Saturday, October 26, 2019

The Conversion of Kanye West "Jesus is King"

"Now that God has called me and I now have given my life to Jesus Christ, and I work for God"

Kimmel: "Would you consider yourself to be a Christian artist now"

Kanye: "I'm just a Christian everything"


Why is this exciting? Let's put this into perspective. God is the God who leaves the 99 to seek and save the one lost. Kanye--if indeed his conversion is genuine--is one of many people who have been lost and saved, putting his or her trust in Christ for salvation. In that regard, whether rich or poor, Kanye is equally important and unimportant. If he is a brother, he is an equal brother no greater or lesser than any other. We should all welcome Kanye as a brother with open arms, as we do any person who comes to faith in Jesus.

What makes it exciting, however, is to see someone who appears to be so far reprobate in our human view, coming to know Christ. It is the exact opposite feeling we get when someone like Joshua Harris, or a thought-to-be solid believer, leaves the faith to embrace the world and we wonder "how can it be?". That same shock, and disappointment, is shock and praise when someone such as Kanye West--famous in the world's eyes-- believes.

Let's pray that his conversion is and will indeed be proven genuine; that God would protect him from temptation and deliver him from evil. There is no doubt many people, and those who may call themselves Christians (wolves such as Joel Osteen, who has already reportedly invited him to his "church") will seek to cash in on Kanye and corrupt him. I pray God would give him wisdom to say yes to what is good, and no to what is bad, and contend for the faith.

Remember from where Kanye has come, and he is a very new Christian. Remember also, this does not redeem his previous musical works.  Those were by his old man.  We should no more embrace them than we should the works of our old man. Kanye has great fame, but don't be distracted or disillusioned. Do not be excited by great fame, but by God's great mercy.  It is not fame that saves, and anyone who is enticed into Christianity by fame (of Kanye or anyone else), is no convert at all. It may be some peoples' fame, however, that gives a platform to help bring the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. I pray that is the case with Kanye.

Monday, August 5, 2019

On the Mind of Christ

Listen here, and consider this.
There are several things Christians generally believe, in accordance to Scriptures:
God is all knowing--so much so, that He even knows us before we are born (Jeremiah 1:5).
Out of billions of people on Earth, God can hear our prayers uniquely and is sovereign to answer them specifically (Isaiah 38:5; Daniel 10:12).
Jesus is the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
For whoever becomes a follower of Christ, there is rejoicing for you personally as God saves you, intimately (Luke 15:7).
He knows who will be saved (Romans 8:29)
Hebrews 12:2 says, "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
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Now, for the thought that all of this gives me, to ponder. When Jesus went to the cross and suffered there--among the many innumerable things that must be in the immeasurable "mind of God'--you were on His mind specifically. As He suffered there, and endured the shame, you (your name here), and I, were there, uniquely and personally. Not just as an inseparable ether of past and future believers, or masses of indistinguishable faces who may or may not believe some day, but you--your face before him, and you by name, your person uniquely, were on His mind.
"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." -1 John 3:1a