“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
Let’s say you just came out of something. A trial or test at home, on your job or with your health. You’ve come out on top. God has once again been faithful and brought you through something. Now you’re on a bit of spiritual high and you’re moving into the next phase of your walk with God. To the best of your ability you’re using what you’ve learned up to this point to keep your walk with God in tact. All is well except one thing. Just one little thing. You’re not doing what folks around you think you should be doing.
People sometimes really know how to take the wind out of your sails. My old pastor used to call it the “human element”. I like a quote I just heard. It said, “Opinions are like fingers. Everybody got 10.” LoL. Like it’s real. We’re not talking about sinning as opposed to righteousness. I mean folks nitpicking at your walk with Christ. Like you’re not as saved as them because they read a King James Bible and you read the NIV. Or because they watch CNN and you like MSNBC. Like what are we really talking about here? Your personal preference is not God’s standard for righteousness.
It’s ok to have an opinion about how you think something should go, but you’re getting carried away when it becomes the law. Better yet you turn it into God’s law. There’s a balance to it. Your opinion, how you think, should be guided by God’s word. It should not be based solely off of your carnal desires. Some things are natural and that’s all that it is. Some things have a spiritual angle to them that you have to consider. Relationships with people are natural, but have a spiritual aspect to them where God interjects and instructs us on how to deal with them. God tells us to love our neighbors and to pray for those who persecute and use us. God has no weight in what sports team you like to root for. He does have an issue if rooting for your sports team stops you from serving God.
In particular, to my creatives out there. CREATIVES!!! God has given you a gift. Use your gift to the glory of God. That doesn’t mean everything you do creatively will be within in the four walls or confines of a church setting. Sometimes you may have to venture out. The important thing is that you follow God’s leading by His Holy Spirit about how, when and where you use those gifts. We need it all. Some folks we need in the church serving the body. Some are needed outside of the church to win more souls for the kingdom. How that looks will be different person to person. The important thing is that your heart is filled with God’s Spirit and you are doing His will.
We’ve had a lot of debate about people leaving CHH or not calling themselves a Christian artist or artist that’s Christian. On my job I don’t put Christian in front of my job title, but when the opportunity presents itself I make it known that I am a Christian and who the God I serve is. If you call yourself a Christian rapper, singer or whatever then fine. If not, that’s fine too. God did not commission us to label our works Christian. He commissioned us to be Christians and to do the work of the great commission. The vocation I do itself does not get saved. I do what I do because I’m saved. So let’s love on each other in the house and on those outside of the house so we can keep building the kingdom.
We all have gifts from God and He has different ways He wants to use those gifts to minister to people and bring Christ glory. Let’s not fight each other. Let’s work! Let’s work IN love. I don’t just mean that in the sense of let’s work in a spirit of love. I mean that in as believers let’s put all of our effort into making sure that love is the motivation behind what we do and is in the midst of things as we’re doing it. Love is at the core of our faith. The work done in and through Christ was motivated by His love for us. He bled and died for us, because He loves us. Let us walk in that same example.
That leads us to our Throwback Song of the Week. We’ll pick up with rapper Knine from his 2007 project called “Underdogg”. The featured track is called “Something 2 Say”. He touches on walking in your purpose and not being led by the opinions of others, but by the Spirit of Christ. Tune into the Trackstarz show this week to hear DJ Jeremaya play this for the Throwback Song of the Day. Until next time…
Peace and blessings,
Damo
