WHAT IF...I WAS ME

What if...today I was a REAL Christian!

What if...today I decided NOT to tip-toe around the truth so as not to offend, and defend the Word of God that lives inside me!

What if...today I decided not to look like the rest of the world, but to look like Jesus, by whose name I am saved?!

What if...today I told you to your face that you're lying and that to lie is a sin?!

What if...I told you I don't want to hear about the girl, or the guy, that you slept with this weekend and how good the sex was, because fornication is a sin and if you continue in it you risk going to hell?!

What if...I asked you not to curse around me.

What if...I explained that the fruit of the Spirit of Christ is joy, and kindness, and patience, and gentleness, love, and self-control.

What if I told you that you're not a Christian, because by your fruit I don't even recognize you?!

What if...What if...

What if...I lost my patience with compromising my faith to make you comfortable.

What if...I threw you out of my house when you use the Lord God Almighty's name in vain?!

What if...I was loving, yet honest, about how the compromises of this world and the serving of Satan sickens me?!

What if...I dared to be politically incorrect and actually BE a Christian?!

What if...I told you that I refuse to live in secret hoping not to offend your beliefs when you offend me and mine EVRY SINGLE DAY by your words, your deeds, and your actions?!

This would be very dangerous! I know.

Yet, what if...

What if...I dared to be dangerous for Jesus?!

What if...I dared to stand up for my faith by my life, my love, and the depth of His wisdom inside me...and not my words?!

The Kingdom of God suffers so much violence.

What if...we violently, forcefully, took it back?!

What if...I told you that Jesus will do just that?!

What if...I dare to live my life violently taking it back from you, and what you want me to be to be liked by you and accepted by you?!

Because I don't care if you like me or accept me!

What if... I told you that you do NOT define me, you will never DEFINE me, and you cannot even try to define ME?!

What if... I lived ONLY for my Creator by whose will and for whose pleasure I exist?!

What if...

YOUR HIGH!

The following is an email dialogue between myself and someone else, who advocates smoking weed as cool, natural, and from God, that is all to worthy of sharing:

So you think that Rihanna shouldn't have to look over her shoulder when she is on vacation gettin' high?! WOW. This isn't about looking over your shoulder it's about being Godly and living that way because it's truly who you are. She is being who she is. Yes. But, you are lying to yourself, or extremely deceived, if you think GOD wants us smoking marijuana or altering our minds in any way. Jesus drank wine, as did everyone else in that day, with a meal, not to the point of drunkenness and certainly not to the point of debauchery.

• Go to Revelations 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, [fn] abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers (pharmacia), idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
• The word 'Pharmacia and Sorcery" are the same word in the original Greek biblical manuscripts. These are the first words which are the root of what we now call our modern day PHARMACY where we get drug prescriptions. The word Sorcery was originally the word to describe 'someone who mixed or took drugs/potions...witchcraft.' Your typical, and uneducated and uniformed statement about marijuana being from the ground and grown by God is an untrue line of reasoning....a common trick of the enemy/SATAN. There are plenty plants grown from the ground that man knows he should not eat...like poisonous mushrooms!!!! Why don't you advocate eating those? BECAUSE WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL OURSELVES NOR ARE WE TO ALTER OUR MINDS AWAY FROM CHRIST WHICH ALLOWS THE ENEMY TO ENTER IN AND SET UP SHOP IN YOUR LIFE. Seriously? Do you understand what that means? I do!!! You need to look at what fruit you want to produce in your life because success and happiness will ALWAYS elude you if the enemy has the RIGHT to do what he wants to you, your loved ones, and your interests. A RIGHT you provide when you go against the Word Of God whether you even know you are going against His words and warnings or not. God didn't give us the BIBLE as a nice book of poetry, or a book of suggested readings, or a way to crunch our buzz and make us not have any fun. It's a friggin play book for this life in this world because He knows the end at the beginning and because He wants US to live happier and more freely protected from the enemy's attacks and tricks against our lives and our families and our businesses. God doesn't NEED you to BELIEVE. He WANTS, DESIRES, with all His love for you to BELIEVE.... for YOU!!! Not for HIM!
• Read Galatians 5:20-21 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, [fn] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told [you] in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
• WILL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
• Read Ephesians 6:10-18...our fight is not against each other but against spiritual forces of deception that will destroy the ignorant. Our armor is the WORD of GOD.
• You need to read it and KNOW it before you speak for God telling others what He's cool with. You bring sure judgement on yourself for such a thing. And, I speak as someone who KNOWS that she KNOWS BETTER about the WORD OF GOD! Nobody is perfect...thank God for Jesus. But, we do have a responsibility after we are saved to not continue on in sin...and certainly not to open our mouths to others advocating it when one is soooo off point, and incorrect, which I am sorry my brother but you are. Yes, we all have fallen. I thought it was cool to smoke pot back in the day...way before I REALLY understood the game of spiritual warfare in this world. But, as a woman of color who is not as famous as Ree...but acquainted intimately with 'celebrity' let me tell you I try never to hold the truth in unrighteousness. A wise man just repents faster.
• So, I am NOT religious. Jesus came to do away with the empty religiosity of the day. I am a sinner, saved by the grace and BLOOD of Jesus Christ the Son of God. And, I am extremely well versed and studied in the WORD OF GOD. So please do not make ignorant statements like yours above saying God wants me to smoke cuz it's natural and doesn't mind me drinking wine. I do, on occasion, drink wine. I don't drink to the point of being DRUNK because we are not supposed to. Did you ever SEE or ever HEAR about Jesus and the Apostles being drunk? C'mon. And, He DOES NOT want us doing drugs, which includes smoking weed, my friend. Educate yourself. Free your mind with the truth...and the rest will follow!

• Here's a good rule of thumb...if it doesn't look, or sound, like Jesus and the Apostles it probably isn't right. That should convict ALOT of Christians and Sinners alike.

BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL!!!

This week a friend from a bible study group I attend, sent me an email about a message I delivered before the holidays, when I spoke at an annual luncheon in Kansas City. She told me that my openness and boldness was inspiring her to be bolder for Christ as well. My reply to her, and to all of you, is this.....

If 2012 is beginning and you look the same as 2011 then I'd deeply analyze my relationship with Jesus. If you're concerned about what 'others' think then you're not concerned enough about what 'Jesus' thinks. If the pursuits of the flesh are still as important as they have always been then it's time to slam on the brakes of your life and beg God to CHANGE you. Trust me. Time IS running out.

I am truly happy that the Lord is pushing you into boldness, if in fact He is. Many Christians today often fall so easily into 'holy complacency' and we don't look to God to be as BIG as He is, so we are rather small about Him in return. I believe that the bolder we are the bigger He will be. I need Him to be HUGE! I need Him to radically shake up my family and change the course of directions on roads traveled on for years. I need Him to truly be the author and finisher of my faith and to bring to pass all the dreams and visions and prophecies He has allowed to be spoken into my life, and my families life, for years! I think we all want that, so I hope to inspire by my own boldness, a holier, louder, bigger, bolder love of Jesus Christ in others. If not we believers kind of look like the rest of the world.

And, that is a big problem with Christianity today. We look way too much like THEM! We want to act like them, dress like them, talk like them, and live like them, and in return we talk about God like them; not at all. We are silent watchers of life, and silent voices in the kingdom who never impact anything, or anyone. And, worse, we sit idly, and sheepishly, by while others go to hell, never allowing them to experience the big, beautiful, beauty of a bold, believing, loving heart for Christ. I don't. I refuse to shut my mouth about Jesus and how He has changed, and blessed, and loosed, and delivered me into total freedom! Tim Tebow sure doesn't. But, sadly most Christians do! They never step out and SHARE boldly the gospel that they say they believe in.

When the first believers in Acts were set on fire on the day of Pentecost and the Holy Spirit fell on them and they all began speaking in strange tongues, which were oddly the native languages of dozens of foreigners in the land, they didn't look like the rest of the community they were in. People thought they were nuts in that Holy Spirit, anointed, time of renewal and promise. They were so in awe of the experience of God's power that they didn't care who thought what, or who said what, they clung to the rock of salvation and jumped in head first, excited, to share what Jesus had done.

Surely, they LOOKED radically different. Surely, they ACTED radically different. They sought to live like Christ; a man-God who healed the sick, cast out demons, and spoke words of love and life in the face of persecution.

WOW, Jesus didn't look like ANYBODY else in the world. He was BOLDNESS personified.

That should be us today! And, I really believe that if God is nudging you in that direction it is because He sees you that way. He sees those you will touch and offend and ultimately serve and save. He sees Himself in YOU. That thought moves me, because it reminds me how truly powerful and wonderful and unique and beautiful He created each of us to be. Your beauty is in your boldness. Your worth is in your boldness. Your freedom is in your boldness. And, surely, your success is in your boldness too.

If you don't believe me just ask the TEBOW BRONCOS. Tim Tebow, is one kid who KNOWS that his boldness has set a nation on fire talking about Jesus. No matter what happens next he has already won the Super Bowl. We all know who Tebow is. He is now a noun, a verb, and an adverb. Are you Tebowing? He has a name attached to good and great things and he has a platform from which to change nations. He is the most talked about player in the NFL hands down, and some of those folks talking, are also recognizing that Jesus is KING! Some are just plain mad, and jealous. And, some, even Christians, are just plain uncomfortable and wish he'd be a little less bold and look a little more like other football players. To that I ask why? Why should he look more like them? What's wrong with them looking more like him? Tim Tebow challenges most people, especially Christians, to look at their own pitiful, mediocre, sheepishness about the subject of Christ, and question themselves and their real belief in Jesus.

For what is faith if not an action, I ask you?! What is faith if not the happy, willingness, to boldly proclaim His goodness and mercy!

So be bold! You're looking more and more like Christ every day!!!

And, as this Hip Girls journey into 2012 begins I hope that by the end of it I look nothing like even the bold witness I am today! I wanna be radically, over the top, completely, in love and loud about my Savior by 2013.