James 1

James 1:21b "Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls."

James 1:27b "...and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

Q: How does this scripture reveal Jesus?

A: Just as i was telling the children in children's church today,       no one is perfect. We all have sinned and
    gotten icky sin staining our spirit. And there is only one way    to get rid of them.

    The answer is in a song we sing,

"Oh the blood of Jesus,
  it washes white as snow."

So the verse of James 1:27, reveals my necessity of keeping unstained, undefiled from this world. And that leads me straight to Jesus. The only way we can be unstained, from this filthy world.
Q: Challenging verse of the day?
A: Look to the previous answer. Keeping yourself unstained is our challenge.
Q: Uplifting verse of the day.
A: James 1:21b Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Q: How do these scriptures make you fall more in love with Jesus for who He is?

A: I would say that 1:21b shows how romantic God is. that He has created the greatest romance that could ever be. But that answer is more than falling in love with who He is because it makes me feel good to be in that romance. So then I have taken it from who He is(a romancer), to what He can do for me(romance me).

So I will use 1:27b-Keep oneself unstained. Because the only reason His blood can wash me is because it first was holy and pure.

Being in love with someone who is holy and pure. If He wasn't holy and pure He wouldn't be who He is. And for that I love Him. He has no unholy or impure thought towards me.
And women how often can you find that? In a world full of sick and twisted people?

do a favor for your spirit.

check this blog post out.  http://laurennicolelove.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-do-you-fall-in-love-with-jesus.html?m=0

Daily Devotion

 I've made up this little daily devotional with four questions to ask in accordance to whichever piece of scripture that you read.

 I do believe if you look, that you can find something revealing about Christ in all scripture. So I invite you to maybe search for this question in any scripture you read.

Philipians 1 & 2

How did a certain scripture reveal Jesus Christ? Philipians is Paul writing the Philipians while he was in prison and encouraging them to continue in their walk with Christ, and to do it well.
 So These two chapters of Philipians shows me... 
that with Jesus there is always a positive. We can't lose.
Paul was in prison and he still had the joy of knowing that even though it looked as though he lost, he knew that he really was winning in the spiritual realm.
Uplifting verse of the day: Phil 1:21
  "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Challenging verse: Phil 1:27
 "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ."

This really exhorts me, to be a better example of Christ. To have respect for His reputation. And not to drag His name in the mud, by being a bad example of a christian of a follower of Jesus. We are the only Jesus the unsaved will see. We are His body.

 

Verse to fall more in love with Christ: Phil 2:6 "Taking the form of a servant who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, being born in the likeness of man. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even on a cross."
        His humbleness is beautiful. 

I've added this question because I want to fall in love with who He is and not what He can do or how He makes me feel.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

M.I.A

It seems my journey is familiar with these m.i.a moments. Where it seems I lose sight of the goal and allow myself to sit down in this race. I don't know why I allow myself to do this when I know the inner joy and peace of running the race.

I was reading a blog post from my friend Kelline where she writes that outside His presence there is no peace.
It reminded me that I had allowed myself to have a seat and let Gods manifest presence move on past me.

It also reminded me of a great friend I gave up as a sacrifice to God. This was five years ago. At that time in my walk the fire of God was heavily on me.

It reminded me of why I shouldn't let myself give-up or sit down now. It showed me what i've given up and how foolish it would be. How everything i've done and what God has done would be all for not if I kept sitting out the race.

Not that i'm planning on giving up, but when you think of it, sitting on the sidelines is a form of giving up.

Revelation 2:4-5 "But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen."

We are at this moment as close to God as we really choose to be.

How's that for a title? ay? "We are at this moment as close to God as we really choose to be." This comes from a book I am presently reading titled, "Enjoying Intimacy with God" by J. Oswald Sanders.
Here is another quote from the book. I love this quote so much that I have memorized it.
"Only those who count such intimacy a PRIZE worth sacrificing anything else for are likely to attain it. If other intimacies are more desirable to us, we will not gain entry to that circle." (the circle he is talking about is an inner circle of intimacy with God)
This is exactly what I needed to hear.
What other things are taking the place of your pursuit of Christ. Have you learned to be content sitting outside His innermost circle?
I'm continually having to remind myself about the temporary things I let occupy my time. Everything that is seen is temporary, that which is unseen it ETERNAL.

The second chapter has to do with true worship of Him.

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing."
"To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever."Rev 5:12-14

pg21 "...but our worship reaches a much higher level when we worship Him simply and solely for what He is, for the excellences and perfections of His being." (not for what He has done, although we are to worship Him for that as well.)

"To whom will you compare me? Or whom is my equal?' says the Holy One" Is40:25

Peter's willingness to be a cannibal.

Jesus had a hard saying for His followers.

John 6:53-58 "So Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has  eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.' "

v60 When many of His disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"

These disciples,(not the twelve) thought Jesus was talking about cannibalism. They wanted nothing to do with this. They turned back from following Him. And Jesus asked the twelve if they wanted to leave as well.

This was Peter's heart cry to Jesus...

v68 "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God."

I want to be as the disciples. Believing and trusting in Him so much. That I will follow. Even when I'm not sure what He is going to do. 

If Peter can be willing to be a cannibal. I should be willing to live a little out of my flesh's comfort zone.
If Jesus was willing to be beaten, mocked, and crucified, I should be able to take up my cross daily, by dying to my flesh daily.

He is the one true God. There is no one beside Him. And He just so happens to be AMAZING! He doesn't have a cruel bone in His being. He cries for us. The pain and affliction in this world hurts Him more than it hurts all of us combined.
We have a God whose thoughts of us are only good and loving. There is not one iota of darkness in Him nor shadow of turning.

I HAVE MET PERFECTION. PERFECTION MAKES ME CRY WITH HIS LOVING FORGIVENESS.