Hello and welcome to another episode of Upfront and Undivided with Luke and Dean'na. Hi babe. Hi babe. How's it going? Good, how are you? I'm doing well. We get to blow things up today. We do. Why do we get to blow? In a legal way. In a legal, legal way. Not figuratively, but literally, because here in America where we live and record, it is the 4th of July. It is Independence Day. It is the day we celebrate leaving the crown and accepting the flag. That's pretty good.
You're really proud of yourself on that. I kind of am. I kind of am, yeah. That was kind of, it's cute. I like your face. It's cute. It's like, cause it's the meme. It's the meme that comes around every year where it shows the Queen of England and it's like you know, happy treason day you ungrateful colonials or whatever or something of that nature. So it's like, just like, it's good girl. We don't want your tea unless it's iced and with sugar. See, I don't like tea at all.
Yeah, but it's all the southerners that love it. Well, not all the southerners. There's a lot of people that love sweet tea. Yeah, and then there's some that like hot, I don't know. You know, I don't know. I don't, I just, tea tastes like, I don't know. Like you see my face, it's doing this thing and I don't, I don't know. I don't know what, it's bitter? It's like bitter? Yeah, a little bit. But let's put a lot of sugar in it and it'll be sweet tea and I'm like then it's a sweet bitter. What?
No, I don't. It's like the whole, you know, the other meme that I saw of people coming out of Starbucks, oh we love coffee. No, you love dessert. It's true. I feel attacked right now. It's true, but in my defense, babe. In your defense, yes. I have not had like solid candy coffee. Yeah. Cause you make fun of mine. It's cappuccino, it's candy coffee. Yes. But I have, I'm trying to literally come off coffee. Yeah. But I don't think I even tried. I was just like, we went on our vacation.
We had one cup, Gabriel and I had one cup at the very beginning. And then I didn't, we didn't have anymore. You had like one or two since we got home. I only had one. Yeah. One and that was when Gabriel blessed me with some Starbucks. And I had the most delicious headache for like the next three days. I'm like, whoa, okay. I'm going to have to find something else that's going to make me happy in the mornings.
Yes. Or I'm just going to have to just get up and do what some, like our pastors, like one of them this past weekend is like, get up and do a jig and thank you Jesus. And I'm like, yes. Yes. I do that. Brother, I like my sleep, you know, kind of, but it's okay. It's all good. It is all good. All right, baby. I'm just going to sleep. So today I know we talked about, you know, kind of, you know, revisiting some, some topics that we were talking about like last week and such.
So I'm going to go ahead and call this recognizing the need for change. I like that. Because I know this morning you put out on social media, a prayer for the nation. Yeah. Because it is, it is the 4th of July and there's a lot of patriotic people and there's a lot of people to recognize that, you know, yes, you know, just like people, this is not a perfect nation. Correct. Because we just celebrated Juneteenth and that is a new thing in our nation now, which is really exciting.
It gives the, it gives the recognition of when slavery got basically abolished, right? Is it right? It's, it's celebrating when they made the formal announcement in Texas. Yes. And that took forever to get to the rest of the nation. Right. Well, no, it was, they were last. Oh. Yeah. Like Texas got the word last. Oh. You're finally, you're finally free. Oh, okay. So when everybody finally just said, this is it, this is what we're doing.
Anyway, the fact is that again, our nation has some things that we are not proud of that has happened in the past. And now we see a celebration of stuff. But then it's like, but we also see where God is just, he's continuing to, to mold him and heal the hearts of people to where there's, they're making, we're making good, good decisions. There's good, solid constitutional stuff that we have that our nation's on. And then we have some things that are like, we just need to, we need to fix it.
Yeah. We need to completely eject it and just redo this. Or you know what father, we just thank you ultimately that you're going to heal the hearts of the people. Yeah. That, because we want them free. Right. And we want them free inside of our own selves, it doesn't matter what is going on in our nations. And I say that plurality nations, because there's other nations in our world that they don't have the freedoms we do, or they don't have the rights that we do.
And, and my prayer basically this morning was, you know what father, even when we know that we have some room to grow and some things that we can do better, I thank you father, let us, let us be people that constantly have an attitude of gratitude of just, and that we put honor where honor is due. We, we honor the soldiers, you different ones that have either given their lives completely or just given your time to keep our nation as free as it, as it is now.
Yeah. So. And I also want to, with that title, recognize that it's not just, you know, the national level or the global level of change. It's, you know, it has to come down to that personal level of change. It's got to start with us, absolutely. Because again, it's, you know, we, we can push for these big global moves. We can push for these, you know, big national agenda items. But yeah. But again, it's, it's, what are, what are you doing in your house? What are you doing in your family?
What are you doing in your classroom? You know, are you doing your best to affect positive changes in your own life? Right. And are you just, or are you just being noisy? Right. Right. Because one of the things I think I'd even put in the post, if you guys are, follow us on Facebook or on Instagram, that's where we are. The Facebook is just my name, but because you don't live there. Yeah. You don't like Facebook, but then Instagram is upfront and undivided.
But it's one of those, the prayer was, you know, basically father, just start with us. Yeah. Start with us. And let us treat people the way we want to be treated. If we get that one golden rule of just, how do you want to be treated? Yeah. Well, I'm going to treat you that way. But you don't understand what they did. No, see, that's not, that wasn't part of the plan. That's not even part of the conversation.
God said, love me with all your heart, mind, soul, body, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If you can do these two things, if you can love me with everything in you, then anything that's going to cause any kind of dissension, division, chaos, grossness, those things are going to start to die because you're going to start loving me and you're going to start having my heart. So you can love people even in the midst of their not loving this. Right.
And the, was it a meme that I just showed you that said everybody could love Jesus. It's Christianity isn't about loving Jesus. It's about loving Judas. And I went, whoa. I mean, if that doesn't get you, because it's pray for those that curse you. Do good to those that, what is it, that they mistreat you and do all sorts of things to you. If we see people even trying to do something towards our demise, let's pray for them.
Let's remember our, our authority spiritually, you know, that we, we pull down strongholds, principalities and powers of the air, that there's something that's causing that person to respond the way that they're even responding. And it has, it might be manifesting in the physical realm, but ultimately it's their spiritual life that's, that's making them do what they're doing. Yeah. And I agree. And, and again, it's, it's one of those things I know I've said it before.
I know I've said it to you and I think I've said it here on the, on the podcast in a previous episode, but you know, for, for those people that don't think that they can make a big change, you know, that, you know, I'm just a small person. I'm one of over 7 billion people in this earth. How could I really make a difference?
And, and that's, I'm always reminded of the, you know, the theory of time travel, you know, and they're like, oh, if you go, you know, you know, if, if you go back in time, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to move this rock or trip this person because it could completely alter all of history. You know, this one small event could alter all of history.
And it's like, so if you think that you going back in time, doing a small, seemingly insignificant thing could change history, why do you not think the same about yourself? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and, you know, and, and you mentioned the, the, the, the meme about, you know, Christianity isn't about loving Jesus. It's about loving Judas. Right. I saw another one. If people don't like you because of Jesus, that's their problem.
If people don't like Jesus because of you, that's your problem. You need to fix yourself. Oh, I felt that in the core. Oh, wow. You know, again, so, so again, it's, you know, we can have some of the best ideas, you know, we could, we could make the world a better place. I know sometimes you and Heather joke, if only you were president and vice president. Genuinely, genuinely. Man, her and I, we got, we, I'm seriously, we got things figured out.
Yes. You know, but, but again, if, if you're mean about it. If you're mean about it. Yep. Or if you're a jerk about it, you know, it's, you know, nobody's going to listen. It's, it's, it's going to sound like it's coming out of a conceited selfish heart. Right. You know, and, and we don't, we don't want to be those kinds of people.
You know, we, I mean, we, we shouldn't be, you know, yes, we, we, we don't want to be, but you know, we're called to not be, you know, it's, it's bigger than just want or, you know, so I know I'm talking in circles with that, but it's, you know, so it's like, I want to, yes, you know, think, you know, I, I've heard it before, you know, think globally act locally. Oh, that's good. You know, I don't think I've ever heard that. I like that. I heard it once from a movie.
Yeah. That I don't want to take credit for. Okay. No, that's good. But yeah, you know, cause, cause again, it's, it's, you know, I, like we've heard it many times when, when people in the church talk about, you know, all I want this big ministry, I want this ministry, I want this, well, your family is your first ministry. That's right. That's what the word of God says. Yep. What is your, what does your marriage look like? What do your kids look like? What do your friends look like? Right.
You know, again, what are, what are you saying to them? Are you encouraging them? Are you sharing the word with them? Yeah. You know, I, I had a friend at church recently, he's like, Hey, can I get your number so I can share verses with you? Oh, sure. Yeah. Oh, you know, I love that. You know, sometimes I'm not sure how to respond. Yeah. You know, but it's so like two, three times a day, he sends me a verse. I think that's precious. Yes. I love that. It's just awesome. I love that.
You know, so again, it's what are, what are you doing? You know, what are you doing to affect change? Yeah. You know, and, you know, and I know we've said it before, but are you being what you want to be? You know, yes, treat others how you want to be treated. Yeah. And do the things that you want to be done. You know, I mean, I know it's kind of the same thing, but it's also not. Right.
You know, it's, it's always that different switch of, of, you know, if I word it just differently, it's, it's all of a sudden it'll click for me or it'll click for him or, you know, so it's like, so again, you know, we, we talked about, you know, if you, if, if you want to, if you want your partner to be more affectionate, you know, more, more physically affectionate, you know, I just wish they would hold my hand more. I wish they would hold my hand more.
Yeah. Why aren't you reaching out and holding their hand? I love that. You know? Yep. And again, we've said it many times and it's, it's seemingly simple. Yeah. You know, if you want people to, I mean, yes, you can't make people listen to you, you know, but again, are, are you, are you out on the street corner, a clanging symbol, a loud voice, just speaking to hear yourself speak? Right. Or are you actually going out and trying to, you know, get to know people?
Are you, are you out in your cities, out in your communities trying to, you know, sweeping up the grass that's left in the road after you mow? Yeah. You know, or even after your neighbor mows. Yeah. You know, are you doing these kinds of things? I mean, I'm guilty. I leave grass in the street. Oh, I said no, I was like, oh crap. Sorry about that. Crap. Yeah. You know, but again, it's, it's, you know, what, what kind of footprint are we leaving? Right.
You know, what, what kind of, what, how do people feel after we've said hi and shake their hands and say, see you later? Do they feel like they've been seen? Do they feel like they don't want to see us again? Oh, yuck. I hope not. You know, I mean, so again, it's what, what, what impressions are you leaving? Right. Right. No, that's good because it, it is, it's, it's the, it's the bottom line.
Cause you always hear people say, well, if this person would do this or if our nation would do this or if a generation would do that or globally, we do this and we stand back and we say, when the rubber meets the road and when you're standing literally face to face with God. Yeah. He's going to take account what you did. Yup. But God, you don't understand what happened to me. And so I deserve to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I, I, it's okay for me to hold the grudge here.
If it's okay for me to not forgive there, or it was okay for me to retaliate. I'm really, really getting convicted right now, genuinely with some stuff right now. You know exactly what I'm talking about. I do. So it's one of those where when we have that kind of mindset that says, you know, ultimately whether you believe it or not, this is how this is going to go down. He's going to say, what did you do, Luke? Right. But, but Dina didn't do X, Y, Z. I didn't ask her, right.
You're the one standing in front of me. What did you do? Take responsibility. Sweet, sweet friend of mine. She is going to be writing a book and she was telling me about it yesterday because our church celebrated Independence Day early. Yes. And she got gifted and blessed by her amazing hubby a laptop so she could start writing. That's awesome. That is awesome. That's, you know what I'm saying? It's like, this is a husband that believes in his wife's vision and dream. I have one of those.
I'm really grateful for that. You know, but one of the things that her book is basically, and I, and I don't remember the thing, the title, but I remember the premise of it for the most part. And it's basically exactly what we're talking about. We can talk about the hurts and the traumas of our lives and they are very real. Oh yeah. Just like yours. Let me say this and hopefully I'll put that pen right there for me. Okay. When you were saying, what can one thing do?
You know, me doing one act of, of kindness to somebody, what is that going to do for me? What is that going to do for this person? How is this going to change the world? Okay. Let's reverse it. One act of trauma towards me can absolutely change the directory of my whole entire life. So why are we not more intentional when it comes to the words we speak, being kind to one another, even when you feel that nudge of the Holy Spirit saying, Hey, you know, or Hey, you know what?
And this is where her book comes in, she wants to talk about what did you do in the midst of the unforgiveness to own your part. You know what? You're mad at me. I've told, I've told stories about my stuff in the past to where I'm like, no, man, that person, they legitimately have a reason to be absolutely pissed at me and just want to want me out. You know, that being said, because I take responsibility and ownership of who I am and what I did.
And I asked for forgiveness, whether you give it or not. Right. That's up to you or whether you say, you know what, I do forgive you. But if you continue to go back and you harbor this thing, and you keep picking out that thing that God wants to heal. You didn't really, did you really? Because as we heard yesterday and during the sermon, forgiveness is not a feeling, it's a command. And as we walk it out, and we say, Father, you know what, I forgive them, forgive them.
Jesus from the cross, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Genuinely, because we always say in light of eternity, what is this going to matter? Because if we genuinely knew what we were doing to somebody when we said what we said or did what we did, or responded the way that we responded. If we knew the gravity, the full gravity, if we genuinely saw things the way that God sees them, 90% of the stuff that we do, we wouldn't. We just wouldn't.
True. Not in the way that we, you know what I mean? We'd be more, we need to have a, that's the global mindset. That's the spiritually global mindset in my mind that says, we have to have a greater revelation of who God is.
But when Jesus said, he who the son has set free is free indeed, when we come into alignment with Christ, when we come into alignment with his word, and when we start walking according to his presets, when we talk about the scriptures that we love that said, there is no law against these things. You're literally walking blameless at this point. There's no law against that.
When we start walking in those kind of attributes and we start showing that example of how to do that, then that's when we start evoking change. We start seeing people responding, oh, I don't have to respond like a jerk. No, man. No, we bless them. We blush them. They, you know what? I'm not even going to sit here and try to give them an excuse. We just bless them because that's what, I'm not going to run around tied with that.
I don't want to be, I don't want to be responsible for carrying that person's attitude. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I know we've talked a couple of things listening to you. It reminds me of stuff and it's like, oh, here's another fun way of saying that. When you come at somebody with how they used to be or something like that. It's like attacking me through my past is like robbing my old house. I don't live there anymore. I love that. I love that.
Yes. I've come to a realization when it comes to forgiveness and these people that want to hold onto it. If you've come and you've gone to God and you've said in prayer, God, I am sorry. I was a bonehead in that moment. I don't ever want to be that way again. I want to leave that. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I repent. I'm moving on. I fully believe that if you do that, God, yes, it's forgiven. Clean slate. You're my kid. I love you. Yeah. If you go to that person, you say, I'm sorry.
Please forgive me. It's honestly up to them. It is. I almost want to look at some of those people that say, no, I don't forgive you and say, wow, you're better than God. You said that to me in the grocery store. I did. When we were in the middle of our 14 talks that we always talk about. I was like, babe. It's like the people that say, I'm going to work all the time, constantly all the time. My middle brother, he's big on the Sabbath. Let's take a day of rest. He's big on a certain day.
In my mind, I'm thinking, no, man, that's legit because even God on the seventh day rested. When somebody says, no, we're going to keep going. We got to do this. We got to do this. It's like they're burning themselves out so bad. Then you want to say, oh, so you're better than God. Like you said, just that forgiveness. Oh, I see. You seem to know better than God does. I'm just, God, I repent. Ew. God, we got to do better, babe. We got to do better.
I say all this to say that we almost have to pray for those people like Esther. Not Esther, our friend Esther in the Bible. We love Esther, though. Yes. Love you. Yes. We need to pray for those people that have the ear of our leaders. Yes. Yeah, babe, come on. Because we don't have, yes, here in America, we don't have a king or a queen, but we have all these political leaders that there's many of them. But we need to pray for their advisors. We need to pray for the people that have their ears.
They can say, save the people. Listen to the people. Jesus, yes. I think somewhere in the Bible it says, pray for the king's cup bearer. Yes. That the people that are there that have the ear of the president and such, because these are the people that can kind of peel back the curtain and say, hey, here's what real life is like. When you say that, this is what it sounds like. Or when you sign that, this is the people that it affects. And so it's like we need to pray for those people.
We need to pray for the leaders in charge, whether we agree with them or not. We need to pray for their wisdom. We need to pray for their health. I know some people when a political leader gets in charge and they're like, oh, I hope they fail. I hope they fail. And somebody said that once. And you're like, stop saying that. Right. Because somebody equated it once. They're like praying for your political leaders to fail is like getting on a plane and praying that the pilot crashes.
See, I just need to stand up and walk out the door because, I mean, babe, drop the mic. But it is. No doubt. No doubt. These are the people, whether we like them or not, are in charge of our nation. Yes. Yes. Our nation is not perfect. Yes, the founding fathers were not perfect, but they recognized that they weren't perfect. They knew that they didn't know everything. They knew that technology would come. They knew that things would change. So they wrote an imperfectly practical document.
That's a good way to say it. I don't like that. That could change with time or could be adapted. I mean, again, we have the freedom of speech. Yes, we do. Stop. Full stop. That's it. We have freedom of speech. That's it. It's not like, oh, you have freedom of speech as long as it's this type. Right. You have freedom of speech as long as it's this type. Right. You're like, dude, stop. Because there are some people that are like, well, technology has changed, so that doesn't necessarily apply.
It's like, no, it really does. It really does. We have the freedom to say what we want. Yeah. Whether it offends you or not, I have the freedom to say it. I always like the ones that say, though, like, because you and I love memes. We think they're funny. Yeah. They're funny, but they speak some truth. Yeah. I always have some truth to it. Oh, yeah. And it's like, you can tell some of you guys have never said something and gotten smacked in the mouth with it.
Yes. Yes. That instant repercussion of you just said what? I think that was, yeah. I know a lot of times they say that about Mike Tyson. That's his quote. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Too many people have gotten used to saying something without being punched in the face. I mean, but it's true. Yeah. And we're not even, we're, we are not. Advocating violence in any way, shape or form. We're not, thank you, baby. Thank you for doing that disclaimer for us.
But I think it's more of you don't have, you obviously have not seen the repercussions of your words. Let's say it that way. Because again, you know, the sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And I'm like, lies. All lies. Oh, yeah. That's a lie of the enemy that he put into a nursery rhyme. Yeah. And you could sit here and say, it's power in the tongue.
Yeah. That power in the tongue, the words, what we give to the, those words, like somebody comes up to me and says something, calls me a certain thing. And I just go, that's not my name. Yeah. That's not my identity. Right. That's not who I am. So when we have a strong identity of who we are, it's a lot easier for us to let those things roll off of us. Yeah. And say something though, in that nature to somebody that doesn't know who they are. That's fragile.
That's still trying to figure things out. Maybe going through something. Yeah. Woe to you. Woe to you. Just genuinely. Yeah. Because you're going to be accountable. Yes. For what you said. Yeah. It's just that every word that comes out of our mouth, we're accountable for it. We will be held accountable. And that means that the words on our screen that post through media that people see, I genuinely believe that.
Just like as our prayers, like incense go to heaven, our insults reach the ears of God. I just had that revelation. Babe. You're welcome. Babe. Whoa. We're just going to stay here for the rest of the time. Dang. The next five minutes of this podcast will be silence while we get convicted. I mean, just all of us, everybody listening. I hope you guys are getting as convicted as we are right now. Yeah. But that's, ugh. Back to. Yeah. Back to.
Father, let us be world changers, but let it start with us. Yes. Father, we are accountable. We talk about it all the time. We're accountable to our minds, our health, our families, everything that God has given us, these bodies, the families that he's put us in. He didn't do any of these things by accident. Father, we thank you. We thank you. We're asking that you show us solutions.
That father, that you show us in our communities and our families and our churches and the people that we encounter on a daily or even in the grocery store. Yes. We went to the emergency room last week, right? Yes. Was it this past week? Yes. And not for you, for a family member. Yes. And everything's okay. And everything's fine. They walked out all is well. And in that period of time we were sitting, I talked to the most amazing lady, didn't I? You did.
And I hate to this moment that I did not get her information and you are incredibly surprised that I didn't. I really am. But I genuinely was one of those moments where I said, I want you to know that you have my undivided attention. And this is a woman from Germany. She was born in East Germany. The story alone, the story alone, and she kept looking at me. She was, I'm telling you the truth. And I said, ma'am, I know my history. Please understand. I know. I know. I don't know to the gravity.
Like I wasn't there. Right. But, and I was not born yet. Yes. But the fact is that I know. I've heard enough. I've encountered enough people that have gone through what you've gone through. The fact that this family walked literally for their lives. Her mom, dad, she's three or four and she had an older brother and a younger sister. And the mom would have to get her diapers cleaned out with the river that they were following to get to safety.
Yeah. Because they said that from the one town they left to the other town, they said it's usually like a four, four and a half hour train ride. And they walked it. And they walked it the whole way. Yeah. And I was like, father, let us never forget where we came from. Yeah. Whether it's poverty, whether it's a background, whether it's a history, whether it's generation, whether it's a war torn nation.
Father, let us not, let us not forget where we came from, but let us also remember the rescue that you brought into our lives. So that way we can help rescue other people too. Yeah. That we can bring hope, hope to the nations. And I had texted you right before this and it was like, and there's a song and it was the lyrics that came were this week. We speak to nations be open. I'm already crying. Yeah. We speak to nations fall on your knees. We speak to nations. The kingdom is coming near to you.
We speak to you be free. Yes. And we speak that over our nation. Yeah. The United States of America. Father, we ask for freedom of people's lives because right now what they're being held captive with is not the things of whatever. There are some, but not, you know, what they're being held captive is, is the lives of the enemy. Yeah. The tactics of the enemy, other nations that may not have some of the freedoms we have.
Father, we speak to the nations be open, be open to the name of Jesus, be open to what he has designed that he wants every need to bow, every tongue to confess that he is Lord, because he knows when you do that, he's not trying to be a dictator. He's not trying to say, you got to be. It's I want to make you free. Yeah. I want to make you free. I want to set your mind free, your heart free, your life free, your family free.
I want you to shake off the things of the past where the enemy has held you bound and captive and I want to pull off every shackle off your mind, your body, your emotions, every ounce of you. Yes. To where freedom rings and reigns true in every aspect of your life. Amen. And that is our prayer for this Fourth of July. Yes. Not just for our nation, for the nations of this world. Yes. Because ultimately, Father, you said, I sent my son to the world because you, God, for God so loved the world.
The world. Yep. Let us be global changers today and let it start with us, God. Yes. Amen. All right, babe. That's what I got. Yeah. Have the best week, guys. Enjoy the journey.