1. It’s very addicting:

   We’ve all been there. There’s that one thing in your life that you know is pulling yourself so far from the grasps of God. Why can’t we just stand up and say “I’m done?” The answer is very simple-it’s something you enjoy. Any one who has tried quitting smoking will tell you that they just miss the enjoyment they had from cigarettes. Likewise, with our sins, it’s just so much easier to continue on the road we’re on. We are so comfortable with familiarity that we oftentimes feel reluctant to move forward with our lives. We think about it and realize that moving forward means moving in to unknown territory and that’s not what we want. So we continue our sins, much as why we’d continue smoking, because it’s just so easy to continue.

2. We need support to quit:

   Our friends, our family, our church, our God. We require all of them, at least a little bit, to support us in our support. We need help. We are just humans and we are addicted. We need the help of those around us who have dealt with the same sin or avoided the same sin that we are often going through. Smokers trying to quit will often quit with a group of people. They will all keep each other accountable and make sure to be strong where the other falls weak. Likewise we need support as we quit our specific sins.

3. Of the group above, we need God the most:

   Regardless of how amazing the people around you helping are…they, too, are only humans. A lot of times when people quit smoking, they put all of their faith in their friends and when one slips it’s a downward spiral for the rest. The same thing is true with our faith. We quit with a particular sin that we’re having and get a great group of people to keep us accountable and then one person slips up, then the other and before you know it, we’re making compromises to try to make it seem okay for what we’re doing. Much as with smokers, we need to put our faith in GOD not other HUMANS. God is glorious and has made us so we NEED to believe in Him. The simple fact of the matter is, we’re an imperfect people and if we need to correct on imperfect behavior, who better to focus on than a perfect God?

4. You CAN quit:

   It IS possible to quit. God works miracles. He is perfect and He will help you. The catch? You have to truly want it. God want’s all of your heart. If you try to quit something and say “I think I’ll just quit soon,” that will not work. I’ve heard the phrase “I’ll quit after this pack” so many times in my life, it’s unbelievable. I’ve always seen that as an incredible act of counter-activity. The problem with this is people are essentially saying “I’ll quit this addictive behavior after I have more of the addictive ingredients.” How often do we do the same thing? “This is my last time!” We get so passionate about it. We say “I’m for real this time! I’m on FIRE for the Lord and after this, I’m done.” The power of sin is equally destructive as the power of nicotine and as we consume more and more of the sin, we get more and more addicted.

Luckily for us there is an escape. God has given us the power of prayer. We can always come to Him. We can always rely on Him. Most importantly, He WANTS us to come to Him and rely on Him. He want’s us to acknowledge that He is, indeed, our God. The biggest problem with our personal sins are that when we are doing them, we are essentially locking God out of our lives. We are saying to Him “I know what you want, and I know this isn’t it but, God, leave me alone…I’m just having fun here.” We all sin, and I’m not saying you will ever get rid of ALL of your sin, but it’s our jobs as Christians to never let anything get in the way of our relationship with God. He wants all of our lives and by continuing with those sins that pull us so far away from Him, we are taking away a piece of our life. It’s difficult. It’s addicting. It’s possible to quit it, but only with His help.

Then I realized it really doesn’t end there. Have you ever thought about how “black and white” our culture is? You’re cool or you’re a looser. You’re a friend or I don’t like you very much. You’re fun or you’re boring, funny or dull, clean or dirty, pure or a skank, the list goes on and on. This, I find to be ridiculous. I can’t speak for the whole world, but I know that this country is one that embraces the culture of black and white, everything down to politics. You’re a democrat or you’re a republican. There is a third party, but that’s mostly a joke.

This brings me around to the point though. As Christians we must throw down the idea of the black and white and acknowledge that there is a gray area and almost all of us have fallen into it. As Christians we often seem to think there are three areas of sin. I like to call them the “big 3” sins. We all know them. Sex, drugs, and alcohol. We always think that there are two types of people. Those that are in the “big three” category and us “real Christians” who would never dream of doing something so awful. What we often fail to realize is that there are so many other sins. Sometimes the problem is acknowledging, but instead reminding ourselves. We walk around with our nose up, strutting around, letting everyone know we are better than them. After all, we’re real Christians, we don’t partake in the big three.

Christ came down to Earth and shook everyone up with this very concept. We can find this in Matthew 5:

“²¹“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²²But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment…²⁷“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ ²⁸But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart… ³¹“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ ³²But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery… ³³“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ ³⁴But I tell you, Do not swear at all…³⁸“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…⁴³“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

Christ makes it very clear that there is a gray area in sinning. I just picture a conversation between Jesus and a man trying to preach saying “well yeah, you can’t murder…that’s a sin. Good thing I’ve never murdered anyone.” And Christ came down and said “No, don’t you get it? There’s so much more than that. You shouldn’t even be mad at a fellow brother.” The man is a little disheartened and says “Well, okay, I’m guilty of that…but at least I’ve never cheated on my wife.” Jesus just looks at him and goes “Brother, you don’t get it. You shouldn’t even LOOK at other women.” And Jesus would sit there and try and try and try to convince this man that he needs Jesus to die for him just as much as anyone else.

It’s a very tough concept to listen to though, isn’t it? I know I often find myself feeling a little self righteous thinking about how I don’t do anything bad, but I forget about the gray area. I need Jesus just as much as anyone else. I need Him as much as the girl prostituting herself for crack, and I need Him just as much as any preacher of any church. Nobody escapes the need of Jesus to die for their sins. Anyone who tries to convince themselves otherwise is a fool and there’s no way around it. It’s only through the blood of Christ that we could even dream of becoming near to God

My name is James Gordon Curtis. I refuse to acknowledge the black and white society in which we live and toss it aside to allow room for the gray area that I know I fall in to. I don’t smoke crack. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t have sex. This in no way means that I am not a sinner. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if God chose to use a person who did everything on that list before He chose me. I am a worthless, filthy sinner and it’s only through the grace of God who sent His son to live and die for me that I may even come close to being worthy of entering the gates of Heaven. I am in the gray area. And I refuse to believe it doesn’t exist. And one thing I know more than anything else in this world is that I am not alone in here.

Real talk:

1. I don’t try hard enough enough of the time. Although I have convinced myself that I have done all that I can for my Lord and Saviour, I stand before you a mere disappointment. Although I have convinced myself that I am trying my hardest, I stand before you a fool as well as a master of trickery (since I was on both sides.) And last but not least, Although I have convinced myself that I have a very close relationship with God, I often feel very distant. Not because He’s not there, because I’m not there for Him.

2. I often find myself wondering about God. What it will be like when I see Him, if I’m good enough to even get the chance to see him. I often wonder about the questions I will ask, if I will find myself able to speak. And I often wonder about how He will react to me. Will he throw His ever loving arms around me and let me know that He loves me, or will He let me know that although I sometimes fail to see the evilness in my soul, He never does.

3. School is really wearing me down. I’m very glad to get the break of Summer. I call myself a real believer in Christ. I often like to think I am a Christ follower and not just a Christian, but too often in school am I silent when I shouldn’t be. There are days when I feel as though I could shout at the top of my lungs about the love I have for God. There are days when I feel like all is right and like I don’t care about what happens to me for my beliefs. Unfortunately, however, there are days when I slouch down really low and keep my mouth shut. There are days when I get irritated too easily and don’t show the same result that Christ would in the situation. I don’t want to be a “Part time Christian” but, unfortunately, I am sometimes.

4. I don’t give enough time to God. My schedule gets busy, true, but never will it be too busy to excuse setting apart some time for God. I tend to do this thing where I excuse myself from setting apart time for God since I am with church friends so much. I often fail to realize that the most important thing in your relationship with God is your PERSONAL relationship with God. You can never fulfill the duties of the personal relationship in a group setting.

I made this list for a couple of reasons:

1. I need to admit these things sometimes so I can work my way off of my high horse. I often feel like since I do believe strongly in God, I am better than everyone else. Although I know this is VERY false, I often find it hard to cope with the fact that I’m no better than the kids going out and parting every night.

2. It’s only fair that if I’m doing blogs about your relationship with God that I admit that I’m just as lost as everyone else. This blog is about things that pop in to my mind almost at the exact moment I’m writing them. Not things I’ve had the virtue of knowing for years.

3. I want to establish the fact that I have the same struggles as anyone else out there. I still find it hard to commit to some of the things that I even write.

So there it is. That’s my “real talk.” Thank you for reading it. God bless.

In my experience, there are two things that couldn’t annoy me more. Number one is when a fellow Christian believes that they are the best they can be. They think they have given their all to Christ. I’m sorry, but nobody can truly reach the potential God has set for us. As the Harris twins put it, “God has set a bar higher than we can reach so that way we’ll always be growing.” But this is about the other. The, perhaps even more annoying, second thing.

In my experience, the thing that annoys me way more than people thinking they have reached their potential is people who don’t even try to. I’ll be the first in line to say I fall way short of that line that God has set out for us. This isn’t the point. The simple fact of the matter is this: if our body’s the temple, and we’re supposed to be the light, who is to say that we’re ever really as good as we can be?

I, in no way, have my junk together. I’m a filthy, worthless sinner. I have so much sin in my life it’s unbelievable. But if through Christ, anything is possible; than I can chip away at my gigantic boulder of sin, and, with the help from God, turn it into a sculpture of purity, godliness, and bliss.

Recently, a Muslim girl in my class asked me what Christians meant by “The Holy Ghost.” I was truly touched. Although I, in no way, expected to convert this girl; this meant that I was being enough of a light that people knew who I was and what I was about. They knew they could come to me with a question that, in her words, “Nobody would answer for her.”

My point isn’t to brag. My point is to show the amount of great things that can occur when you actually apply yourself. I don’t know when, how, or why this happened, but somewhere along the line, something went horribly wrong. Sometime ago, somebody mistook worshipping with going to church on Sundays. This is such a huge folly, in fact, that it affects nearly everyone of us today. Too often do we feel we just need to get a “refill” and go about our business for the rest of the week. Being a Sunday Christian isn’t what God calls us to.

Basically, what I’ve found is this:

I’m a sinner who serves no purpose other than to please the Father.

I can never live up to those standards set by God.

Being a “Sunday Christian,” isn’t going to cut it.

We need to stop treating our religion as a hobby and start regarding it as a lifestyle.

Through Christ, anything is possible. The man who was able to take away sin when you reach the gates of Heaven, can take them away from you right here, right now on Earth.

There’s just one catch. You have to want to have it.

Lord, Jesus, you are the king of me. You reign over all the Earth. I want you in my life. I want you by my side. I want you to live in me. I want you to help take away my sin. I’m willing to put in the effort.

So I was having a little walk today and I noticed how incredibly gorgeous it was. Everything was perfect. The trees were coming back to life with leaves and budding flowers. I couldn’t help but say “Praise God for spring.” Winter is such a desolate time. It’s never really enjoyable…to me at least. It’s a time where everything seems to be dulled down. School goes by slower because I have nothing to look forward to after it than a cold walk to my car. Outside it just looks depressing as the trees mimic their dead-like behavior. The beautiful green grass turns to nasty mud-stained snow. Everything just seems horrible.

Then spring comes along and it’s like we’re a child again. Many of us watch in awe as the trees regain their life. “I forgot how green the grass could be!” I’ve caught myself exclaiming. Isn’t it amazing that we have a God who will give us the horrible weather so we might appreciate the better weather just a little bit more?

My point to this whole blog is this-We all have our times of winter (understandably, it may be a different season for you.) but we MUST realize that hope is just around the corner with gorgeous new weather just waiting. We’ll see everything come back to life, and our eyes will be opened.

But there’s another problem. We’re creatures of the here-and-now. Its winter now means that you’re not acknowledging that spring is on the way. In the same way, we do this with our problems. We get in a horrible mood and forget that spring is just around the corner. I’ll admit, I’m incredibly guilty of sulking. I get ridiculous when I’m in a bad mood. But what I have to realize is that my eyes will be re-opened. I will see the world like never before. I’ll exclaim how amazing it is that the grass is so green. I’ll make sure to open the blinds so that the sun can pour in. I’ll go for walks and notice all of the beauty the world has to offer… but at that point-in-time, I stare at the mud-stained snow. I keep my blinds closed for fear of the ugliness of the dead-like trees pouring in, and I’ll exclaim how much life just isn’t that great.

Spring is around the corner…and it’ll blow you away.

In a lot of the same ways, music seems to play a huge role as well. I’ve been known to fight to the bitter end that music has no effect on a person’s life. This has mainly been due to the fact that people try to shove this “Rap causes killing” crap down our throats almost constantly. Maybe we should start posing a better question. My, personal, theory isn’t that all music causes you to do horrible things, it’s this; although I feel as though bad music doesn’t necessarily make you do bad things, it’s very much so true that good music helps you to do marvelous things.

Hear me out on this. If we were to totally re-route our music choices to only those things honoring God, would we become better people? Absolutely not, that’s not the case at all. The point is this, mass media plays an incredible role in our lives. For teens especially, music is the leader in front of the incredible train of that which is mass media. If all you’re doing is listening to “I wanna hump dat booty, I wanna get dat booty, I wanna feel yo booty,” then guess what? you’re probably not going to feel as convicted when you look lustfully at women. Now think about this, if we were to re-rout our music choices, if only for a month-long trial, so we heard stuff like “There will be times where you may not find a reason to stand and sing, but let this remind you time after time, you’re a child of the king,” we may not feel as great about doing such things as looking lustfully at others.

The simple fact of the matter stands at this: Music, whether you’d like it to be or not, is an incredible influence on that which is you. Every question leads to two choices-Honor God (Ya know, that guy who gave His SON so that you may be saved), or feed the ego which is you. As cheesy as this may sound, God calls us to imitate Christ, and every now and then, the question really is as simple as “What would Jesus do?”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe you’re going to hell for listening to that hit song “Hump dat booty.” The simple fact is, Jesus died on account of He knew all of us were going to make choices such as that, but God calls us to more. He calls us to give up little things for Him every day. Why not start with a huge influence on what you are?