Holy. Human. Honest!

Dr. King's Dream, A Kingdom Reality (A Call To Action & Prayer for the Church in the West)

• Jazmyn Nichols • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

What if we could bridge the divides that separate us within the body of Christ and truly embody unity? In this latest episode of the Holy Human Honest Podcast, we embark on a transformative journey, inviting you to reflect on the principles of examination, exploration, and engagement. Inspired by Psalm 139:23-24, we challenge ourselves to confront and dismantle biases or divisions, not just on commemorative days like MLK weekend, but throughout the year. Through candid personal stories, we navigate the complex path of embracing unity amidst diversity, urging a deeper and more authentic connection with fellow believers.

This episode highlights the beauty and significance of cultural diversity in our spiritual journey, drawing insight from Revelation 7:9. We discuss the importance of recognizing the diverse appearances of historical figures, like Jesus, and the need for an identity rooted in truth. Join me as I share insights from my personal quest to understand and celebrate various cultures, emphasizing that God desires unity, not uniformity. This episode extends a heartfelt call to action, urging listeners to embody a commitment to reconciliation and unity, embracing our God-given diversity in the kingdom. Let these reflections inspire you to examine, explore, and engage with your faith in meaningful ways.

We’d love to hear from you!!

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Hello, hello, hello and welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Holy Human Honest Podcast. I am your host, jasmine B Nichols, and I am so happy that you are here with me today. You guys, I say this all the time this podcast is a challenge to myself to be consistent and faithful with different things that the Lord gives me to edify the body. This is not about perfection. So, with that being said, if you hear a little bit of noise in the background, I am a mommy of four, a wife of one and living in a house of six. So if you hear some noise in the background, bear with me. But I still hope that something from this podcast can bless you today.

Speaker 1:

Without further ado, I'm gonna go ahead and get into the topic for today. So, y'all, it's MLK weekend and today I'm going to be bringing to you three E's. Three E's examine, explore and engage. I'm also going to let y'all know right now this message is for the body, this message is for believers, so there's going to be some things that may not be applicable. If you don't find yourself in that category, you can still please feel free to listen to this podcast. You might still pick up a nugget, but this is specifically for um, the body of Christ, the body of Yeshua, our Messiah. So three e's on a weekend like this weekend, and really on days like any other day, we shouldn't be leaning into certain conversations and certain ideas and certain key figures of reconciliation and restoration on just one day. We should be doing these things all year round. If you are a kingdom citizen, these things all year round if you are a kingdom citizen. But on a day like today, on a weekend like this weekend, where so many people are wanting to lean into the message and the vision and the dream of Dr Martin Luther King, I wanted to just share some thoughts. So when I was in prayer, the Lord gave me these three E's examine, explore and engage.

Speaker 1:

For me personally, I think sometimes it's easy to have a day like MLK and we think about the past, we meditate on it, we think about things we don't want to repeat, we look at you know the progress that we've made and we try to be of service, to do kind things, stuff like that. But sometimes then, okay, the conversation is over, then it's done. Things, stuff like that. But sometimes then, okay, the conversation is over, then it's done. And I just personally want to challenge the body to go deeper, examine, explore and engage. So what do I mean by examine? Let's start with that one.

Speaker 1:

I first want to read a Psalm, psalm 139, verse 23 through 24. It says search me, o God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. I love this scripture because, when we talk about reconciliation, restoration, racial re-education, bringing forth unity, you know, I hear so often, and and even me, I proclaim unity, unity, unity. The lord uh desires for people who really love him and are called, according to his purpose, to be unified, to be one that we would walk in agreement in who he is, what he has said, doing the things that he's called us to do, obeying his commandments and living out through grace and truth, through the holy spirit. A call to unity.

Speaker 1:

But I think it's important for us to examine ourselves and ask ourselves what are the things in me that don't bear the fruit of unity but bear the fruit of division? Okay, now you know there are scriptures, jesus said. There are. There's a scripture. Jesus said I didn't come to bring peace and that there would be some division, but that division should not be happening within us as a body of believers. Within us as a body of believers, we should be on one accord, in alignment and in agreement with what God has said, what God is up to, what God did, what God is doing and what God is going to do. We should be solid, in agreement on that.

Speaker 1:

So again asking myself are there any ways inside of me that are divisive? Are there any ways inside of me that are racist? Are there any things inside of me that are hateful? Y'all and I'm not going to lie Again, this is the holy human, honest podcast. When I really begin to examine myself, sometimes I find there are things about certain people's stuff. Honestly, I just that I don't like and I have to be honest about that. There are certain things in certain cultures that I feel like I've not always known how to respect, and it's nothing wrong, it's just. It's something like.

Speaker 1:

I think we have to be honest about that, because I think it can be very easy to be tolerant, but being tolerant doesn't always mean being unified. Now, I'm not saying that we have to like everything that a person does or we don't have to necessarily take on every custom, but again, I'm talking about things in us that actively our our biases, that are actively bearing the fruit of division, examine. We gotta examine ourselves, y'all, and we we can't be afraid to do it. I think that it is so easy to kind of live parallel to one another and not always intersect one another and I, I think the Lord, he, desires for us to intersect with one another. He said be one, even as I and the Father are one. That is what the Lord is asking, not for us to just be parallel, to be close but not really together, to be close but not really intertwined. We got to ask ourselves what is in me that's keeping me away from that? What is in me that's keeping me away from that? I'm going to be honest, I'm going to give an example for myself y'all. I'm throwing myself out there.

Speaker 1:

As a black woman, I have struggled when I see black men marry white women. I'm not going to lie, i'm'm just gonna keep it 100% real. This is a real issue in the black community for a lot of black women. You know, we don't necessarily want to see the best of the best of our men, not choose a black woman. We want to see them choose a black woman and then for a man to choose a white woman, that could feel hurtful and that could feel like something that is very hard to process. And I've had to take that to God and I've had to repent.

Speaker 1:

Because when you are a believer, your first and foremost identity is not in your skin color. Your first and foremost identity is not in your skin color. Your first and foremost identity is in Christ. And I even look at Yeshua. I look at Jesus and you read through his genealogy. It's all kind of people in his genealogy. I look at Ruth. Ruth was not a Jew, she was not a Hebrew woman, but she's in the genealogy because she chose God. I look at Rahab I'm pretty sure Rahab's in the genealogy because she chose God. I look at Rahab I'm pretty sure Rahab is in the genealogy. She wasn't a Hebrew but she chose God.

Speaker 1:

Who is choosing God? Because people could could be with somebody that looks like them but not be serving the Lord, not be walking in spirit and in truth. That's what it's really about. It's people all the time they get married or have relationships with people that look like them every day and they don't last because they're unevenly yoked. So that's something I had to address in myself okay, um, I have some wonderful friends that have really, I think, helped my heart change in this way. They are an interracial couple and they both love the Lord, and that's the first and foremost thing. Okay, they're choosing God and they're choosing one another.

Speaker 1:

I even look at my own genealogy when I've done my DNA test, my ancestry DNA, because I wanted to know where I come from. I have so many different things inside of me. I got Welsh, finnish, iberian, actually a lot of Iberian. I think I'm like 15% Iberian, so that's Spain and Portugal, and then different countries in Africa, and I'm so thankful and I'm like all those things made me. All those things made me. And who am I to deny any piece of who I am and how God chose to bring me forth into this earth? It's all in there, white and black, spanish and Portuguese. It's there and it made me. So who am I to say that God can't move through people? You know what I'm saying. So that's just me being honest.

Speaker 1:

We have to examine ourselves. To my white brothers and sisters, you know, examine yourselves. To my black brothers and sisters, examine yourselves and everybody else in between, chinese, arabic, whatever you are. We need to examine our biases. If we're kingdom people, because the Lord is asking us, he desires for us to be unified, that we would be one even as he and the Father are one. Examine be unified that we would be one even as he and the father are one. Examine.

Speaker 1:

The next one is explore, explore, explore. Proverbs 4, verse 7, and you guys, I have some notes so you might hear my my papers rattling a little bit proverbs 4 and 7 says wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore, get wisdom and, with all thy getting, get understanding, explore. So we went through the examination phase. Okay, what are the things that keep us apart and how do those things live inside of me? Okay, to push back progress of a unified body in spirit and in truth, seeing the Lord for who he is. Okay, examining even in ourselves. Am I pushing back against who you are, lord? Am I not accepting you in your fullness because there's certain things about your culture or who you were that I didn't want to receive and accept? Examine, examine that, but explore and all thy getting, get understanding. Are we learning the stories of the people around us? The kingdom is a kingdom of nations. Okay, the Lord was always after the nations. He, he always wanted the nations to rule, to, to, to, to worship him because, honestly, that's the best thing for the nations is to walk in alignment with God. The kingdom is a place of nations.

Speaker 1:

I think sometimes it seems like everybody and, if I'm honest, especially the western white ecclesia, like people that participate and identify as like western american or even european white believers. In some ways, I'm grateful that it seems like many people, more and more, are getting an understanding of the plight and the pain of the different nations. However, do we know God's plan and God's purposes for the nations, for our brothers and sisters who look different? Have we explored their cultures? Who are their great orators? Who are the great theologians, the conquerors, the storytellers, the composers, the scholars and the leaders in other cultures? With all of our getting good understanding, who are my brothers and sisters who identify? They love the Lord, but who are they? What gets them excited? What makes them happy? How do they desire to express themselves in worship? Are we exploring these other cultures around us and not just looking for everybody to assimilate and look one way?

Speaker 1:

I often say that to be born black is to be born with an invitation to investigate. Have you investigated what you think you know, have you investigated how you came to certain beliefs? I don't feel like I've had the luxury of not investigating and just accepting things. And again, I say, to be born black in America is to be born with an invitation to investigate, because I can't depend on public schools to tell me who I am. You know when we would learn about different people. You know I would sometimes have friends say, well, why is there a Black History Month? And I'm like, well, look at who we're learning about every year during black history month. That's when we, and then then even in black history month, we probably learned about maybe two or three black people who did something important, and then so many other things are being attributed to all these other people.

Speaker 1:

Ancient Africa had incredible mathematicians and I mean, there was such a wealth of knowledge. Did you know and I learned this at Purdue University, I was a minor in African-American studies and I took a class called the black male. Did you know that the world went to Greece to learn? Like Greece is where everybody wants to learn, but do you know that the world went to Greece to learn? Like Greece is where everybody wants to learn, but do you know that the Greeks went to Africa. When you study the pyramids and things like this, they were so intelligent in the land of Africa and they still are in the land of Africa and they still are. All of Africa is not just, you know, children with flies like flying all over them. If you, when you think of Africa, and all you think is like these places where people are impoverished and you know, everything is just desolation.

Speaker 1:

To to think of Africa and only think of that is to think about America and only think of Skid Row. That's an avenue, that's a street. Now, don't, don't, don't get me wrong. It is a huge problem. But even are we investigating how it got like that? Because it wasn't always like that. There were systems that came when Africa was being colonized, that put things in place and it literally made these people have to depend on government, but that, hey, that's a whole nother podcast.

Speaker 1:

Again, to be born black in America is to be born with an invitation to investigate. Who am I? When I learned about black history growing up in America, it always started as slavery and for a long time you just kind of like oh, you know, you learned about black history, you learned about slavery, but I'm like, wait. There's so much that preceded it. There is so much of our history that preceded all of that. And so, again, are we exploring not just our own beginnings, but are we exploring the cultures of the people around us? Are we learning, are we knowledgeable? Let's not just settle for being hospitable and kind, but let's explore out of love for our brothers and sisters.

Speaker 1:

Right now, I'm really trying to learn about indian culture. I'm trying to learn more about indian culture. I'm trying to learn more about chinese culture, because I am at a place and in a location where there are so many international students from India. I'm learning about African culture, nigerian culture, ghanaian culture, rwandan culture. I want to learn these things because I want to be able to care well for my brothers and sisters. It's not just enough for me to know the plight and pain of people around me. I want to know the plan and purposes of God for my brothers and sisters, because we all have a part to play In the kingdom of God.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, engage. I don't want to just settle for just being welcoming. I want to actively participate in what God is doing in the earth. I want to actively participate in what God is doing in the earth. I don't want to just be somebody that just sends money to a faraway country. I don't want to be somebody that just goes on a mission trip every year or does this or does that. Am I going up the street to my brother and sister that might look different than me, that might be in a different socioeconomic status than me? Are we really engaging with one another and not just waiting for people to come to us? Don't just welcome the foreigner into your home. Dwell with them in theirs, engage in their dreams, their songs, their stories. Today, this is kingdom advancement, not when one culture assimilates to look like another, but when we all hold our own God-given shape and together we begin to look more like Jesus, more like Yeshua, jew and Gentile, black and white and red and brown and yellow, when we're together.

Speaker 1:

One of my favorite scriptures comes out of revelation, chapter 7, verse 9. After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying out with the loud voice salvation belongs to our god, who sits on the throne, into the land and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worship god, saying amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. Later on in that scripture says that that multitude is the people that came, came out of the great tribulation, believers. But again, just look at that a multitude that no one can number, from every nation, all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne of God. You guys, that is a kingdom vision.

Speaker 1:

God is not looking for us to be uniform, he's looking for us to be uniform. He's looking for us to be unified. And it's not just a dream in the kingdom, it should be our kingdom reality. This should be our kingdom mandate. It's not enough to just settle for living parallel to one another. We should be being one in Yeshua, messiah and Jesus Christ Okay, accepting him fully who he was, both as God and even as a man. Y'all.

Speaker 1:

Christ was most likely brown I hate to get on this, but listen more like most likely brown, with dark hair and brown eyes. His family was able to hide in egypt. His feet are described as bronze. If we can't accept that, the enemy has already won like we really gotta get, we really got to get honest. And though skin is not everything, we've made it to be such a big deal, such a trip up for the body. Let's find our identity in Yeshua, who he was, and advance the kingdom unified, accepting one another as we come, not changing one another. We all have a one another, we all have a part, we all have a place. The left foot is not more important than the right foot. When we're trying to win a race, let's walk together eyes wide open, not trying to refuse some of the things that we see about one another, but embracing one another.

Speaker 1:

And how we come. I see you, you see me fully worshiping God in spirit and in truth, and from that space is where we engage with one another, not from a place of guilt, not from a place of shame, not from a place of denial, not stepping on, you know, eggshells, though the historical past of our nation informs us. What God spoke about us from the beginning is what defines us One with one another, one with God, reconciled completely through Christ. What a vision, what a dream. Your kingdom come. It will be done, father, make it our reality.

Speaker 1:

Father, I lift up the body to you, lord, right now, father, that you would wash us with your word, lord, that we would deny and just get rid of the lies, lord, that we believe about ourselves, the lies and misconceptions that we believe about one another. Lord, father, I ask that you would reveal the things that keep us separated. Lord, reveal our concerns and our fears. Lord, Father, I ask that you would reveal the things that keep us separated, lord, reveal our concerns and our fears. Lord, father, reveal our biases. Reveal racism in our heart. Lord, father, if the world chooses to remain divided, if the world chooses to remain apart, fine, so be it. Lord, but your word that that the world would be able to recognize us by our love, the love we have with one another. Lord, lord, you pray that we would be one, even as you and the father are one.

Speaker 1:

Lord, god, father, help us to be one, not uniform, but unified. Lord, walking in our rightful places. Lord, knowing that we all have a part to play in the kingdom. Father, help us. Father, help us. Let us not be content and okay, that one of the most segregated places in the United States to this day is churches on a Sunday morning or a Saturday evening, or a Saturday evening or Friday evening.

Speaker 1:

Lord, make us one first of all. Lord, teach us your word so that we can can rightly divide your word and agree with who you are and what you said and what you've called us to do. Lord, may the scales fall, father, of things that just don't matter, lord, of traditions of men. Lord, and let us take up the things that you have called us to the things you've said. Father, may we not try to be justified by perfectionism, or may we not try to be justified by the law. Lord, but may we obey your commandments Because we love you. Those that love you obey your commandments. Father, you are a good father. May we be obedient Because we know that you know what is best for us. Lord, like a child who obeys a parent. Lord, not because they're trying to win that parent's love, lord, because they trust that parent's love. Lord, help us, father. May we be unified. Lord, may we be tuned in and, lord, may we not do it for optics sake, but for the kingdom's sake. Father, I thank you.

Speaker 1:

The theory is the promise of unity. Lord that revelation, chapter 7. Lord that it shall come to pass, father, god, I thank you, lord, for acts, chapter 2, when the holy spirit came, lord, and it says that the spirit empowered the disciples to be able to speak in different languages, lord. And it says that there were Jews, devout Jews, from every nation where they were, and they heard them speaking in their language. They heard them speaking the wonders of God, and the people came to them saying what is going on, and Peter was able to preach the gospel to the people that day, lord, and thousands were added to their number because the people heard their language, lord, may we learn to speak the languages of the nations, lord, and I don't just mean uh, just just languages, lord, but may we, may we learn to speak the language of, of the youth.

Speaker 1:

The generations will help us to know how to communicate with one another, lord, but at the end of the day, let it always point to you, lord, may the church not try to look more black, or try to look more white, or try to look more this or try to look more that. Let us try to look more like you. Let us not only ask ourselves how can people come here and be comfortable and how can people come here and fit in, lord, let us say how can we make this a place where god feels welcome, father, because your word says that if we would lift you up, you would draw all men unto you. You would do, father, if we lift you up. So, father, may we lift you up, may we look and seek to look more like you. You are good Father. We get out of the way, lord. Teach us, help us to examine, help us to explore and help us to engage with our brothers and sisters, lord, so that we can walk in arms and fight the good fight of faith with one another, in spirit and in truth and in obedience unto your glory. In Yeshua's name, in Jesus name, amen.

Speaker 1:

I hope that this podcast encouraged you today. You guys, um, I would love to get feedback on. You know what is the Lord doing in you? What is the Lord doing to you? What is the Lord speaking to you? What did this spark in you? I think that you know, conversations like this are best had ongoing. Talks like this are best had ongoing. You know, share this with somebody that you think it might bless and, at the end of the day, let's just give God the glory Again.

Speaker 1:

I hope that what I said today is encouraging and that it challenges, but also that it edifies. I'm not necessarily saying that all of this is a word from the Lord. You know, this is just what was on my heart. I definitely felt like, you know, the Lord just dropped in my spirit examine, explore and engage. And then I just sort of meditated on that. Um, I I never want to make it seem like anything that I'm saying is law. What the lord says, that's what matters. Um, yeah, that's all that I have. I hope this blesses you. Please share it, if it did. And until next time, god bless time, god bless.