Young Kings

July 19, 2026 - YOUNG KINGS By Stephon McQueen (Nash Correctional Institute)

I don't know which young man out there needs to hear this, but somebody does - so let it be you. Right now, today, you are choosing a road. Not tomorrow. Not "when things get better." Right now. And that road only goes two places: the road to life, or the road to death. Ain't no in between, and ain't no rest stop where you get to sit this one out. Either you're following God, or you're following Satan. You cannot serve two masters - you will love one and despise the other, and the longer you try to ride both, the more it costs you.

My heart breaks daily when I look at the generation coming up behind me. I watch the music and the guns take over y'all's minds like a slow flood, rising until there's no air left to breathe clean thought. Satan doesn't need to introduce himself - he just needs a beat, a block, and a moment when you're tired enough to stop asking questions. That's manipulation, plain and simple, and its whole aim is to bury you before you ever find out who you were made to be. I pray in the name of Jesus that you young kings shake yourselves out of this fog and open y'all's eyes before it's too late. Because behind every one of you is a parent whose heart has been cracked open more times than they'll ever tell you.

So here's what I'm asking. Put down them guns - they were never going to make you safe, only sorry. Listen to your parents; they saw the end of this road before you were born. Leave the street before the street decides when you leave it. Fall back from the music that glorifies your own funeral. Get on your knees and start praying like your life depends on it, because it does. Tighten up in school. Pick up y'all's cross and carry it like it's the only thing that's ever going to carry you back. Jesus is standing there waiting, arms open, while them streets and them guns can't do nothing for you but kill you and call it loyalty.

And before I go - I need you to hear this from somebody who's been in the dirt, not just somebody preaching from a distance. I'm an ex-gang-banger. Ex-voodoo-worshipper. Former gun-slanger, drug dealer, robber. Ex-lover of every evil rap song that ever taught me my life was worth less than a lyric. Now I am a true believer in Jesus Christ, and I did not stumble into that - I fought my way there. I beat my old self down to nothing so a new one could stand up, and if I could do it, so can you. Snatch your soul out of the Devil's hands with everything you've got left and hand it over to Jesus - then watch what He builds in your life out of what the world called wreckage.

Peace and love, young kings. Jesus over everything - and I mean EVERYTHING.