How Ghetto Are You?

Yesterday I found out somebody did my friends wrong. So I got my hand out and was ready to fight. My mouth took a life of its own. I wasn’t going down quietly. I’ll show them what’s right, I thought to myself. I’ll deal with it. Just give me the phone, the computer, any old way I can teach them a lesson. Nobody treats my friends that way and gets away with it. My neck was sticking out and my eyes got a little bigger. I was ready to fight. I was feeling ghetto.

Do you ever feel that way? Your kid comes home from school. He says the boys in class teased him about his football team. You know they’re only 6, but you get your ghetto on and you’re ready to take them every one of those little brats on.

Or you’re headed to the check out line at the grocery store, and you see that lady coming up behind you. You speed things up a bit, but she’s just a little faster. She makes it there first. One minute you’re you, the next you’re the best ghetto version of you.

Or how about this – the man in your life rolls his eyes at you. Heck anyone rolls his eyes at you. You’re disrespected. You’re snubbed. And quicker than superman can put his cape on, you’re got your ghetto on. And it takes a week and perhaps a little blue bag to make it go away.

How ghetto are you? Christian ghetto is the worst kind of ghetto. We like to dress it up and call it “the carnal self”, but I can see ghetto a mile away in any shape or form, and often in the mirror.

Here are some Ghetto Indicators to help you assess how ghetto you are:

1. You find yourself driving the car. There’s only room for one driver in the car. It’s either you or God. When you try to take the wheel, your ghetto will take over. That’s not a great idea. Who calls the shots in your life? When you face a difficult situation, do you determine how you respond, or do you check with the Holy Spirit?

2. You feel it’s your job to make things right. You see a bad situation and you want to make it right. You want to see justice. You think you’re doing humans a favor by getting your ghetto self out. You’re not. Jesus Christ was spit on, slapped, laughed at and mocked. He could have fought them off with a flick of a finger, but He didn’t. Let Him handle the issue of justice in the world. He will someday, sooner than we think.

3. You don’t think you’re ghetto at all. You think this blog is nonsense, and you have no idea what I’m talking about at all. That’s ok. It’s not the first time that happens to me. But let me break it down for you. There are two kinds of people in the world: the Christians and the non Christians. The Bible talks about the natural man being unregenerate and the spiritual man as being regenerate. In Romans 8, the Spiritual man is the regenerate. But the Spiritual man can act in a fleshly way. Anytime you disobey the Lord, you are carnal (or like I prefer to call it, ghetto). Anytime you obey the Lord, you are Spiritual. Anytime you do what you shouldn’t do, you are carnal. Anytime you do what the Lord wants you to do, you honor the Word. The first thing to do is to understand your identity. Are you a Christian? And if you are, do you understand that being carnal or ghetto is not a permanent state? You can have momentary lapses as I often do, but you cannot stay there. You don’t want to stay there. In other words, you recognize how ghetto you are, but you choose to stop it by increasingly growing in obedience to God.

4. You don’t mind your ghetto. This is the worst kind of ghetto. You know you’re ghetto and you embrace it. You figure Christ died for your ghetto. Might as well maximize that potential. So you go on behaving like a jerk. Some would call it hyper grace, or cheap grace where you believe you’re forgiven no matter what you do. But that’s no grace at all. Paul says in Romans 6:1 “shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid”. Christ died for your ghetto. When you let that truth penetrate you, you want to run as far away from your old self as possible.

I had a plan all set. I was going to show those mean folks just how mean they were to my friends. I wouldn’t let my friends be slighted. I called my friends and told them the plan. I was revved up and ready to go.

But I didn’t have to. Turns out my friends lost their ghetto a while back and refuse to take it back. Let’s turn the other cheek, they said. Let’s show them love instead.

Now that’s grace if I’ve ever seen it.

And that’s Jesus in control.

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