Verses: LUST and EYES.

Hey everyone! I know it's been awhile, but I'm back with some verses that are helping me out with the ongoing battle against lust and to keep our eyes on Christ. I hope these help you as they are helping me.

Be Blessed.

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. -Hebrews 12:1-2

29 So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. -Matthew 5:29

19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. -Galatians 5:19

25 Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. -Proverbs 4:25

25 Don’t lust for her beauty. Don’t let her coy glances seduce you. -Proverbs 6:25

22 Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts. -2 Timothy 2:22

Prayer To Resist/Withstand Sin

Today I realize the fullness of my desperation for God and the hopelessness I feel when I let thought of sin consume me. I am starting to understand why the bible tells us to pray continuously without ceasing. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, it tells us, “Never stop praying”, moreover in the book of Ephesians when Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, telling them about the Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17), “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere” (Ephesians 6:18). From my understanding, I do not believe it’s a coincidence that God tells us to pray continuously when He is explaining what our spiritual armor is. There is an ongoing and continual battle going on against our worldly desires and our souls, as described in 1 Peter 2:11, “Dear friends, I warn you as ‘temporary residents and foreigners’ to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.”

We, as followers of Christ, need to be urgently praying for the forgiveness of sin and to resist and withstand temptation. I pray for you all to come to the understanding that we are susceptible and prone to sin. It is truly by God’s grace that we have an open communication with Him through prayer and His word. God deliberately design it this way, so that we would have to be fully depend on Him for strength and stability with our fights against our sinful nature.

Be encouraged that there is a God who only wants what’s best for you, and usually that means becoming more like Christ. The more we pursue Christ likeness, it will become easier to withstand sin and temptation. You can find everything you need in His word - plain and simply put.

Blessings,

Jamison

The Christ and The Cross

My thoughts on Christ and the cross have changed drastically in the past months. For the first time I’ve opened my bible and literally read it, not just because I felt obligated to do so, but because I realized I am a man completely lost without it.

In the story of the Temptation of Jesus, Jesus is tempted by Satan to turn stones into loaves of bread for him to eat (Jesus is fasting for 40 days and 40 nights). Jesus’ reply:

“No, The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matt. 4:3-4)

Jesus is quoting scripture from book of Deuteronomy:

“Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut. 8:3)

Jesus is showing and teaching us first hand that the word of God is even more essential to life and our well-being than food is. I’ve noticed in my life on the days and sometimes weeks that I go without feeding myself spiritually on a daily basis, I’m prone to fall into a sinful pattern. The bible teaches us that we’re sinful from the start of our lives, as we see this in Psalm 51 and Mark 7:

“For I was born a sinner — yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.” (Ps. 51:5-6)

He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" (Mark 7:20-23)

Even though God knows that we are from the moment of conception sinful and unclean people, He tells us to sin no more and turn to Him. Now believe me, one of the main themes of the cross is love and grace, but we need that. For the bible tells us:

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”

(Romans 3:23)

As we continue reading in Romans 3, we see that though we’re sinful and don’t deserve God’s love and grace, He gave it to us through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus:

“Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.” (Romans 3:24-26)

Our need for the cross is everything; it starts there and ends there. Our sins are forgive because of the sacrifice of God’s only son. It was because of the blood shed from Jesus that we are now saved. Now that we have this amazing grace and gift of salvation, God calls us to sin no more, not because He doesn’t want us to have enjoyment, because sin is mostly fulfilling in the moment, but it’s quite the opposite. God want us to be fulfilled in Him, because He is the only thing that will completely satisfy us. In John 1 it says:

“In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

From this passage, we learn that God is the word, Jesus is the word, Jesus is God. Confused? I am. In all seriousness though, if we need God to stay on the straight path of purity from sin, we are in desperate need from His word, because He is the Word.

We have a great need in our lives and God have given us the food for spiritual hunger. With that said, I urge you to live your life through the message of bible and the Gospel. I have been encouraged writing this, because I need this just as much if not more than you. Even the Apostle Paul, who was one of the greatest believers and established the church, said this:

“This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’—and I am the worst of them all.” (1 Timothy 1:15)

Even the Apostle Paul understood that he was a sinner in need of God's grace, even though he did great things in His name. I hope this encourages you. I hope this finds you inspired and motivated to find God and freedom from sin through the power of the cross.

Only because he loved us first,

Jamison

Pure Volume.

Hey everyone, does everyone really read this? Sometimes I wonder.

ANYWAYS! This week I was able to try something new, and that's record a song only using myself. Meaning, track (or record) all the instruments one by one. I had a lot of fun doing it. I may have said some bad words in the process, but God still loves me. You can check it out at purevolume.com/ataleof.

It's not the best recording ever, but for what I have, I'm pumped.

LOVE.

HaHaHappy.

There are certain times in ones life where everything appears to make sense; everything is right where God deliberately places it, and its prefect. I'm not going to lie; I haven't felt this is a great deal in my life, and up until this point in life I feel exactly, indisputably, like I'm right in line with what God desires for me. This is a feeling of strength and freedom; that at this very point, you're right where you belong, and God is the only logical explanation for it all.

Recently, I have felt like I need to move, due to that I've moved so much in the past. I was talking with my pastor about this feeling. But picture this, I've been in Cincinnati for almost a year now, which is crazy to think about, and with 4 big moves in the last 4 years, I'm due to move again. This feeling made me feel angry and poignant, because I feel very strongly about where God has directed me. I know this feeling about moving isn't a feeling from God, because He has made it undoubtedly clear that this is His will. God has opened so many doors that have allowed me to go to a Christian University, to be a part of a church that is making a difference on the atmosphere that consumes us and the people who breathes it in. Being a part of something that enormous, which the ministry of the church is that immense, is so fulfilling. Don't get me wrong, I know that doing ministry isn't for our pleasure, but God definitely places something inside of you that makes you feel. But back to my point, God has been working in my heart to feel peace about where I'm at and that although moving necessarily is bad or wrong, but that is not want He wants right now. That is where I am at, living in the imprint that God has made on my heart and I am so hahahappy (=]) to be here and to be able to identify the people God has placed in my life to make it so incredible and rich.

So with that said, I urge you to push into God's heart and find your place in the grand scheme of things.

Find it. Love it. Breathe it. Share It.

Success

What is this thing we call success?
How is one to judge whether they are successful or not?
Is it possible that everyone has their own level of successfulness that they are trying to achieve?
Or have we all been victims of society's view of success?
Have you been cheated of your comfort based on this cultures opinion?

Isn't it true that society tell us that we're not successful unless we have:
the nicest cars?
the largest houses?
the bodies of a god?
a bank account that I never have to worry about?
Isn't that spot on?

Will we ever consider to not looking out of these crooked and corrupted grasses of the worldly views?
Or will we become people that realize that success is not based what we have?
But it's truly based on who we are in Christ?

just a thought.

give me my change please!

It's strange to think that you can grow so vastly in one day. That, incredibly, something can change so quickly in you that you're not the same, in what seems to be a blink of an eye.

I think we underestimate our desires to change, to grow into intellectual persons, and break our molds of what we consider our limits to be. Have we become satisfied with who we are? The words we decide to say have a reverberation effect, our actions echo out for what seems to be an entirety. Have we become complacent? Maybe we have become comfortable with who we are, or are afraid to move forward to cultivate and develop ourselves.

May you become conscious that we do not evolve, as humans, because ....Darwin.... said so, but because God deliberately designed us to this way. And sometimes the need for change is hard, sometimes easy, a lot of times we don't want it, but it's a necessity for us to develop as people. So when change comes to you in forms of, academics, life circumstances, and even down to our emotions, may we lift our hands in praise God for these moments, because if our goal in life is to be more like Christ, we have a lot of changing to do.

So I encourage you to find God's heart, to long to be more like it and become more responsive and sensitive to ways God want you to change.

God has been changing me.