The Genuine Light of Jesus

Recently, many people have been talking about Kanye West, his Jesus is King album and his conversion to Christianity. The stories of his album began a while ago so I will not be discussing the album specifically or his early moments of conversion. I want to speak to something more recent. I also do want to say that in my opinion, Kanye West is a believer. We do not need to wait for fruit, he dropped a massive fruit basket for us all called Jesus is King to attest to his conversion. Also, based on 1 Cor. 12:3 Paul says that no one can say that "Jesus is Lord" without the Holy Spirit and Kanye says this very statement in one of the songs. I actually want to treat Kanye in this post like any other believer and focus on an image I saw recently that not only shows the genuine heart of Kanye, but I believe points directly to Jesus.


Above is a screenshot of a post that I saw on my Instagram feed posted by the Young America's Foundation. The post has to do with something that Kanye did recently that was really powerful. According to an article written by Fox News, on Nov. 15, Kanye was in Houston preparing for his interview with Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church. As he was doing this he went to a male and then a female prison to preform his songs about God to the inmates. What is interesting however is that it was not just a concert. The Harris County Sheriff's Office's YouTube page has a video of this moment where some of the pictures in the above post are from. In the video, you can see not only singing but at times inmates are actually, crying, raising their hands, and even can be heard saying a prayer to accept Jesus as their Lord and saviour. There is this real sense of hope, breakthrough and victory in the images as Jesus touches prisoners

One of the things about the image above that I appreciate is that written in big letters on it it says, "Kanye puts his money where his mouth is!" As I said at the beginning, people keep waiting and waiting for proof that Kanye is a Christian. Sure, maybe you can denounce the words in his songs saying that he does not mean them, but here we have a man who not only sings about God or claims to believe in him but actually acts like it. Kanye not only went to these prisons to give people some hope and joy which is a legitimate thing to do and according to the sheriff it was greatly appreciated, but Kanye also went there to share the same Jesus that had changed him not too long ago. Since his conversion and even just in this moment at the prison, Kanye has reached more people than most of the Christians who doubt his conversion have even been able to.

Now that being said, we still need to be there for Kanye to pray that God would continue to guide him in this journey, and allow time for him to grow because he is doing so well. This should be applied even to this whole Lakewood trip. I personally disagree with a lot of what Joel Osteen teaches. Kanye is going to his church but that does not automatically mean that Kanye agrees with Lakewood Church either. Christians need to be giving other Christians a chance.

The reason I write all of this is because this image of an Instagram post I believe points to Jesus. Unfortunately, Christians throughout the years have given the rest of the world a lukewarm, incomplete version of Christianity and who Jesus is. Kanye West here is showing the genuine light of Jesus in claiming he wants to follow God and then doing the things that Jesus asks his followers to do. When people see this post, and see that Kanye used to not be a Christian and is now going around and ministering to people in prison and sharing Jesus, Kanye's authenticity shines through and through this authenticity, it is Jesus who is glorified. Jesus was very clear and specific as to what Christians are supposed to do. Above all, Christians are supposed to shine the light of Jesus through the things that they do. I believe that this is what Kanye West is doing here.

In John 8:12 Jesus says that He is the light of the world, then in Matthew 5:14 Jesus says that his followers are the light of the world and that this light points to Jesus who again is the light. When Christians, famous or not famous shine genuine light it shines the light of Jesus and God is glorified.

For some people, it may be a hard pill to swallow, but maybe we could learn a thing or two from Kanye about how we can be authentic in our faith. Christians are to follow Christ, and though none of us are perfect, we must try with all our might to be obedient to God and then encourage and give credit to those like Kanye who are working really hard for it.

What do you think? Do you still think that Kanye is not a Christian? Why? How can believers be genuine in their faith? If you are not a Christian, have you noticed the difference between authentic Christians and unauthentic Christians? Do Christians today represent Jesus well?

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