How to Use The Power of Your Free Mind

"I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one."
Fredrick Douglas


Do you realize that your power to think whatever you choose is one of the most God like traits you have?  I treasure hearing my own thoughts so much that I can almost not bear needless noise or confusion or chaos.  I've got to deal with it of course, but I now know that I have the power to deal with it.  I can choose or refuse my mental focus.  So can you.


You're reading my words by choice and for a reason.  Why are you reading?  Is someone forcing you to read this blog?  Of course not. And no one is forcing me to write you.  I'm writing you  because I'm sharing with you my honor of my hero Fredrick Douglas on the last day of Black History Month. I want to inspire you as he is inspiring me to be as free as God wants us to be.


We're both freely thinking, as freely as God Himself thinks.  This is the power of your free mind, the power to be like God.


Can anyone make God think what He refuses to think about?  Or does anyone deceive God?  What would that mean?  It would mean someone could make God think that He is something that He is not.  But God says boldly, "I am who I am."


And you are who you are, if you accept that God is who He is.  This starts in the power of your free mind. 


So how do you experience this power today, right now, in whatever you are getting ready to do?


Focus on one thing:  A spiritual mindset.


Choose a "fixed mental focus that predetermines your interpretations and responses to situations." 


That's the definition of "mindset" I found in dictionary.com.  It's the best definition of mindset I've ever read. 


The Apostle Paul says this about mindsets, "Those who live in accordance with the Spirit set their minds on what the Spirit desires." 


So let the desires of the Spirit predetermine your interpretation and responses to every situation.  Define life by what the Spirit wants, and respond to everything based on whether it fulfills His desires. You interpret life by what the Spirit desires, and you respond accordingly.


Your friend calls you in deep depression because he may lose his job.  What does the Spirit want you to say to your friend who is in need today?  Your spiritual mindset makes you interpret your friend's need by the Spirit's desire to meet that need, and you respond to your friend based on what the Spirit desires for him.  The Spirit is showing you how to comfort your friend, and you follow the Spirit's desires.  This was "predetermined."  This was your spiritual mindset.


How does The Spirit desire you to respond to an insult from a coworker?  Your spiritual mindset, which is the source of the power of your God given free mind, will predetermine your interpretation and responses to the insult. You know that the Bible says, "Bless those who curse you, bless and curse not," for example.  So your spiritual mindset has predetermined that when someone insults you, you will not insult them back. 


Your interpretation and responses are predetermined by YOU.  This is the power of your free mind. Nothing will force you to act or react.  It all starts with the power of your free mind. 


You're already using it while you're reading my words.  You are already experiencing the power of Fredrick Douglas' discovery of overcoming slavery. 


I'm convinced that this freedom of your mind and my mind is the real issue of Black History Month and all I've been reflecting on.  Slavery in this country and every country is the enslavement of minds to shackle the will.  If you stop thinking about who God is, who you are, and who our real enemy is--the devil himself, you will be a slave to Satan, sin, and Satan's system, and things will be worse than the worse days of African Americans in this country, or of those who are still oppressed in this world. Your plantation will be your own darkened mind.  What could be worse than being a slave in your own body?


Use the power of your free mind to choose a spiritual mindset.  Have a fixed mental disposition that predetermines your interpretations and responses to every situation.  Choose this fixed mental disposition, or ask yourself this question in every situation: 


"What does the Spirit of God desire me to say or do?"

Now What? (The Destiny of the Free)

"I have the right to do anything," you say--but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"--but I will not be mastered by anything.  1 Corinthians 6:12


Black President.
Black businesses.
Black movies and talk shows.


Do we even need Black History Month?


Or the word "Black?"
African-American?


Now that we're free, now that we've overcome, now what?
Did we need a common "enemy" to have unity and destiny?


Only if we see slavery in this country as something merely historical and not spiritual.


I'm convinced the cruelness of white slave masters was literally demonic.  That this country had a cloud of demonic mindlessness ruling it for a time.  Demons ruled America.  Sin is slavery.  Satan the first sinner. 


So sin is really the issue of slavery.  Being mastered by anything or anyone other than God is the reality of the slavery of sin.  This means the civil war is not over.  The ultimate war is over, because Jesus died for all sin and for every sin.  He is our emancipator. 


The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only true Emancipation Proclamation. 


Unlike Lincoln's emancipation, The Gospel of Christ is enforced by the Spirit of Christ.


Satan, his system, and sin, are destroyed in the life of those who are born again.


In Christ we are "more than overcomers."  More than conquerors. 

These are the Words of God:

This is our Emancipation Proclamation of Salvation:

Whoever sins is a slave of sin.

The soul that sins shall die.

But God commended His love for us that while we were sinners, Jesus died for our sins.

Our old self was crucified with Christ, our bodies of sin destroyed, we are no longer slaves of sin.

We have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slave, whom you obey?

If you abide in my words, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Now what?  What is the destiny of the African-American Christian?


To realize that slavery was and is sin, and that sin has not come to an end. 


Resist sin or be slaves again.  Do not use your freedom to indulge your bodies or self centered minds.  The chains, shackles, and lynch mobs are gone.  But not the devil and demons who were behind them.  Slavery was demonic.  Read the autobiography of Fredrick Douglas, or just think about the evils done to the Africans who came here.  There is a stench of hell behind the history that is monstrous.  It's still here.  Satan seeks slaves even today.


Though "all things are now lawful," all things are not beneficial.  Though you have no earthly slave master, refuse to be mastered in mind, emotion, or will.  Remember the African American National Anthem, especially these words:


Lest our feet, stray from the places our God where we met thee. 
Lest our hearts, DRUNK WITH THE WINE OF THE WORLD WE FORGETH THEE!


Many of us are drunk with the wine of this world.
We have forgotten who delivered us. 
We have forgotten our ancestors.
We submit to sin as our masters.


Right now, resolve to be free from sin.  Choose to the Spirit of God as your Master.  Refuse any and every other master. Resist every mastery except the leading of God's Spirit.  This is the destiny of those who are free.

The Only Hope For the Black Community (What I learned At Morehouse College: Part 3)

At Morehouse I used to think Black people had to "stick together."  Establish our own businesses.  Never marry outside of our race.  Build up the black family.  I hesitated to marry my Lucy because she is white. I told her this from the beginning.  But she wasn't the beginning of what changed how I saw Black community, because she wasn't the first white woman I considered being with.




The first white woman I considered being with made me think about what I wanted to be as a black man.  I liked her because she had everything I liked in a woman.  But the woman I had imagined was black.  That was a given.  I never considered being with a white woman.  Especially after Morehouse.  So I thought it through:




What is my issue with being with a white woman?


1. What would "The Brothers" think?  Here I am, having changed my name to Olatunde, and marrying white woman. Would they consider me a "sell out/uncle tom step and fetch it?"  I didn't care if they did, really.  I knew I wasn't a "sell out." 




2. What would my mother and aunt think? They had gone through so much during the 60's, and black women were regarded as inferior in beauty to white women.  Would they resent me?  I wanted to honor them, but I knew being with a white woman didn't dishonor anyone, in my community or any other community.




3.  What did I THINK?  Really?  She had everything I LIKED.  I'm the one that's going to be with her, not my Morehouse Brothers, not "the Black community," not my mother or aunt.  Me. I thought about it and decided that I didn't have an issue with interracial dating, but I chose to focus on being with a black woman.  I chose this because it seemed best for my mission at the time, to restore honor to my people.  "My People."  Who were my people?  Or were they really "My People?"  Then the final question, the life changing question, came to me. 




4.  WHAT DID GOD THINK? 


It is written, "From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.  God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." Acts 17:26-27




In these verses, "nations" has to do with ethnicities.  God established their histories and geographies.  Why?  So that they all may seek and find the God who is near all of them, everyone of them, as they are.  This is what God thinks, but it wasn't what I was thinking.  My people are really God's people, and I have to think about us as He does.  So how does He think of us?




Is God against a black man marrying a white woman?  Against mixed children?  And what does all of that mean any way?  Bible genealogies don't focus on phenotypes from what I can see.  Black and white are not the dividing lines of people groups in this world by any stretch of the imagination.  God sees us as coming from one man, or one blood, from whom he made all of the nations. Who is the one man we all came from?  Noah.  And from Noah's three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth, all of the ethnicities exist.  They were brothers.  Relatives. Yes, they separated into their different lands and cultures.  But they were together, from the same father.  Do you think Noah's family was white, or black, or yellow, or whatever?  I don't think so.  In fact, we probably wouldn't be able to classify them at all by the racial standards we use today.  (click HERE for part 4)

The Only Hope for the Black Community (What I learned at Morehouse College) Part 2

The Morehouse freshmen were simply outside talking.  Yet what they discussed were deep things I'd thought my whole time in elementary school and high school.  Depths of thought about spirit, soul, body, the universe, life, blackness, truth.  I had never met any people in all of my schooling as genuinely intelligent as these young black men, from all over the united states of America. And we, at Morehouse, we a majority.  We were not in "D Group." In fact, I realized what D Group was for the first time in my life. 


I realized that black students were being defined by their willingness to conform or assimilate.  Not that the one black girl in A Group was a sell out, any more than I was a sell out in B Group.  But I noticed the "D Group" black people simply didn't care about what the school wanted them to be.  They resisted acting like they were "supposed to act." And how was that?  Docile.  Controllable.  But they were also defined as less intelligent because of this. Yet they didn't care!  If they had gone to Morehouse, they would have been the leaders of student government.  Morehouse would have shown them who they really were, like it showed me.




Before Morehouse, life was white, and white was normal.  After Morehouse, I saw blackness as it is:  One of the many reflections of God, who alone is the standard for normality.  I saw myself, a black man, standing before the true and living God, dark skin and all, music and drums and deep intelligent black thoughts.  I saw my people as a group so large and diverse and profound that to call us a minority is crazy.  I met the most talented and intelligent black men in the Morehouse Glee Club.  To this day, I've never met any group of people more intelligent than my Glee Club brothers. Intelligence.  I keep using that word because I remember taking cross over classes in Georgia State, and I remember a white woman looking at me and saying, "You're very intelligent." 


Read those words. 


They are a compliment right?  At face value, of course.  But her tone, her look, her vibe made me feel she was kind of shocked, or that my "intelligence" was rare.  I knew now that she was the ignorant one, and I felt sorry for her.  She had been missing all of her life what I had missed:  God's reflection in Africans.




But what is this reflection really, especially when it relates to the hope of the Black community?
(click HERE for part 3)

The Only Hope For The Black Community (What I Learned At Morehouse College: Part 1)

"I have the right to do anything," you say--but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"--but I will not be mastered by anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12


We're free.
We have overcome.
God was on our side.
What now?


I asked myself these questions as a student of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.  Being there was the very best experience of my entire life because it exposed the lie of my elementary and highschool education.


I was always a "minority" in my classes.  There was A Group, B group, C Group, and D Group. A Group were the smartest kids. D the dumbest kids.  B the smart.  C the average.  There was one black girl in A Group.  I was in B Group with maybe two other blacks.  C was a mix, and D was almost all black. Throughout my life I had an unquestioned assumption that white students were smarter than blacks.  Looking back, there wasn't any proof of this at all, other than the groupings, and the assumption of "majority/minority," or normal/abnormal. But one day I had a revelation about this that began my journey to reality.


I was making up comic book heroes from my head and it hit me:  Even when I made up comic book characters, they were all white.  Do you see the craziness in this?  White people were in my head as make believe characters.  I had NEVER imagined, from my own head, a black character of any kind in my entire life.  I was in the 6th grade when I realized this.  Or when God showed it to me, because there was no reason it came to me right then.  But why wouldn't this be the case?  All the shows I watched at that time had only white people on them.  My favorite book was Peter Pan.  My imagination was white. 


Then I thought, "I can see that white people are beautiful, but can they see that black people are beautiful?" You have to remember, this was in the 80's.  A time when blacks with lighter complexions were seen as more attractive than darker blacks--and this was by black people themselves.  There was "good hair," meaning like white people's hair, and "nappy hair," meaning the kinky hair of some Africans.  All of these assumptions were mine from elementary school until Morehouse College. 


I found out about Morehouse from my highschool science teacher.  He took me to see the Morehouse College Glee Club, and I knew where I was supposed to be.  The discipline and masculine African power was everything I was looking for.  I knew it. I was going to be a Morehouse Man.


I sat in King's Chapel in darkness and silence.  Then "The Brothers" walked on the stage like Princes. Serious.  Focused.  Surrounding the freshmen class on all four sides were upper classmen, all in suits, serious and focused.  One of the brothers on the stage took the podium and the microphone:

Speaker: "You have arrived."

Wall of Brothers: "Welcome to the House."

Speaker:  "Many are called but few are chosen."

Wall of Brothers: "Welcome to the House."

Speaker:  "You are not here to play, to dream, or to drift."

Wall of Brothers: "Welcome to the House."

Speaker:  "You have hard work to do, and heavy loads to lift."

Wall of Brothers:  "Welcome to the House."



It was the most impressive thing I had ever seen in my life. Ever.  I wanted to be like them.  But the real revelation came much later, the one that destroyed everything I'd experienced in my life so far as a Black man. (click HERE for part 2)

The Only Hope For the Black Community (What I learned at Morehouse Colledge: Part 4)

What does all of this have to do with the only hope for the Black community? 


For me, years after Morehouse, though I'm again a "minority" in many situations, I no longer see myself as a minority at all.  The world is not a white world where all of the imaginary people in my head are white. I see my people as God's reflections all over America and the world.  But I also see them as God's people, who reflect Him in so many ways that it can only be expressed in the Kingdom of God.


THE ONLY HOPE FOR THE BLACK COMMUNITY IS TO TAKE IT'S PLACE IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 


In God's kingdom we will all be who we are ethnically.  We won't become hazy spirits with no history or physical distinction.  I will be just as African in heaven.  Jesus is just as Jewish there as He was here.  I no longer focus on "the black community" in the way I used to at Morehouse.  Because in heaven there will still be nations, ethnicities, and cultures.  But they will all be made one, in union with the Son, under the rule of His kingdom.  Heaven will not be segregated. But it won't be America either. It won't be a "melting pot" where there is no room for "hyphenated heavenly citizens."  In fact, I believe we'll be even MORE ethnically distinct in God's Kingdom  than we are right now on earth. 




Until then, let God's kingdom come.  Let God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, for my people the Africans, God's people, for whom Christ died.

The Truest Calling of African-American Christians

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the mountain top of his dream and saw me, my white wife, my seven children, together.  He saw me without fear, ready to kill any  Ku Klux Klan member in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Spirit who comes near me to kill me for loving Lucy.  Dr. King saw an African-American president.  Love him or hate him, agree or disagree, the day President Obama became president changed my entire view of this country. I felt like I was in a different world.  Or I saw a glimpse of one.  A glimpse of King's mountain top.  A glimpse of my people's destiny.

Why did we come here?  What was the purpose of the tragedy of our lost history, identity, ethnicity?



All of my life I've wanted to know what Paul knew in the scriptures.  He knew He was a descendent of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin.  I know I am a descendent of Ham, but I don't know my tribe, my clan, my homeland, my culture or language.  And even if I found out, I'm still a leaf fallen from a tree.  I wouldn't even know which tree.  All would be lost for me and my identity if Christ Jesus, My Lord, didn't save me.

He gave me a new identity which encompasses my lost identity.  If it ever was really lost.  I decree that it wasn't.  I am a son of Ham.  It's obvious.  Perhaps the biggest deception of Satan is that slaves lost themselves to white masters and their redefinitions.  But who made Ham?  Who made the West Africans who came to this country?  Can Satan take away what God formed for His glory?

A prophet told me at the beginning of my journey: 

"The struggle is not to be black, but to be like Christ, and in being like Christ, your blackness will come naturally."


Natural blackness.  God likeness in my blackness.  Without even trying.

What is the truest calling of African-American Christians?

It is to show America the truest freedom: 

The struggle is not to be Americans, but to be like Christ, and in being like Christ, America will be what it should have been.  Not a place that destroyed those who were here before, nor a place that enslaved those who came after.  Not a "New Jerusalem."  Not the richest country in the world.  But a beacon of liberation that only comes through Christ's salvation.

African-American Christians, you bear witness. 

Remember the God of our weary years.

Making Slaves. Breaking Slave Masters. (Quotes From My Teacher Fredrick Douglas)

"I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday."


To become a slave, deprive yourself of your origin. Believe in no beginning.  Ridicule those who know and remember their ancestors, even if they do so on the shortest month of the year.


To break a slave master, remember your Savior and Deliverer, through whom you were born again.


"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."


To become a slave, hate manhood and womanhood, and all of the glory of God's reflection in their distinctions.  You can not be free without God's glory and the glory of God's glory:  Masculinity.  Femininity. 


To break a slave master, remember your Creator, who said, "In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."


"I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me.  From this time I was never again what might be called fairly whipped, though I remained a slave four years afterwards. I had several fights, but was never whipped." 


To become a slave, believe the lie that when Jesus said, "Turn the other cheek," He meant to let yourself be beaten, spirit, soul, or body.  We both know what Jesus meant.  We know He meant patiently seeking reconciliation, as God seeks, when He "turns the other cheek." But we also know that God retaliates in justice.  We are His image and likeness. 


To break a slave master, resist, fight, be unconquerable.  As it is written, "Your body is the temple of God. Whoever destroys God's temple will be destroyed."


"Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk. The most of us used to drink it down, and the result was just what might be supposed; many of us were led to think that there was little to choose between liberty and slavery. We felt, and very properly too, that we had almost as well be slaves to man as to rum.  So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing, took a long breath, and marched to the field,--feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery."


To become a slave, sin.  Jesus said it. Those who sin are slaves of sin.  Sin, and let people sin against you.  Let them tell you that you will be a slave to your body or their body. To your selfish will or to their selfish will.  Never God's will.  Yours or theirs.


To break a slave master, choose your True Master: Jesus The Savior. God the Creator.  The Holy Spirit, to whom you belong if you believe in Jesus.  Don't be under the influence of alcohol, anything else, or anyone else, but instead be under the total influence of the Holy Spirit. 

Know the definition of true freedom: 

Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

Only those set free by Jesus are free indeed.