I DECLARE WAAAAAAAAR (Part I- Know Your Enemy)

Trouble is coming and it may already be here. The nature of Christian life on earth is one of both war and peace.  Now what I am about to talk about is not for light weights so I will pause for a moment so that all those who just dabble in Christianity but are not really ready to go all the way can exit this entry..... (I would reccomend like the "Who is about to get whooped by the weekend" entry for you because you are probably on the list).........


Ok, you are still here so I guess you are ready for this.  As Christians who have received the holy spirit we have access to peace in our minds and hearts.  Inner peace comes from the holy spirit dwelling inside of you which is the spirit of peace.  However, we are at war at all times and engaged in battles most of the time.  We are literally in a war with the devil and all his buddies. Ok so the Devil gets talked about quite a bit but most people don't know who the devil really is (currently).  The Devil is your enemy and his ultimate purpose is to kill you and drag your soul off to the Lake of Fire to join he and his buddies (because in the end, that is where they are going). 

The following is a list of facts about the Devil that you should find useful:

#1. There is only ONE thing the devil can do to you.  Does that surprise you?  The devil only has one weapon and it is (drum roll please), deception.  In other words the only way the devil can get to you is by lying to you and you accepting the lie as true.  So God tells you, I love you no matter what and my love for you will never change.  The devil tells you that this cannot be true and that the things that you have done make it impossible for God to love you.  In fact, God is probably angry at you.  The devil tells you this until you accept the thought as your own and adopt it as the truth.  BAMN, he's got you.  It may only be one weapon but it is powerful for this reason: God is the truth so every time the devil gets you to believe a lie, you are rejecting God and separating yourself from God.  Apart from God, you will not win a battle and you are sure to lose the war.

#2. The Devil is extremely smart, manipulative, and strategic BUT unlike God, the Devil can not read your mind.  The only thing the Devil can do is read your actions, listen to your words and plant thoughts in your head (if you don't know how to prevent it).  This is a really important point because ALL of the information the Devil has about you, comes directly from you.  There is nowhere in the bible where the Devil read anyones mind, his power, unlike God's is limited.

#3. The world that we currently exist in is satan's (another name for the devil) territory, he owns it and rules it until Jesus returns.  That is why when you look around this world, the information that you receive contradicts God's word. When I was younger R. Kelly was the contradiction and now it's Trey Songz.  It was Lil Kim and now it's Nikki Minaj.  It was 90210 and now it's Gossip Girl and Skins (ugh).  It was Jay Z and now it's Gucci (is he out of that mental hospital yet...) and Drake and Wayne and Waka Flake (I mean seriously....).  All of these parts of popular culture tell us what is not true and we turn it up louder and pump it into our brains on almost a 24 hour loop until we believe it.  Satan is referred to as the Prince of the Air but remember Jesus is the only King.  Satan is perfectly aware that he has a limited amount of time to get as many of us as he can, that is why he tries to overwhelm you with misinformation (lies).

#4. The Devil has no authority over born again Christians. This means that though the Devil may be running the Earth, because we have God living inside of us and are God's representatives on Earth, the Devil does NOT run us.  Remember, Jesus was a man on the Earth which is (and was then) under the Devils control.  However, the Devil had no control over Jesus and in fact, Jesus regularly slapped him around.  It should be the same way with us (but there are some reasons why this is not the case).

So now you have some information about your enemy and that's good because you are going to need it to fight (and win).  Tomorrow we are going to talk about the nature of the fight that we are in and who are the Devil's buddies that I kept referring to.

You think you know, but you have no idea...

Prologue: You may find it difficult to let go of some human relationships that are harmful to your relationship with Christ.  On the other hand, you may find it difficult for people to let go of you or for their feelings for you to change.  It's tough because most people are scared to be alone so I wrote what comes next for you.  I hope that I can persuade you that the love you think you are getting from people is basically...crap (for lack of a better word) compared to God's love.

Most human love has conditions.  Conditions are circumstances that effect our feelings of love towards another person.  The effect can be positive or negative.  In other words some things make us love a person more and some things make us love a person less.  Let me give you a drastic example to illustrate my point.  Let's say you are madly in love with a person, what effect do you think finding out that your "love" was sexually attracted to small children would have on you? Hmmm, mmm, not good right?  Now that one was way out in left field but let me try to hit a home run.  People love people less for lying, stealing, cheating, not buying them stuff, gaining weight, etc. etc.  Parents disown their daughters for getting pregnant before they got married.  Father's refuse to even acknowledge a son who decides he prefers men over women. Best friends cut each other off over relationships with the opposite sex every hour of every day.  And the list goes on and on.  There is evidence all around us on a daily basis that human love is flawed and limited so the obvious question is why do people seem to prefer this love over God's love????

The only answer that I can come up with is that people don't realize that unlike our love, God's love does not depend on our actions and there is no limit to it.  If you look at the examples of God's love in the bible, he loved murders, thieves and liars all the same and without limit.  In fact, the most critical thing about God that you need to know (in support of this point) is WHEN God first loved you.  Did God first love you when you decided to give your life to him? No. Did God even love you more when you decided to give your life to him? No. Will God love you less if you never decide to give your life to him? No.  God first loved us before we were even capable of making a decision, in fact, it was before we were born (or before our parents even met).  Here is some bible to back me up: God DEMONSTRATED his love for us in this way, when we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).  Remember, God loved the world so much that he gave his only son...(John 3:16) and this happened way before we stumbled on the scene messing everything up.

On top of the fact that Christ died for us before we even started messing up, get this, when God first loved us, he already knew ALL of the nasty disgusting things we were going to do.  Yes!  God knows EVERYTHING about you and God still loves you.  Who else can you say that about?  No matter how much we may think we love a person most of us have our limits.  If you don't think you have limits, it's because you don't realize how truly wicked the people you think you love are capable of being.  I can personally assert that most people think that I am a pretty decent person but let me let you in on a secret.  If you knew everything I had ever done or even thought of doing, you would think I was horrible and I'm ok with that because you aint God.  I've had to deal with some things just between me and God, other things involved other people and were quite messy but in the end I have this to say: I am NOT perfect but I am forgiven and I will not be ashamed anymore (I stole that from a song by Leon Timbo, check him out).  That's what God's unconditional unlimited love has done for me.  It has taken away my guilt and my shame and lifted me above the awful pits I dug for myself.

I care about people but I don't care what people think about the BAD things I have done because I am in love- truly, madly, deeply.  So why would I and why would you choose a limited person over this infinite God?  Make better choices.

The Daddy Problem (Love Part III)

Currently humans are not born into perfect relationship with God.  You know, we have the whole sin problem (thanks to Adam with a supporting role played by Eve) which separates us from God.  This is the reason Jesus died on the cross, to redeem mankind.  In other words, our sin makes us worthless and destined for hell.  Jesus died to give us value again through a love relationship with God.  So now, even though we are born into sin (which is why you don't have to teach children to lie or steal) we have hope for the future.


However, because we are born out of sync with God, our first examples of relationships are flawed (because the only perfect relationship is one with God).  Usually the first relationship we have is with our parents.  It is this relationship with our parents (especially our fathers) which makes it difficult for us to understand and relate to God later in life. Think about it, in many passages of scripture God identifies himself as our father and he identifies us as his children.  God is our father in the sense that he provides for us and protects us.  Because God does this for us we are supposed to trust God and love him all the more but there is one major problem- Many people (tragically) do NOT have fathers (or mothers) who were good providers and protectors so we don't know how to respond to God in this way.  We think if God is my father, he will not be around when I need him, he will not spend time with me, he will not say nice things to me and even if he does give me money (which is a big if), he will not give himself to me.

Again we have a situation where the issue is NOT God, it's the way we think about God.  One of the very first things you need to get clear in your mind is that God is NOT a man.  The bible says God is not a man that he will lie and he is not born of man so that he would ever have a reason to repent. (Numbers 23:19)  This means every word God says is true and God is incapable of doing even one wrong thing. Even if you have never known a father who did what a father was supposed to do, you can still trust God by faith.  You have made it this far (presumably you have made it somewhere because you are reading this) believing that there is a God even though you can't see him, so you must have some faith.  If you believe that there is a God, take your faith a little further and believe that God is good and if good then a good father (maybe a lot different than the one you had growing up). If you believe it and you trust in God, he will NEVER let you down, he will be the father to you every child dreams of .

I know this week is the love series so let me tie it all together. Fathers are important.  Men learn to be fathers from other men (hopefully your own Dad if he is around), which means they learn to provide safety and security in the lives of people around them.  Women learn that they are safe and secure from their fathers.  So men and women with good fathers come together and the men don't take advantage of the women and the women are justified in trusting the men and you are on the road to a good relationship.  But without knowing God (the ONLY really good father) and without having a good relationship with God the Father, relationships are out of whack.  What your father on this earth did or did not do does not have to determine the man or woman you become.  We are re-born into the family of believers and here our Dad is good and takes good care of us.  So we are men and women who are secure and have value.  We are not taken advantage of nor do we seek to take advantage of each other. Lastly because we are safe and secure with our father, we are not looking for anybody else to feel that role in our lives.

BEFORE you try to enter into a romantic relationship with another person, you need to get your relationship with your REAL Dad (God) together.  It is only at that point that you can give and receive love.

Some of yall are crazy (Love Part II)...

Here is a harsh reality that you are going to have to deal with.  You will NEVER get the kind of love that you really want and need from another human being. Human relationships can be so disappointing because we are asking more of them than they are able to provide.  In other words, you are trying to get from another person what you are unwilling to accept from God. This is never going to work.  Think about it this way, how many people do you know who did not get love from either their father or mother, who try to replace it with another person? Does it EVER work? Based on my observations, I would have to say no.


If you are still in high school it is going to be difficult for you to understand what I am about to tell you so you have a few options.  You can pray and ask God to help you understand, which he will, you can ignore me or you can put this in your back pocket and pull it out in a few years and see if I'm not dead on the money. 99.9% of high school dating relationships are not THAT serious..... But if you observe your friends and maybe it's even you, it would seem like these relationships are a matter of life and death.  People running around calling each other "hubby" and "wifey" (which if you were married or had any idea what marriage means, you would know how stuuuupid this is).  Boyfriends and girlfriends claiming to really love each other and telling each other they will be together forever (really forever? forever ever?).  Their facebook pages are full of shout outs to each other and they are sad and sick (in the mind and body) when the "relationship" is not going well.  What most people can see, when we are not inside these relationships, is that.... well frankly, yall are crazy!  And by crazy I mean, that you believe a lie.  You really believe that another person (around the same age as you) can give you something you are not accepting from God- love.  (Usually people in this situation are also missing something from one or both of their parents, they have mommy and daddy issues.) I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this is true no matter how old you are.


Love ONLY comes from God and it is only THROUGH God that we humans are able to love one another.  When you really get this and start to allow God to love you and respond to that love, you will not spend so much energy on relationships with people of the opposite sex (or the same sex... a topic for another day).  Here is your test for yourself: How much time do I spend thinking about or engaged in my relationship with another person (especially someone you are not married to)?  How much time do I spend thinking about or engaged in my relationship with God? Which relationship gets the most attention?  Here is my personal guarantee, if your relationship with God gets the MOST attention and engagement, your relationship with other people will be balanced and good.  In other words, when you are in love with God, you wont be sending nasty pics of yourself into cyber space, crying over someone of the opposite sex every other day or obsessing over where "he" or "she" is ALL the time.  Consider this, if you can't be faithful to God who loves you with no strings attached, what are you even doing in a relationship?


You can have a relationship with God that makes you all warm and ooey gooey inside.  You can be head over heals in love, experience romance and be satisfied.  There is a place in the bible where the lover relationship between us and God is laid out.  We are the woman and God is the man or our King referred to in the scripture .  The stuff that goes on between these two is deeeeep, just like we can be with God.  I'm going to quote some of my favorite passages below, but you should read the Song of Solomon for yourself. 


The Man (God) says to the Woman (us) (SOS 8):
Place me like a seal over your heart,
      like a seal on your arm.
   For love is as strong as death,
      its jealousy^[c] as enduring as the grave.^[d]
   Love flashes like fire,
      the brightest kind of flame.
 ⁷ Many waters cannot quench love,
      nor can rivers drown it.
   If a man tried to buy love
      with all his wealth,
      his offer would be utterly scorned


The Woman to the Man (SOS 1):
Kiss me—full on the mouth!
   Yes! For your love is better than wine,
   headier than your aromatic oils.
The syllables of your name murmur like a meadow brook.
   No wonder everyone loves to say your name!


The Woman to the Man (SOS 2)
As an apricot tree stands out in the forest,
   my lover stands above the young men in town.
All I want is to sit in his shade,
   to taste and savor his delicious love.
He took me home with him for a festive meal,
   but his eyes feasted on me!


I'm telling you, this thing between you and God could give you all the romance and passion you needed but FIRST you have to stop trying to get it from somewhere else.

What's LOVE got to do with it?

Valentine’s Day is coming up in less than one week and everyone has love and romance on the brain.  If you think you are in love, want to fall in love, or realize that you have no clue what love is, this week is for you!  

Part I, ok leggo:

Most people want to be loved or at least feel like they are loved. The irony though is that the people who want love the most are the people who have had it the least and are therefore the least qualified to recognize it.  So you have groups of young men and young women doing the most ridiculous things in pursuit of and in the name of love.  First we want to be loved by our friends so we bend and twist into all kinds of crazy shapes trying to please them.  The funny thing is that our friends are bending and twisting too trying to please us and in the end the whole project equals one giant fail.  Second we want to be loved by members of the opposite sex and this is where things really go downhill FAST.  This is the part where we try to give and receive something that we don’t really know much about.

Ok, wait wait wait.  Don’t put me in the box with all adults who tell you that you don’t know anything about love (even though most of them are probably right).  I have good reasons for what I say and I am going to explain.  First thing you need to know, this is not a problem that young people have exclusive rights over.  However, if you learn this lesson while you are still young, you wont be like I was and get to your 20’s and still be kinda clueless.  The second thing you need is a definition.  What is love?  God is love.  You canNOT truly know love until you know God.  That is probably a little general considering that God is eternal and has no beginning and no end so let me narrow it down a bit.

What it aint, what it is: .

1. You can’t earn real love by what you do.  If I only “love” you because you give me money, sex, compliments, status, etc.  I don’t really love you for you.  Remember God is love.  So what is that we do for God to get his love?  NOTHING!  God first loved us before we ever knew him, cared about him or did just one right thing.  True love (which comes from God) can never be about what you do for me, it is always about what I want to do for you.  If a girl dumps you because you are broke, she didn’t love you.  If she dumps you because you won’t have sex with her, she didn’t love you (and she’s triflin). If you are in “love” and you have to give yourself in a way that is in conflict with what God wants you to do, it is NOT love.

2. Love does not cause you to act crazy, jealous, psychotic, neurotic, etc.  I have this phrase (based on my observation of my college roommate and her relationships) called “psycho love.” People in psycho love are borderline stalkers of each other.  They call each other constantly, always wonder where the other one is and what the other one is doing.  Screaming at each other is a way of life for these people.  They routinely go through each others phones, emails, facebook accounts and anything else they can find.  These type of “lovers” can sometimes be physically aggressive and most outside observers would think they actually hated each other.  This version of “love” is not love either.  Love does not make you psycho or insecure.  True love makes you kind and patient.  It is hopeful, enduring and full of belief in good.  That is what the bible says about real love.  When someone says stuff like ‘I love you so much it drives me crazy’ you should run in the other direction.

3. Love is not sex (especially if you are not married but even if you are married).  Sex is a bonding experience that carries with it very strong feelings of emotional attachment (especially for women) and that is why it is dangerous.  Love and what it is or aint, is hard enough to manage without throwing your body and the body of another person in the mix.  There is nothing as likely to confuse us as our bodies and our emotions and when we get even more confused about love, we are in trouble.  Remember, everyone wants love so if you start confusing sex and its emotional attachments with love, you are going to be a mess (and maybe a garden tool too…).  Remember true love does not hurt you, it protects you (because God is love).  Sex before you get married, on the other hand, is without a doubt a sin and sin does nothing BUT hurt you.  If you love a person that you are not married to, if you really love them, you will not have sex with them and they will not have sex with you.  If you ignore what I am saying and do it anyway, please don’t trick yourself or allow yourself to be tricked into thinking it is out of “love.”  It is because you are hardheaded and exhibit poor control over your body which is going to get you in trouble in a number of areas.

4. Love is not romance.  Romance is super sweeeet.  You get cards, flowers, poetry, candlelight dinners, nice words, etc.  All of these things, much like sex, give you an emotional reaction.  In other words they just make you feel good and all warm and ooey gooey inside.  While love may make you want to do nice things for a person, the nice things you do are NOT love.  Remember God.  God loved the world so much that he gave (not a bunch of stuff) but himself.  Check it out, you can be romantic and never give yourself.  Nice emotions are great but there is more to love because there is more to God.

You need to STOP and take a long hard look at the things you are calling love and your own behavior.  Love will NEVER hurt you.  If you are doing things which separate you from God, because you love another person, you are butt booty backwards.  There is no love without God so when you really love someone leaving God out of it, is not an option.  You should be suspicious of any female or male who claims to love you when there is no evidence that he or she loves the God who created them.  Meditate on this and we will go deeper tomorrow.

Who is about to get whooped by the weekend? (Top 10)

Here are the top 10 ways you can tell if the weekend is getting ready to kick your butt (spiritually) and what you can do to prevent it.

#10. You suffered a setback this week and you did not respond appropriately.  A setback could be something that you did or something that was done to you.  In either case, it is not good and it makes you question yourself and perhaps even God.  Setbacks happen, you are going to make mistakes (because you are human) and some bad stuff is going to come into your life (because you need some character and toughness).  The appropriate response to your messing up is to repent, stop doing crazy stuff, trust that God has forgiven you AND MOVE FORWARD.  The appropriate response to God allowing some crazy stuff to happen to you is to continue to talk to God and hope in God and endure like a good soldier.  People think that because we don't do all the dumb stuff they do, somehow Christians are soft- UNTRUE.  We are thee toughest people on the planet.  When things get rough, we do not back down or go running, we just keep advancing.  Don't be no scardy cat, God is not in that.  Move forward.

#9. You refuse to even attempt to read the bible (though we give you great advice and translations right here).  Here is how it goes.  To communicate effectively with God (pray) you need to know something about God.  The more you know about God, the better you can talk to God because you will know what moves God.  While this blog is a great resource and jumping off point, the best source of information about God is contained in, you guessed it, the bible.  The more of the bible you read AND understand (which is why you need a better translation than King James), the closer you will get to God and the less likely you will be to do crackish stuff (please refer to previous post).

#8. You hang out with ignorant people doing ignorant things. I think that is self explanatory. You are going to have to find some friends who support and practice a Christian lifestyle.  Most people refuse to do this but most people get whopped by the weekends too.

#7. You listen to crazy music and watch crazy stuff on TV. If you DON"T do #1 and you DO this, God help you because we will NOT be able to. If what I was about to say were a check, you could take it to the bank and cash it: You can choose to believe what you want but television and music have a direct impact on your thoughts and in turn your behavior. I'm not telling you to stop watching TV or listening to music but you need to be aware of what it is doing to you.  If you spend all day listening to Trey Songz, you will start to think freaky thoughts and want to do freaky things with freaky people and eventually BAM!  We will be dragging you out of the freaky gutter.  Same thing with TV, you want to know why you are depressed?  How about you stop watching a TV that parades around impossible standards of beauty and money and see if you don't start to feel a leeeetle better about your situation.  Just try it.  If not, you will take all your cues about appropriate weekend activities from singers and actors (who by the way are professional liars....just sayin).

#6 - #1: You have not talked to God all week.  You are going down in smoke and flames.  When you go all week without communicating with your boo (God, go with me), your relationship is on extremely shaky ground.  By not talking to God, you distance yourself from God.  The further you go from God, the closer you get to acting a total fool.  The likelihood of showing your tale increases dramatically as you head into the weekend where unbelievers have been waiting all week just to see how stupid they can really get.  If you have not talked to God, you need to get off the internet and get to talking before you wake up on crack (please refer to the previous post).

This is a lot but you have all weekend to think it over.  We have things to do, don't waste the weekend being crazy.

Crack kills and you need to get off that stuff!

In Tuesday's post we talked about changing our mindsets about Christianity.  We no longer view Christianity as a list of things we can not do.  Instead we recognize that our faith and relationship with Jesus Christ have given us FREEDOM that we never had. 

So what does the bible say?  Good question.  The bible says that whatever you give in to OWNS you.  If you give in to disobeying God and doing things that you KNOW are wrong, sin owns you and the Devil is yo Daddy!  Ok, so maybe it does not say the Devil is your Daddy but that's what it means in Romans 6:15-18. However it is Jesus Christ who set us free from the vice grip sin had on us.  Why did God set us free? Gal. 5:1 says that Christ set us FREE to be FREE, lol, I love that one.  Meaning that Jesus set us free so we would have the power to choose to live free. Hmm, mmm, mmm, now that's good (sorry but when scriptures get good, I start talking to myself).  We don't have to prove ourselves to the unbelievers, in fact the minute that we try to play by their rules is the minute we take our freedom crumple it up in a ball and aim for the nearest trash can.  (That's in Gal. 5:2-3). 

Here is something you really need to know.  Just because we are free to choose to do what we want does not mean that our choices will not have consequences.  If you look at my beloved message bible translation of Romans 6:16-17 it says that certain acts of freedom can destroy your freedom.  Ok so here is what that means.  God set us free from having to make bad choices but if you make a bad choice, the bad choice is.... (you guessed it) yo Daddy and you are no longer free.  If you take your precious freedom and hop into bed with Hakeem or Meaghan because Hakeem and Meaghan are fine, you will be a slave to lust (passionate physical yearning).  The bible uses the term "slave" but here is a modern day way you can think about it: You will become addicted to whatever you dabble in and if you dabble in sin you will be looking and acting like the local corner crackhead and God himself will need to stage an intervention and slap you in rehab just to get you back right again. Are you getting the picture? 

Tell me that sinner's don't bare a striking emotional resemblance to crackheads.  A sinner never gets enough of doing stuff that is making them miserable and is killing them.  I used to be a clubhopper.  If you know ANYthing about the club, you know that while the building is not sinful, the stuff that goes on inside is ridiculous and a young Christian like me had no business being involved in that foolishness.  My point is this though, I became this person who needed to party like all the time.  It was never enough, I was never satisfied.  I always needed a martini and a mini skirt to feel like I was doing something with my life.  And when the night was over, the lights came on and the music stopped I honestly felt empty and lonely (and my hair smelled like smoke).  But I kept doing it and kept doing it because as long as I was in that moment, I didn't feel the emptiness.  And so there you have it, I was an entertainment addict and the lifestyle of socializing owned me and wore me completely out much like a crackhead.  However, because I was and am a Christian I remembered who my real Father was and decided to limp my way back home and see if I couldn't get some help.  Clearly I was helped but I can never get back the time I wasted and there were significant consequences for my triflin behavior.

For many many young people we get caught up trying to fit in.  We want so bad to prove that we are just like our friends.  Truthfully it is hard to keep people as friends if you are NOT just like them.  But you need to understand 2 things that we have been over.  First, if your friends could choose they would choose to be different.  Part of the reason they don't know they have a choice is because you, the representative of Christ is too busy trying to be like them.  Second and most importantly, we are not like them, we are free.  Don't throw your freedom away just to prove to a bunch of people getting pimped by the Devil that you are like them... That doesn't even make any sense.