HOPE: LIGHT AMONG THE RUBBLE

There is a lot about life I still have yet to understand. I've found myself in a place where various things (mainly my faith) is being attacked from various angles. Sitting here at this event filled with people with laughter & happiness written all over their face. The crazy thing is that you never know what's going on in any of their heads or life and all I could think of is who are we trying to impress by unitedly suppressing our realities. So, what's going on in my head? One question mainly..."How did I get here? "Here" can be defined as a state where I do not want to be or ever see myself being at. "Here" is where I'm facing one of the biggest battles of my life. Finding Myself. Who am I really? I supposed this is supposed to be part of what we like to refer to as "growing pains". This "here" battle has been ongoing for some time now. To be exact about 5 years. I am now 24 years old & I feel more victorious now that ever before! The flip side is "The more victorious I am, the harder the battle seems to get".
Why?
It's simple. Just like a person who was poor gets rich & the richer, the harder it is to maintain that "rich" status. In the same way, the closer you are to God, the more of a challenge it is because you become more of a target to the enemy. He will lock ALL of his missles at any & every area of your life that he can. This is why it is important to stay PRAYED UP & Fast without Ceasing! Any well groomed & trained soldier of God's army will be able to find a way out of anything the devil may throw in their direction.
As a Christian, life doesn't get easier. It's not all sunshine and vacation time when we surrender our lives to God but the difference is we have HOPE! With Hope, you can survive ANYTHING!
I remember my pastor preaching one Sunday morning around the time of the Haiti 7.0 earthquake. He spoke about some people who were found alive under the rubble several weeks after the incident. They were asked how they survived without any food, water little to no air to sustain them.
"As long as we saw the little light among the rubble, we had hope!"
Nobody could hear them scream or could have known they were there but a little light among the rubble gave them Hope & that Hope was enough to give the strength to not GIVE UP! In the same way, Christ is that little light for me whenever I find myself among the rubble! and other times, it's people that God has placed in my life. So I know I will SURVIVE!

GOSPEL MUSIC...A JOKE OR AN ANSWER! by Ashtronomix

You can't deny the influence of Hip Hop and pop culture. Now that the 2 cultures are becoming 1, the influence is even more undenible. I'm a christian artist yet I study the other side intently. Most big name "gospel" artist bash secular artists because..."SECULAR ARTISTS DO A VERY GOOD JOB AT WHAT THEY DO!" You may not openly admit it, but let that song come on...nuff said. I was listening to the edited version of N.E.R.D.'s album "Seeing Sound"...amazing production, great songwriting, or gimmicks. They made their own lane. The same can be said about Kanye, Lady GaGa, Linkin Park...whether the church wants to believe it or not. What most christian artists do is observe what the world does and then create a "Saved" version of it. Cute. We made the Creator look like He ran out of ideas. I don't blame the many christian artist for crossing over to secular. "Throw Your Stones Now." The secular industry is very stern. Their mindset is "Is this gonna bring in the millions or make us lose some." Therefore whoever they recuit has to be "impacting" the masses. AND WHADAYAH KNOW!!! MOST SECULAR ARTISTS GOT MILLIONS OF BOTH CHIRSTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN FANS! Now we christian artists say our mindset is "To Wins Souls And Bring God's Name Glory"...are we though. I have yet to see a Lil' Wayne fan become a bigger fan of a christian artist. What are we doing?....oh I know, We are having Gospelfests and Sundays Best, christian American Idols. Please. Enough is enough. Instead of "Taking By Force", we are "Taking Up Space." I pray daily that God would grant his people creative strageties to win souls. This Is A War...and yes...We Are Currently Losing. Not because our God doesn't know what's going on, but because We depend on tradition more than God now. our way of thinking is now "What worked for Tye can work for me" or "What worked for Kirk.." No Originality, just recycled concepts. MY GOD IS THE CREATOR. LOOK AT THE OCEAN, THE SKY, THE STARS, ETC. WHO CAN MATCH THAT KIND OF CREATIVITY. BEFORE GENRES, GOD WAS. NOTHING WAS BEFORE HIM, AND ALL THAT IS WAS MADE BY HIM. STOP GIVING THE DEVIL CREDIT FOR SOMETHING HE DIDN'T CREATE. HE COUNTERFEITS AND PREVERTS. THAT'S ALL. GOD'S CREATIVITY IS INFINITE. ALL THE FALSE GODS KNEW THAT...WHY CAN'T MOST CHRISTIAN ARTIST. The influence of the Holy Spirit is undenible, but the influence literally transforms you completely. Imagine in Impact We artists can have on our generation with the 3 influences combined. I Believe Jesus showed us what a successful ministry is. If ministry Impacted both Jew and Gentile yet he didn't water anything down. I...Just Want To See The Body Of Christ Victorious. Go into all the world, preach the gospel to "every" creature.

By Ashley Ashtronomix Cheatham

Beef with Religion

I have beef with Religion. I was just thinking about a lot of things the other day while one the phone with one of my friends. There are so many thing being practiced in Church that is NOT BIBLICAL. In order words, we are following MAN-MADE Rules. Some of these rules may be back-up by culture or personal belief but it should not surpass the WORD of God. I know right about now, you probably want some example so here they are...some churches don't allow women to wear pants to church because the bible says a a woman should not wear that which belong to a man and vice-versa. When a woman walks into the store, she doesn't purchase her pants from the men section?? Its says "for women", os what's the problem..I can continue pushing out more examples but first I want to know your thoughts on all this RELGIOUSNESS CONFUSIONS/MISINTERPRETATION....I have beef with Religion