Brothers and sisters, It can be hard to face the truth about ourselves sometimes, because we have deceived ourselves into believing lies we have made the truth!
And no one really wants to face the truth about themselves because the truth can be painful sometimes!
But truth is the power that’s needed to change, and change can be painful, but the new person that comes with changing for the truth is worth the pain!
People change!
I grew up in the Robert Taylor project homes in Chicago Illinois, 49th St. Vulture City, and I love my neighborhood and all the people who made up our neighborhood!
But in my neighborhood we learned some things that were not true, and the things we learned became our truth, because that’s all we knew!
Some people use that saying that says, I’m a product of my environment as an excuse, and in my neighborhood I saw us become products our own environment!
I saw us become drug dealers, gang bangers, killers, murderers, prostitutes, strippers, convicted felons, drug dealers, drug users and drug abusers, and I saw us become products of our own environment, because all we knew is what we saw!
How can you not become a drug dealer when your mother, father, and uncles, are all drug dealers?
How can you not become a gangbanger when almost all the men in your family were in gangs?
How can you not be on welfare when everyone you know is receiving welfare?
How can you not be a killer when all you have seen is murder, death, and people being killed all around you?
How can women not become a prostitute, whore, and a stripper, when that’s all the women do and talk about that’s around her!
How can you change your mind if you never saw the truth, and you don’t know what real truth looks like?
People, it’s time to change, because no one wants to continue being something they know is a lie!
And some things we had to go through in life, because we had no choice in the matter, because you didn’t choose your mother, your father, your parents, or the family you grew up in!
But now that you’re a grown man or women, you have to make a choice to live for the truth, and not be the lie someone told you that you are, or what your environment made you out to be!
And if you don’t feel the need to change for yourself, then at least change for the sake of your children!
(James 1:21-25) Wherefore lay aside all filthiness and evilness in your lives, and receive with meekness the engrafted word of GOD, which is able to save you souls.
But you be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer of the word, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a glass mirror:
For he sees himself, and goes his way, and straight afterwards he forgets what type of man he was.
But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, and he not being a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deeds.
(Psalms 1:1-2) Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the pathway of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law does he meditate day and night.
(John 8:31-32) JESUS SAYS, if you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed;
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
(John 8:36) JESUS SAYS, If the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.
But the truth of this matter is this, no man or woman ever changed on their own, no one ever changed by their own merits or by their own righteousness!
And if you can show me a man or woman who said they changed on their own, then I will call them a liar to their face, because no one ever changes on their own, and the people who do change are the people who had a confrontation with truth, and the truth they were confronted with is what changed them!~
Brothers and sisters, I am an ex-drug dealer, gangster disciple, whore monger, 4 time felon, I have been to jail for murder, I have been to the penitentiary 3 different times in my life, I am an uneducated man, I have no formal education at all, and I am a ex-career criminal!
And no man, woman, religion, jail, prison, or life and death situation changed me, for truth is what changed me, and I had to have my own personal confrontation with TRUTH to experience true change!~
And even though I was a product of my environment, I always had a desire to change, and to see change in my life, my family, my children, and all the generations that come behind me!~
Hope
Hope is almost always found in the most destitute places.
Hope is sometimes seen on the most hurtful faces.
Beneath the tear soaked eyes.
Beneath the, I’m alright lies.
In between the midnight cries,
When the relationship dies.
Hope is my life support, it’s my second wind, it’s the glimmer seen in my eyes.
Beneath all the pain & the hurt.
Hope is in me yet still at work.
Telling me, Reese, keep faith alive!
Hope!
A psalm of, Hope, by Reese Kemp