of September in 1982. I was recently and happily married to Dee Brown. I have recently received my certificate to be a pastor from Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church in October last year. I am a poet, too.

TC: What is Cheaters?

KB: Cheaters is an event that will focus on a societal issue. Cheating is popular in American culture and we will like to use it as a segue to introduce the gospel of Jesus Christ to students at Texas Southern University.

TC: What inspired this event?

KB: The inspiration was, I guess, the current and existing churches and bodies of Christ on the college campuses of Rice and the University of Houston. And doing similar events on those campuses created a unification of Gods people at that level of their life, at that point, and their progression in Christ. We want to link them up and create the unity on different campuses. Also, to get TSU involved and to present that unification to them as well. We want to operate as the church should operate which is by unifying the college students in the Houston area on different campuses.

TC: Do you encourage people to come out? Why?

KB: Yes, I definitely do.  My reason is for them to really have a chance to express the Gospel to the students at TSU. We want to spread the Gospel of Christ and a new perspective of Jesus to those who have been preached false doctrine.

TC: What message are you trying to get out there?

KB: The message we are trying to paint is an actual biblical perspective on Jesus and what He came to do.

TC: Do you have any last words you would like to share with potential readers/viewers?

KB: We want people to come and get the right perspective on who they are. In realizing who they are, they realize a need for salvation and a need for a Savior and begin to appreciate what Jesus came to do as the sacrifice to God. I desperately want them to become a part of His kingdom.

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