4 Steps to a Successful Marriage

“You’re nobody, ‘til somebody loves you.” are the lyrics by Dean Martin. And what I have come to learn is that the line is true. Statistics show that two of the main causes of divorce is sex and money… Now really, doesn’t that sound like the name of a rap song? This was for people of the ages 29 and under. The same people who mainly listen to much of what the media has to say. Music and tv shows people watch tend to send the message that frequency of sex is love, or “if you buy me this” it’s love. Love is not what someone can do for you, it’s what you can do for someone else. Which leads me into 1 of the 4 main ingredients for a successful marriage.

1. You must actively seek out things to do for your spouse. It shouldn’t be arguments over who last did the dishes, but an argument of, “can I please do the dishes for you.” When you’re married, your spouse should never feel like they have to watch their back or protect themselves. Their backs should be watched by you, and they should feel protected by you, that’s the sense of security. And that doesn’t just mean, “Oh he’ll protect me from a robbery.” But it means, “He/she will protect my feelings. He/she will respect me and hold me to a high regard.” Which leads me to number 2.

2. Have respect for one another. Do not name-call, how old are we? Really folks, is being right more important than the person you say you love? It’s not. At the end of the day, is winning that argument going to keep you warm at night? Is that victory going to make a child with you? Is it going to support your beliefs and aspirations and goals? Is it going to sharpen you and make you become a better person? It’s not. So don’t lift it anywhere near the pedestal that your spouse sits on. Your spouse comes before you. Also when it comes to respect, don’t be childish! First of all, why are you even in a relationship if you want to still be immature? Marriage is for adults, not babies. If you did something to upset your spouse, listen to what they have to say. Sincerely apologize. Pride is not apologizing, pride is lack of respect, and pride is believing you can do and say whatever you want. Pride always comes before the fall.

Humble yourselves! If your spouse has an issue with something you did… bow to that, and say, “I apologize, I will do my best not to do that again, I love you [insert name here].” Because you’re not all that, to be putting someone down because you feel like what you did wasn’t wrong. Well, the person you say you love is offended, and again, is being right more important that losing the one you love? It’s not.

3. Love your spouse unreservedly. This is not a game. You aren’t feeling each other out. This is not a boxing match. It’s a union. Give your all to that person or don’t waste their time taking anything from them! Show that person your heart. Don’t hold back because Ray from back in the day hurt your feelings when you wore your heart on your sleeve. So what! This ain’t Ray, even if your spouse doesn’t reciprocate it, it’s not your business. Your job is to love unreservedly. Now this is for those already married, if you’re not married, pay attention to these signs. Practice these things with patience (meaning longer than a month!) and look for changes. If it doesn’t go anywhere, then perhaps it’s not the person for you, but only God knows what He has for you, so you have to perfect your obedience to Him to know who’s for you.

4. Be confident in the person you want to be with! If you want to be with them, and they want to be with you and you both truly love each other, what’s the hold up? Marriage done right is really a beautiful thing. Know that this is the person I want to take my journey with. This is the person I want to have my children with, and raise them, and teach them, and teach each other! The thought of being with that person forever should excite you!

Another thing, don’t EVER look for someone to make you happy. One, it’s an impossible task, many people are looking for someone to bring happiness into their lives, and they always end up more damaged because each new guy or girl can’t provide it. It’s because they can’t. This is why it’s important to know the Lord, because only He can bring you happiness and joy. You must first be able to be happy alone and in the Lord before you be happy with someone else. Otherwise, you’re headed for destruction. It’s an unfair, selfish thing, and too big of a burden to put on the shoulders of another person.

Which is another thing I failed to mention, selfishness! I mentioned it but didn’t say the word, no selfishness! It’s not about you, or what they can do for you, but what you can do for them. If both parties do that than everything you want to do for you that person will do for you which will make the thing that got done for you all the more precious! Because someone out of love took the time to pay attention to your likes and dislikes, and developed an interest of living their life to make sure you see and experience only things pleasing to you. Doesn’t that sound nice?

And I know what many of you are thinking because I tend to think like it sometimes but I’m forcing myself out of it now….What if that other person doesn’t do these things back!? Then I’ll be hurt and taken advantage of! Well see there are signs to pay attention to when you first meet someone. Say if you meet a person and they’re depressed, leave them alone. They will bring that depression into the relationship, and they will eventually hurt you and cause depression to fall on you. I personally, am a firm believer that you can love someone into being a better person. But do understand it’s a heck of a challenge, and if you’re not careful, you’ll lose yourself. This is why it’s important to be with people who Love the Lord because they will in turn love you, out of love for Him. It’s simple as that. A person, “doing them” is selfish and will not love you.

You can tell how a person will treat you by the music they listen to. If they listen to music that degrades people, they are telling you, they condone that type of behavior and that is what you can expect from them. Otherwise they wouldn’t like the music! It offend them. It’s really simple math. I’ll end it here to hear some comments, I hope this can create a healthy buzz.

Meaning of Christmas

I planned on writing about this when I woke up this morning, and then when I got to church, my pastor said something simple, but profound about the whole thing, so now I really feel the need to write about Christmas.

This is one of the best holidays, people are generally in a better mood, more generous, and more peaceful because the normal stressful thoughts aren’t there or atleast take a back seat until the holiday’s are over; but over the course of time… really the past 15 years I’d say, Christmas has began to become extremely commercial, slowly taking the true meaning out of it. In the words of my pastor, “Christmas is about the baby!” and he’s right… it IS about the baby. We run around hustling for gifts to buy for the family and friends, and don’t take the time to honor and reverence the very person who allowed this holiday to be possible… Christ!

I mean, we have abbreviations for the holiday, “X-mas” crossing Christ right out the picture. I don’t know where Santa Clause came from, but it’s interesting to me that Santa can also spell Satan, and the last name is Clause which means contract or a will; a law that must be done by people who believe in it. So you end up with Satan’s Law or Satan’s Will. Which is interesting because we should be following the Will of Christ, you know that’s what the New Testament is? The last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ. But you do the math.

Anyway, Satan’s Clause sure has gotten people’s minds off the meaning. The Christmas tree represents the cross Jesus died on, and we decorate it out of reverence and appreciation for what He did. The gifts to others is to show Christ that we are loving, but if you’re loving it shouldn’t be a one-time or once a year deal. We give because He gave.

Now am I saying not to celebrate Christmas? Nope. But just understand why you do it, and keep hold of the true meaning. Gifts don’t bring joy which is everlasting, but happiness which is conditional and can last but a second. If I hug you then slap you, you’ve just experienced two emotions all in the same minute. But the Joy of the Lord is everlasting regardless of what anyone does to you, it’s a God-given peace that resides within you always, no matter the circumstance.

So this holiday folks, remember that Christmas is about the baby! Show your honor and appreciation to Christ. Tell someone else about what Christmas is really about. At the very least stop abbreviating the thing, “X-Mas”, you can’t cross Christ out of His own holiday.

P.S. To all you preachers and pastors out there, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, please tell us why. I’d like to know why people think it’s demonic.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Has Hip-Hop Influenced the Church?

My fiance’ and I were on our way to the gym last week and on the way we saw this clean white Phantom Rolls Royce, and who was driving it? A young pastor from Atlanta. Now I won’t give too many details about his church or what not because I’m not here to put anyone out there. But several pastors in Atlanta here have Rolls Royces, I personally know of 3.

Now she said to me, “You know, 10 years ago pastors weren’t driving rolls royce’s.” Now I haven’t been saved 10 years and neither has she, but I haven’t ever heard of anyone complaining about prosperity teachers like now. Now the Bible does say that Jesus became poor so that we might become rich. And Jesus also said that anything we ask for we will receive it. So I’m not knocking prosperity, but I think that it’s ridiculous for a man to teach about money ALL THE TIME. The only other place I know where people are talking about their jewelry, cars, houses, and jets are in rap songs and videos. These songs also bash people who can’t afford those things or don’t have them. So it’s almost like some of these prosperity teachers are rappers in the pulpit! Who in the WORLD started to seek God and go to church to get paid!? Ain’t too many folks I know. Generally people go to church because they’re depressed, they’re stressed and life has just beat them down. They go to get loved on, not to hear about how to get out of debt.

Now that extra debt education is all good! I love it, keep it. However, there shouldn’t be any such thing as a “prosperity teacher”. There’s nothing but a Gospel teacher, a teacher of Christ. The church I go to has really started to irritate me behind that. It wasn’t until people really continued going to this church that they started to worship money and things. Just last week my pastor said, “I ain’t got time to be talking to you about the new Chrysler coming out. Don’t talk to me about that.” Saying that it’s a Chrysler and he’s rich, so if you’re not talking about Bentleys and Rolls Royce’s kick rocks. Well I have news for people like that. Rich people can have whatever they want. It’s your business if you only want to blow your money on extravagent things, but don’t look down on people because of their preference! I personally love magnums. SRT8’s to be exact. I love 96 impalas. I dont’ care if I’m a billionaire, you’ll see one of each in my garage. Ted Turner (the guy that owns, TBS, cartoon network, CMT and some other stations) is a billionaire and guess what he drives…. a Ford Taurus, why? Because he likes it.

So now there are people at this church struggling because he’s inadvertantly teaching them to keep up with the Jones’s. It’s not right and it’s pissin me off! People, there is NOTHING wrong with money or being rich, I’m not saying that. I believe I’m going to be rich, however, I’m not going to not talk to people, or put people down because they don’t have a million in the bank. Don’t go gettin in no debt because your pastor said if you don’t have anything you don’t live for God. That’s wrong in every sense of wrong! And I’ll stop there, I want to here everyone else’s comments.

Faith Will Get You There

People can be such babies. It’s nothing wrong with it, you generally have to start off one to become an adult. We’re babies when we’re born, and we become babies to Christianity when we’re born again. That’s why they call it getting “Born again.” So because newly converts to Christianity are babies stop judging them church people! You wouldn’t ignore your baby for knocking over the juice so don’t ignore them if they’re still in sin… that was sidebar I’ll write a blog on that soon.

Anyway, people tend to think the only sins are sex before marriage, smoking and drinking… You know, that’s all “baby sin.” People never embrace the fact that you can go to Hell just for having fear in your life, other than fear of the Lord. Yep, being scared of stuff! You can also go to Hell for not living by faith! And many people in church as well, don’t even know that the very first thing God wants us all to do when we get saved is to learn to live by faith! Grow our faith and live by it. It’s the first step according to 2Peter1:5 “For this very reasion, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy)” And it goes on to more steps and ends by saying if you develop these things in your life you will see the things of God, and you will NEVER fall! That should be good news to a lot of people because many of you are afraid of failure.

But to exercise your faith, what does that mean? Well it really can’t get much more complicated than understanding that God is your Father. The Bible says that we are to become like children when it comes to our faith. Why? Because when we were children, whatever our parents told us we could do, we believed it. We never were concerned about eating, or money, or transportation, or clothes. We just knew they were going to provide those things for us. Well God, our Father is the same way, and with Him anything we ask Him for we will receive it as long as we believe it! And if we don’t live like God is our real Father, it is sin.

The point of this blog is not to tell you you’re sinning, but that you’re missing God in your life due to lack of faith. The simplest way that I have learned so far is to get it in your heart that God is your Father. Ask permission to do things, buy things, eat things… just like you did when you were a child with your parents. Respect God like you did your parents, and you’ll see a big difference in your life.

Why Should I Give Somebody Else 10% of My Income!?

This is going to be a touchy subject… it always is, but I’m going to tell it anyway. Now you’re going to need your Bibles for this one….

THE TITHE, before I proceed, I find it so funny that A LOT of people don’t tithe properly, but yet STILL get mad at this message, (sigh) this is why you can’t be a people pleaser, because people just won’t ever be pleased!

Ok, I haven’t been to a church yet (including the one I attend) that has taught tithing properly. I was an avid tither, and firstfruiter, and one day while doing a business plan, I came across an issue… What my pastor was saying about firstfruits had to be wrong, because in business it is virtually impossible to firstfruit the way he said. So I began to do research on the subject and found out exactly how to firstfruit which is honoring/giving to God the first of your increase. So let’s say you open up a store, and let’s say the first customer comes in and spends $100. Well, you would give that $100 to God, by giving it to your pastor, or however you’re lead. But give it, it’s the respectable thing to do. The rest of your business will be blessed!

Now, I learned how to do that properly, but then my spirit was still uneasy, like I was missing something, so God asked me, “Who said tithe!?” And I said… “yeah… who DID say tithe!?” I’ve never read it, I just heard to do it, so I do it. But let me verify it in the word. So I began this several days long study on tithing. So I got out my concordance and looked up the word tithe and all it’s variations: tithe, tither, tithing, tithes; and I found something interesting. The word and it’s variations are mentioned 32 times in the Old Testament, while only being mentioned 8 times in the new.

Now if you read all 40 scriptures, and I suggest keeping them in context by reading the entire paragraph so you fully understand what’s going on, you’ll see that every reference in the Old Testament was verifying the law of tithing. But in the New Testament, the scriptures were simply used as examples, and in every example the person or persons tithing were the people Jesus and Paul (If it was he who wrote Hebrews) were saying not to be like! Not once in the New Testament does it say tithe, but it DOES say to give out of the abundance of our hearts, and that we should give to the poor and widows and fatherless, and bless people, etc. simply put, just do good deeds and God will honor that.

Now, upon further examination 2Corinthians 3 (the whole chapter) speaks about us not believing in Jesus if we read and follow the Old Testament. Now these things you’ll have to read for yourselves, if you don’t have a Bible you can find every version on www.Biblegateway.com. I would suggest reading the Amplified Version or any variation of the King James. Also Hebrews chapters 7 – 10 all talk about how Christ did away with The Law, and again, we are not to do the Old Testament. I highly suggest reading that as well in the Amplified. This really breaks down everything, but I’m going to get more sensible.

Let’s talk common sense. If you had an OLD coat in the winter that didn’t keep you warm, and I bought you a NEW coat that did keep you warm, would you still wear the OLD coat? Ofcourse not! So do you think God is dumb? (I hope you don’t!) lol, He’s not! So why is there an Old Testament and a New Testament? If He wanted us to do the whole thing it would just be called The Bible, or First Testament, Second Testament. Not Old and New.

Now there are also outside the Bible research that can be done on tithing, however, I like to keep everything Biblical. And what I just explained was all Biblical, you can’t argue it. So I hope this reaches every Pastor or head of a church. People don’t be ignorant. And when you read these things it will be so clear it will make you wonder why your Pastor still receives tithes. It’s quite alright to have an offering time, we should offer I think, but guess what? It’s not a necessity. You’ll still go to heaven if you don’t ever give a dime. However, it’s just a good thing to do, but not a requirement.

Religion is a Straight Turn-Off

Religion is a straight turn off, it’s full of Do’s and Don’ts. We all have had a taste of religion growing up, and it’s a major role in why many people are athiest, believe in something other than Jesus, or just straight out rebel against God. Well, it took me until I got saved to realize that religion and Christianity are two totally different things.

You know all throughout the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Jesus constantly got into it the Pharisees and Saducees. The Pharisees and Saducees were the priests! As a matter of fact who do you think crucified and murdered Jesus? It wasn’t the people, it was the darn preachers! Jesus and religion will never get along. Now to fully understand what I’m saying read those 4 books in the Bible, or just get a concordance or go to Biblegateway.com and look up the word pharisees and it will bring up all the times Jesus and them argued about something, and show how they wanted to kill Him for His teachings. I mean, religion accused Jesus, the Son of God of being the devil Himself. So it’s no wonder good people get turned off by it.

Now let me tell you what Christianity is. It’s a personal relationship with Jesus and God. I said it in that order because you first have to know Jesus in order to know God. Jesus is that VIP ticket, without it you ain’t getting close to that gate! But it’s a personal relationship. You talk to them and they talk to you. Jesus is your brother, and God is your Father, it’s nothing deep, it’s as simple as that. How would you communicate with your brother who you love and loves you? How would you communicate with your father who you love and loves you? Same thing. Call them up for advice, just to see how they’re doing, tell them what you need, tell them what you’d like for someone else. They tell you what to do, and you obey, simple things folks.

People confuse commandments from God as do’s and don’ts but it’s not like that. God is our Father and wants the best for us, just like any GOOD parent would. I gotta say good because many of us didn’t have good parents. So just like a good mother would tell her daughter, don’t talk to no thug, he’ll beat you. God will say don’t talk to anyone unsaved, they’ll frustrate you. Don’t be mean to people because karma will make people be mean to you. Don’t fornicate (have pre-marital sex) because I don’t want you with baby daddy or baby momma drama. I also dont’ want you to get any disease. You see? Simple things. Any good parent will give you commandments (rules and laws) to protect you. You gotta know and understand that God wants us to have the best lives, so for all you who have strayed from religion… GOOD! Now come check Jesus out, I’m telling you, everything you want is over here.

Women in the Pulpit

Another thing that’s very controversial in the church today is women teachers. Now I’m not going to even pull scripture on this, you’ll just have to send me a note to see what the Bible has to say about it, but women are not to be teaching men, or having any authority over men.

Understand I’m not against women teachers, just know who you’re supposed to be teaching. Other women. It would be a good idea for churches to have women ministries, where the pastor’s wife or so, teaches the other women who desire to come on their own special bible study night or something.

It doesn’t even make sense for a woman to be teaching a man. If the man’s the head of the household, what makes you think she’s telling him what to do? What type of household is that? Don’t let Destiny’s Child fool you, God never intended for a woman to be independent. He made woman for man and for the benefit of man. He also made woman out of man’s rib… how many people know that we don’t need our ribs to survive? So ladies, if you’re not offended, understand how rare and special it is to find a man that appreciates you and treats you good. Also know your role, and likewise a man needs to know his role so that the relationship can be prosperous.

God the Father; Jesus the Brother

God the Father… Jesus the Brother. You gotta love a setup like that. Now many people think that being Christian entails following a bunch of rules to stay in right standings with God; when in actuality that’s not the case. The Old Testament was us just following a bunch of rules to stay in right standings with God. But Jesus was sent to make a better agreement… a covenant more pleasing to God.

Understand that God loves us so much He wants it easy for us to get to Heaven and live with Him for eternity. He also wants us to have complete… I said COMPLETE and WHOLE lives here on Earth. You can’t be rich and have a dream family, but you’re sick and be whole or complete. It’s like ordering your favorite pie and when it’s delivered or you go to pick it up it’s a slice missing and the clerk tries to sell taht off to you as whole. You’re not going to buy that pie, you need the whole thing. IT’s the same way with God He wants us to have whole lives, where our peace is right, our joy is right, our family is right, our health is right and our money is right. Doesn’t that sound great!?

So, how do you get this lifestyle? Ladies and gentleman it’s really quite simple. God is our Father, and Jesus is our Brother. Now Jesus said that if we serve Him, God will our honor us. So what does that translate into? Let’s say you’re young again and your favorite thing to eat is ice cream, and you have an older Brother. Your Father is going out so He leaves your Brother in charge because He trusts Him, He’s older, more experienced, and He knows that your Brother loves you dearly and will die before He lets anything happen to you. So He tells you, “Your Brother is in charge, and if you don’t give Him a hard time and do what He tells you to do, I’ll bring you some ice cream when I get back.”  Well it’s the same simple thing. God left Jesus in charge, and as long as we do what our Big Brother tells us, God our Father will give us the desires of our heart. It’s that darn simple.

So how do I know what He’s telling me to do? Well this is why you need to be in church, to seek Jesus, to understand Him and His ways, to learn to pray (which I’ll address in another blog) and to learn to discern His voice. Also to read the Bible! Everything in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is all about Jesus’s life and everything in the red is instruction from Jesus.

So all it is, is this, God is your Father, treat Him like it. Not your worldly father who abandoned you, but your perfect Father, the Father you could only dream of, that’s what He is! And He wants to embrace you and love you. And you have the perfect Big Brother! Jesus! Who pushes you to be strong and have the great life, just simply find out what He wants you to do, and do it. And you really will live happily ever after… isn’t that easy?

I hope this was simple enough for everyone, if you have any questions… by all means send me a note, because this is a big one!

What Pastor Said

Here’s one that deeply disturbs me. “Well Pastor Said…” my goodness! Everyone read this and read this clear. I am so not against following your pastor, God gave us Pastors from His heart. And He assigned to each of us a pastor to guide us, guide us, GUIDE US, into the life that God would have for us. So if they’re there to guide us, that makes them a guidance counselor. And do you remember in high school your guidance counselor used to give you advice on what you should do in life, but they never told you what to do. They were there for guidance, they could say, “You need to go over to the left somewhere, or to the right somewhere.” But only you can research exactly what left path or right path to take!

Know that your pastor is a human, and the Bible says that “All men lie” and God can not lie. And it doesn’t mean that your husband or boyfriend lies to you, it just means that hey, I might say I’m going to call you back at 8 and I may forget and call at 9. That was a lie, we’re human, we make mistakes, Jesus and God are perfect! So you follow them.

Furthermore, your pastor doesn’t go home with you! LOL, so why would you count on him to answer all of your life’s questions? God goes home with you, so ask Him! Now do you need a pastor? Must you go to church? YES! Let’s say you’re dealing with something and you need an answer. You’re trying to seek God but you’re so emotional you can’t receive an answer. You go to church and chances are the pastor will hit on the head what you’re dealing with, THAT’S why you gotta go and THAT’S why yo uneed a pastor. He will give you some insight and direction of things for you to do more research on. Then you get your breakthrough, THEN you get your revelation.

So at the end of the day wives… you listen to your husband regardless of what pastor say! If you really believe that your husband is wrong, pray for him! God will deal with him and he’ll get it, that’s why you married him because he hears from God and is smart! Right?

Why Saved Women Prefer Unsaved Men

This is going to be a little longer than “Why Men Prefer Unsaved Women” because the men have a little more going on. Ok, just like the women, saved men let it go too. All I have to say is fellas… GET IN SHAPE! There’s no reason your woman should have to get turned on by lookin at pictures of LL Cool J. You be her LL Cool J!

Secondly, WHY are saved men such gumps? I mean, maybe they were corny before they got saved, I don’t know, but men in church sure enough act like gumps. You can indeed be cool and saved. Just be yourself, and if that means be corny, be corny, but don’t get saved and think God wants you to be lame. Who are you attracting to the Kingdom!?

Third, I don’t think this is a big issue, although I’ve heard it. (We definitely don’t have this problem at my church) However, the church is not a place for homosexuality… period. I’ll just leave it at that. Now if you need deliverance, by all means, get your butt in church. But I said it’s not a place for homosexuality, not homosexuals. The church is like the hospital, it’s a place for healing, healing where your sickness is concerned, where your loneliness is concerned, where your peace is concerned, where your heartache is concerned and where your finances are concerned. So go and get your healing!

Lastly, men, I was a victim of this as well when I first got born again; God did not call us to be SOFT. Just because you’re Christian does not mean you take crap from folks. As a matter of fact you should DEFINITELY  not take it now! You represent the Most High God, act like that’s your Father, act like Jesus is your big Brother. You know when you were younger if a bully was picking on you, and your big brother came and told you to hit him… what you gonna do? Hit him! Because if he even think about hitting you back, your big brother is going to handle that! So stop being soft, you got the women wanting “thugs” because they feel secure with them. We have to step up and show that we are the men who run this earth. The thugs fear us!

And for the record, a thug ain’t tough, what that man needs is a hug! Guys only join gangs for not feeling wanted at home, or they need attention and weren’t shown any love, so they look for love through a “brotherhood”, they live by a code that you die for one another, and really that ain’t nothing but a form of tainted Christianity. So for all the thugs out there reading this, the true love is with Jesus! We have the same laws man, the only difference is our habits and lifestyle won’t kill you. If you want love you gotta show love, come to church to learn what Love is really like.