Struggling with Sin

There are many times when you'll do something and just feel down and out, and think how can God forgive me, how can he continue to forgive me for doing this again and again? I had heard similar things lately and also in my own life, so i decided to do a study on the lies of the devil and the truth of Gods word. When you sin that opens a door for the devil to come in and say, look at what you did, theres no way you should be forgiven, in fact i dont think God will even forgive you for that, and sorry dosent cut it. The devil puts temptation in our lives to cause us to sin and use that to put us down, and make us think there is no grace and for God sorry dosent cut it, but God says something different

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
Romans 8:1

As i was praying one morning God gave me a little illustration of how sin is like in our lives. Before were saved sin dosent matter to us its just life and what we do everyday, so our whole life is nothing but sin. Our life can be looked at as a sheet of glass so now everything is sin, our life is like one big sheet of sin (the glass). But when Jesus enters our hearts our sin, that sheet of glass is shattered and now our sin can be identified and removed.

7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."^[a] 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
Romans 7:7-9

Our life is now no longer completely sin with no conviction, but now have the guide of the holy spirit to go in and remove each individual piece of glass from our life and begin the process of sanctification until every piece of glass is removed (which it wont be all gone until we get to Heaven).

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Romans 7: 13

So now that Jesus is in us we can see what is sin and what is not, it is no longer one piece of indistinguishable piece of glass ( sin). When glass is shattered the glass is then in many pieces and sizes, so now we can see individual areas of sin in our life and as we mature in Christ we start seeing other sin that we didnt know was sin. So, if you look at a pile of broken glass your eyes are drawn to the more larger pieces, but as you look deeper you can see smaller pieces that you didnt know where there, before Jesus. As God examines us he can help us through problems we have and can remove the sin in our life. It starts with the more apparent larger pieces of glass such as cursing, and as you progress from that he'll then begin to work with you on the other sin the smaller pieces of glass, such as dealing with sexual immorality, anger, how you treat others...etc. So i know what sin is so why cant i just not do it? I know this isent what i want to do i dont want to sin, i dont understand. This is some thing Christians ask themselves, i know i have.

20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Romans 7: 20

I know that that verse is a comfort for me, and for me when i heard it the first time it felt like this weight was taken from me. That glass i was talking about is not us its our sin, and when it is shattered its still in us, its the sin in us that causes us to do what we dont want to do, if we ask God to examine our heart and to point out our sin in us, he will revile it to us and we have the power to call out our sin and say im not goin to do that anymore. Its hard sometimes to say im not goin to do something and follow through, but thats why we need to crucify our flesh, unfortuatly we we'll always sin we'll never be perfect till we get to Heaven, i was raised to believe that sorry dosent cut i it, but for Jesus no matter how many times we ask for forgiveness he will always forgive us. In conclusion the devil will always tell you when you sin that , how could you be forgiven agian, but the truth is no matter what you do or how many times you do it God will always forgive you, and that condemnation you feel is the devil lying to you.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.

Romans 8: 12

For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father!

Romans 8: 15

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
Romans 8:1

I hope that this helps someone, and i really hope that it made sense, i typed it kinda fast lol.

Rally The Saints

Please, Please, Please pray your prayers are desperately needed, There is a demon trying to kill a friend of mine, and im serious when i say Kill. Tomorrow some time im goin over to her house with my mom to fight this demon. I went over there after prayer in the parking lot and i could feel the demons presence, but i could also feel the presence of Jesus Christ, we prayed for a few minutes tonight, but we only rattled the cage. Please pray i cant say that enough, but we need you to pray for protection around us and my friend (her name is Jessica) and also for strength as well. Please as many as possible pray for these demon to be cast out of this place, and if there is someone who can get in contact with Jason Laird sometime tomorrow please ask him to pray as well. He has experience in this area, and him praying for us would be a great help. Once again please pray, i love you all, and thank you.

Bored

Im sitting in my very messy room, watching the storm outside, and listening to My Future Decided. Ive been bored out of my mind since i got home from the Annex, so i got a bright idea ill post something on my blog so everyone else can share in my boredom. The highlights for today were Jamar asking what was a double waffle, and JPs lesson of 1-liners. I learned a lot today, waffle house is to complicated for Jamar, JP should stick with the serve team, T-berry is not modest in the least, i can suffocate Alex and not leave any finger prints (by making her laugh, for those of you didnt get it...and i havent even told her the story about the little engine that could. everyone just say your goodbyes now.).Im so ready to get back to the annex, oh hey by the way if anyone out there has msn let me know...and ill give a cookie for your accomplishment, cause you know im like a little brown box that you take for granted. but you dont know what may be inside the box, it could be the secrets of Babylon, or a giant machete. Or in this case it would be a miniature giant machete, just like my motto the lone wolf...hunts alone. Wow i really didnt realize how bored i was, aight ima shut up now and go to bed.

D-Vile Outreach

Today we went to D-vile, and when we got there we were all put in one of the educational buildings. As soon as we get in there Jason hands me a screwdriver and tells me to pull staples out of the walls. I finally came up with a method to get them out quickly but as we looked closer there where hundreds of staples all over the walls. So there are hundreds of staples, one screwdriver...you do the math. Alex comes over to help me using a plastic fork...and...wait hold on, omg this is probably the stupidest thing ever, but i still have a broken plastic fork i just realized is still in my pocket as im typing this. ok so anyway the forks only worked half the time and the other half they broke. I dont know how many were broken but i was constantly being bombarded by fork parts. So after that we begin panting. It seems i go through seasons in my life God will have me doing one thing for out reaches, like when ever i used to go on out reaches i was some how always working with Cooking for Christ, and now it seems im always painting. We were using white paint so toward the end most of everyone looked like they had leprosy or something, Alex and me especially because we got the bright idea to have a paint fight. Not to long Misty joined in. So i had Alex and Misty trying to get paint on me. Needless to say i lost horribly, my arms and most of my face were covered in grey paint. It wasent a complete loss i managed to get a little paint on Alex and Misty. Misty was able to wash off most of her paint, Alex on the other hand walked out looking like an Indian. It was really fun today, and you know i bet this was what it was like for Jesus and the 12 disciples. Going out doing Gods work and having fellowship with some amazing friends, i believe in between some of the more serious moments they had some laughs together, and trough paint on each other, or mud...or what ever paint was 2000 years ago.

Faith and Deeds

This week ive had early morning prayer, and i read the first moring in James chapter 2 . The first time i read it it was very interesting, it wasent that i didnt understand it, but i just knew there was something that i just wasent getting and so every moring this week i would read it and pray about it. i feel like over these past few days God has reveled somethings in this chapter that i found was really cool. so id like to start this off with a verse from James chapter 2

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? can such faith save him?" James 2:14

When i read this i thought about the versus that says a man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven through his actions. Then i realized yes we are talking about deeds and actions but the reason for preforming these deeds are different. Here were talking about faith not the kingdom of heaven.

"Suppose a brother or sister is without cloths and daily food". "If one of you says to him, Go i wish you well; keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it"? "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead." James 2:15-17

What i believe this is saying is that say you needed to raise money for a missions trip that you feel God has called you to go on. So since you belive God wants you there, you have faith in what God has told you, you just sit back and wait for God to provide. You go to all the meetings and you've got your things packed, its time to leave and you still have $0. Why is that? God wanted me to go and i have faith in what God is wanting me to do, So why hasent God provided for me? Please take this time to reread the scripture above. You had faith yes, but it was not backed up with your deeds, what did you do to meet God half-way.

"But someone will say, you have faith; i have deeds". "Show me your faith without deeds, and i will show you my faith by what i do." "you believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that -and shudder." James 2:18-19

Some more examples of this would be...If you wanted to get closer to God what would you do? Just going to church once a week isent going to get you closer to God just by doing that, being a Christian is more then just goin to church God has called us to do much bigger and greater things. Your also not gonna get closer to God by just being a Christian and not doing anything

"But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your sou"l. Deuteronomy 4:29

You already have faith but now you must seek after God and that is putting action to your faith.
2nd example. Blake i wanted to tell you this last night, but oh well ill let you read it. You have faith that God wants you to do elevate, and by worldly standards that would be hard to be on one income but you have faith in want God has told you and you putting your faith into action by doing elevate and i believe God will provide you with everything you need because you are showing TRUE faith. To sum this up always back your faith up with deeds, and i hope that my examples were understandable. I wanna end this with a verse because God could explain this much better then i could ever.

You see that a man is justified (pronounced righteous before God) through what he does and not alone through faith [through works of obedience as well as by what he believes]. James 2:24 amp

Random

Hey everyone, and by everyone i mean Jason because he's the only on that looks at my blog. Im sitting up here at the Annex checking my email, yes on a mac, and just chillin til someone puts me to work. i just got done with early morning prayer, its 7:30 now, and im drinkng a coke sorry Jason i couldnt help it.

I have a blog

It has taken Jason and Phil about a year now to convince me to get a blog, and now i finally have one...woohoo. so yea, Jason ill need your help to make it all prettyful, pls pray that i dont get lazy and neglect to post something because i like to procrastinate. in closing i have a blog go me :P

-Jake