James 4:4-6
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Todays church falls into the trap of wanting to be more like the world to gain more of the world but the one mistake that they make is putting aside the gospel and sin to not cause conflict with the people and by doing that they have chosen to make themselves a friend of the world, and become humanistic and man-centered. The world has nothing to offer a christian, yes, God's creation was good in genesis, but since sin enterd the world the god of this world, satan, wants to tempt us and make us fall into his snares and sin against a Holy and Righteous God. There are 3 things that we can get out of this text:

1. Friendship with the world means that we are enemies of God.
Our lives, as christians, should be cross exhaulting, Christ-centered, God glorifying lives. Most of us are afraid of persecution, and what we tend to do is not proclaim our christian life or preach Christ to people because we are afraid of there response, and if they are our friends or family we dont want to lose their friendship so we would rather be friends with them and put God on the back burner. Now, when we start choosing the world over Christ thats when James rebuke falls into play. Because of Christ sacrafice, we are seen as holy and without blame before Him in love (ephesians 1:4), and we have no wrath in store for us because Christ became a propitiation for our sins(Romans 3:25). Now anyone who rejects the gospel and Christs' work on the cross and chooses the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life instead of a perfect and loving God who gave up His only begotten son is an enemy of God because he/she is denying the glorious work that took place and the God who did it. So when paul talks about being unqually yoked (2 corinthians 6:14) that means that our friends influence does rub off on us and when we are around them long enough the life we use to know and love with Christ begins to fade and we make ourselves an enemy of God.

2.God is a jealous God.(genesis 20:5)
God will not take 2nd place, He will not allow something or someone take His place in your life. God has given us the Holy Spirit to convict us and guide us and conform us to Christ. Now, when we neglect The Spirit and try to do our own thing that is a sin against God and He will chasten those whom are His and who He loves. God shouldnt be only number one on our list, He should be the only thing on our list. Remember love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,mind and strength.(mark 12:30)

3.Be humble,have a broken and contrite heart daily.
The last part of the verse James write that "God oppreses the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Most of the time we are humled, or have a broken and contrite heart when we have sinned against someone, or hurt someone, but we must know that no matter who we sinned against or whom we have hurt, first it is all sin against God. We daily fall short of His glory, and daily sin against God. So daily we must live a life with a broken and contrite heart leading us to be humble before the Lord because we know that we have sinned against a Holy and Perfect God. I pray that this will humble us and that God will get the glory... amen

Why God must condemn the wicked

Now, i have heard many people say that God can not send anyone to hell because God is love. Well yes, God is love but He is more than that. It says in Proverbs 17:15 He who justifies the wicked, and condems the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. Now, if God lets sinners, people who have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ,if He lets them enter the kingdom of heaven then He is an abomination to Himself and is no longer worthy to be our God. So because God does love He also must hate and all who are not washed clean by the blood of his son are still dirty with sin. So when they stand before the Judgement seat of Christ then He will say depart from me i never knew you. And whomever is not allowed into heaven will go to where there is "weeping and gnashing of the teeth." We all must know that God is a holy, perfect, and just God. He will not allow anyone to enter heaven just because you went on church or because you prayed a prayer or an alter call or gave money to a church or did mission trips. What I'm trying to say is that no work can get you into heaven, none! The only work that can is what Christ Jesus has done on the cross. If you trust in the substitutionary work of Christ and live by faith and not by sight and have fellowship with God and seek His face, repent of sins, bear fruit, these are things that are shown by a man or woman of God. Remember from the day we were born we had a sin debt, and you can either trust that Christ paid it for you and forever glorify Him and praise Him for how glorious He is or when your standing before God be casted into hell and forever be apart from Him. Christ became sin so that through Him we might have the forgiveness of sins, He removed the wrath that God and now we may have perfect fellowship with Him. Trust in Christ, believe in the gospel and repent of your sins. May the grace and peace of God be with you. Amen!

a small doxology

all praise to the Saviour who reigns, the King who took captivity captive yet bore my sin and shame. the place on the cross had my name, but Christ became a humble and obedient Lamb and was slain. Lord, You drank the Fathers wrath that was fill to the brim, anger and judgement meant for me was poured out on Him. oh praise You King Jesus, beautiful and majestic Son, the resurrected One, riding on the clouds He will come. it is You who's praise-worthy, awful in Your glory, in my mothers womb You formed me to take part in Your story. praise You oh Holy Father, creator of all life, sustainer in my strife, You are eternity, I'm finite. I'm nothing more than a clay jar, yet You've poured in me the beautiful gospel of Christ. glory to You, Holy Spirit, for You work within me to kill my sin. You turned me from my path to wrath, and set me on the road to righteous living, the narrow plain where I share in Christ pain... where I share in His death, and in doing so, I share in His resurrection. all glory, honor and praise to the triune God, He has no flaws, may all nations sing to Him and applaude!

treasure of hope in jars of clay

2 corinthians 4:7 "But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the supassing power belongs to God and not to us."



Jars of clay... that is all we are, jars of clay. We, christians, are clay pots, no one more precious than the other. We were all born sinners, hating God and loving ourselves and the sin that we so dearly boasted upon, and being in bondage to our master, sin and death. Yet now, we serve the Living God, the True God, the Triune God. We must know that there is nothing good in us, unless it is Christ and Him crucified. This glorious gospel, Christ being put to death on the cross, bearing our sin and shame, being placed in a tomb, rising on the third day, and now sitting at the right hand of God, this gospel is entrusted to unworthy clay jars. Through out the bible we can see that God uses the weak things of the world to put to shame the strong and the foolish to shame the wise, and it is no different today. Now a days most people like this health wealth prosperity gospel or the seeker sensitive gospel, but those are not the gospel.The only gospel is the gospel of Christ and if anything else is added or removed it is not longer the power of God unto salvation but heresy. There is only one truth, that is Christ Jesus, there is only one way, Christ, and through His finish work on the cross we have life, we have salvation, we have hope... hope of a future ressurection and beholding His glory and praising Him for all eternity. So, why me? why you? why us? by far I am not eloquent in speech or stand out among the crowd, but why have we been chosen to proclaim the most glorious thing to ever be revealed in the history of mankind? for God's glory. Paul rights "...to show the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." (2 cor 4:7) it is God who receives the glory when we open our mouth and proclaim the gospel of Christ, it is God who makes us weak to show His strength, It is God whom send down His only begotten Son to show that He deserves the glory, but to also show the love He has for His bride and to show us what true love looks like. Yes, we are clay pots, and helpless sheep, but the treasure that is in the jars of clay is everlasting glory, because it is the glory of Christ, and even though we are helpless sheep, we have a Glorious Sheperd who cares and maintains His flock. Other religions rely on works but we rely on Christ, other religions rely on man, but we rely on the Son of God. We have a great commission, to go out to all nations and to preach this gospel of hope, of salvation, of glory. No matter how shy or scared or dumb we think we are, if God could use a donkey to proclaim to balaam a message (num 22:30) how much more can He use us to proclaim The Gospel of Christ to all nations. This text should humble the reader and exhault the King. It should humble us to see that "yes!" we are clay jars, small and insignificant, unworthy and undeserving of something so marvelous that words can not describe. This should exhault the King, Christ, because even though we are clay jars, He has chosen us for a work, He has chosen us to be servants of Him, and God has given us the Holy Spirit to know how to proclaim such Good News. I pray that this is used for your edification, and the the Lords exhaultation and glory. May the grace and peace of God be with you. Amen!