James 4 vs 1-10

Tonight in church Mark Cole from Libanus Evangelical Church, Morriston preached on James 4 vs 1-10. His main text was James 4 v 7: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

1. Know the fight

TV anaesthetises our consciences.
God is letting our country do whatever it wants.
But we claim to know God
We are God's chosen battleground to defend his honour.
Satan knows that the more we take in of our culture the more we will be like it.
Giving in to temptation damages our relationships with God.
When God distances himself from us to discipline us, all the joy is sucked out of life.
There is no room for anyone else in our relationship with God.

2. Know yourself

James 1 vs 14,15: But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

We like to think that we're strong enough to fight but if we stand on our own to fight temptation we're not going to stand for long.

James 4 vs 1-3 - These verses are written to Christians!

v7: Flee and submit to God

3. Know victory

We must fix our eyes on God and keep them fixed.

James 4 v 10: Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Neglect time with God and become very easy pickings for the devil.
You are what you are when noone is around to see what you are doing.

How can you not give sin time?
Cultivate a desire for good books, cultivate a desire to spend time with Christian people, listen to/watch sermons in your free time. Fill your life with the things of God. We discussed after church whether this is the best solution for everybody. Also you can be so busy that you don't spend any time with God one-on-one which completely defeats the purpose of being busy. You must find the best way to not give sin time that suits you but remember that God couldn't be more for you in this. Ask him for help and then trust that he will help you and look for his leadings.

Learn to run from danger. Watch for Satan's ambushes and avoid those places/situations.
Living with sin on your shoulders is incredibly miserable.
We don't even need to resist much. If we resist the devil for even an instance, God is right there with us to fight for us.

Before the Throne: New Word Alive 2009 Worship Album

On Saturday my copy of the New Word Alive 2009 Worship Album 'Before the throne' landed on my mat. I love it!

It contains 13 tracks from the two New Word Alive 2009 weeks where the worship was led by Stuart Townend, the Gettys and Lou Fellingham.

The whole album is fantastic but for me the stand out tracks are:

5 Hear O Israel
6 Come People Of The Risen King
10 Hear The Call Of The Kingdom
12 Loved Before The Dawn Of Time

My favourite is track 6, Come People of the Risen King, led by the Gettys. It is a fantastic, joyful song of praise and exhortation to rejoice! Here are the lyrics:

Come, people of the Risen King,
Who delight to bring Him praise;
Come all and tune your hearts to sing
To the Morning Star of grace.
From the shifting shadows of the earth
We will lift our eyes to Him,
Where steady arms of mercy reach
To gather children in.

REFRAIN
Rejoice, Rejoice! Let every tongue rejoice!
One heart, one voice; O Church of Christ, rejoice!

Come, those whose joy is morning sun,
And those weeping through the night;
Come, those who tell of battles won,
And those struggling in the fight.
For His perfect love will never change,
And His mercies never cease,
But follow us through all our days
With the certain hope of peace.

Come, young and old from every land -
Men and women of the faith;
Come, those with full or empty hands -
Find the riches of His grace.
Over all the world, His people sing -
Shore to shore we hear them call
The Truth that cries through every age:
“Our God is all in all”!
Keith & Kristyn Getty & Stuart Townend

A couple great song quotes

In the car today I listened to O Sacred King by Matt Redman. I thought I would share a couple of great truths from that song:

O Sacred friend, O Holy friend
I don't take what You give lightly
Friendship instead of disgrace.

For it's the mystery of the universe
You're the God of holiness,
Yet You welcome souls like me.

Awesome stuff. I love the gospel!

Also I was reminded tonight of another of my favourite hymns (O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing - sung to the Lyngham tune preferably but I also like the Lydia Phillips tune) and these lines in particular:

He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

Hear Him, ye deaf; His praise, ye dumb,
Your loosened tongues employ;
Ye blind, behold your Savior come,
And leap, ye lame, for joy.

The whole hymn is fantastic but these lines in bold (in their verse contexts) in particular I find a real joy to sing. In fact when singing these lines with others I usually well up with joyful emotion!

Change of name!

Today I have decided to change the name of my blog. So gone now is "A Pilgrim's Progress" and welcome to "A Work in Progress". I was inspired by Philippians 1v6 for this new title:

I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

My new title points to the fact that it is God who does the work in growing me. I have learned recently that I just need to give Him quality time and that work will continue.