We don't want your money. We want you!

It is by their fruit that we would know if they are saved by grace. Yes it is by God's grace that we are saved, through faith alone, and never by works so that no one can boast. If it weren't for grace where would I be?

God, by His grace has picked me up and dusted me off, not once but many times. But once I am on my feet, do I just bask in His glory and feel good about myself that I made it or do you want to reach out and help someone else onto their feet. Grace is more than how you are saved. It is how you live. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and faith without works is dead. We have not been put on this earth to have a nice worship session. Doing some work is the dreaded word in Graceland.

We have been saved by grace to be used by God to bring others into grace. The other side of grace is called works. Two sides of the same coin. Grace - Works. You can not have the one without the other. We don't want your money. We want you!

Wallow in Grace

I haven't written for sometime now but here goes. At our Home Circle group we have started a new DVD series by Louie Giglio called "The Other Side of Grace". I must say that in the first episode "The Homeboy is Holy", there was so much to digest that it is hard to put a finger on the key truths.

Let me start with a quote from Louie at one of the Passion concerts "The greatest cause of atheism is Christians acknowledging Jesus with their lips but deny him with their lifestyle. That’s what this unbelieving world finds unbelievable."

Louie's core message in this DVD is Grace on one side and Fear on the other. Through the amazing grace of God we are forgiven. The slate wiped clean. Louie states that we tend to galvanize into two groups. One group makes Jesus our "Homeboy", our buddy while the other group separates themselves out of the world to be holy.

The Homeboy Group:
"God is Love. He only wants to bless us with all we need and want." How easy it is just wallow in grace and not be holy? While we enjoy all the blessings that come through grace, we must remember the Messiah is not another friend or homeboy. He is the same God yesterday, today and forever. Grace takes dead people and makes them alive. Not for our own enjoyment but for good works.

The Holy Group:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. What is the fear of God? A good definition I found is "The acute awareness of the presence of God's power that produces in me a sense of awe and calls forth from me honor, respect and reverence." Grace gets us real close to someone who is terrifying and righteous. We must not be so out of touch with the world that God can't use us.

Louie said that we must be in the middle of the two. If someone says to you "I don’t fear God, I love God" is out of touch who God really is. In other words, they don't even know God. Don't tell me that you love God. Show me! Be in the world but not of the world. As a Christian, the unbelieving world is watching you. The homeboy is Holy.

Is a Western life worth more than an African life?

It is a tough question for some of you, a question that you don't want to answer. Here is a short video made by Seth Chase featuring Simon Guillebaud and Enoch. Watch it if you dare to be a Christian.

To find out more about Simon and his great work go to Great Lakes Outreach or see Fadical for more about Seth.

Constance :-(

By Sam Sanchez

For those tears I died

It is only one day until I am 41. In other words I am 14,975 days old today counting the leap years and I am in this strange place once again. One of my favorite things is to go to http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ . It is a site where people write their deepest secrets anomalously. Most times it makes me so sad that it aches inside my heart. So much so, that I cry out to God, why? I can see so many lost people through the eyes of Jesus and I can feel it when I sense tears in His eyes.

We are so shielded here in our suburban lives. Here are just a taste of what is crying out of the darkness.

I want to get raped, because i want to be a teen mom.

I want to be more passionate in God, but I dont know how to be

I wish I could believe in God.

whenever im drunk, im happier because i dont remember all my problems. im only 15.

Please, God, Buddha, Allah, whoever you are... don't let me die alone.

Sometimes I doubt things will ever go well for me since my life has been nothing but hard. God has failed me, and I am pretty certain he will fail me too.

My attempt on my life in January was not the first time. I just had the guts to carry it through the second time. But now, the meds don't and aren't helping me, they just give me a mask.

i'm afraid there is no God and everyithing i have believed in is a lie

I turned my back on Christianity after leukemia killed my grandmother and my uncle in the same year and found out that cancer is genetic in Mum's side of the family.

my dad abused me from the day i was born up until the month before i turned 18

i will never love or believe "your God".

I hear voices telling me to hurt myself, and because of it, I've attempted suicide twice. I've been cutting myself since I was 12

I think my biggest fear at the end of my life, is that I will feel like God would regret letting me be born

I replace the pain with: drugs, sex, alcohol, and music

I wish I could give my life to someone who could really use it, I feel more and more that I am wasting it, and that I was a mistake in God's plan, that somehow I fell through the cracks and he has forgotten about me. I just want to figure out why I am here, do it as soon as possible, so I can leave.

I can't let anyone see who I really am, it is too painful

I'm praying to someone's god that no one I know sees this.

And Jesus said
Come to the water,
Stand by my side
I know you are thirsty
You won't be denied
I felt every tear drop
As in darkness you cried
And I strove to remind you
That for those tears I died

Let us be the hand the reaches into the dark and grab a hand to pull it into the light.

Not easy to forgive

Well before I start I need to ask for your forgiveness as this blog is very late. Last year we as a family have been praying for work to keep flowing in and now God is blessing us overflowing. So much so that I have to somehow learn to manage all the work at the same time. Multi-tasking, I think it is a girl thing.

The question of forgiveness came in as we covered the last of "The Legend of Joe Jacobson" series "Right where you want 'em". For those who have missed it, it is the story of Joseph son of Jacob. No matter how bad your life is, Joseph was worst and no matter how good it gets, Joseph had it better.

He was sold into slavery – God was with him;
He rose to prominence among the slaves – God was with him;
He was falsely accused of sexual misconduct and thrown into jail – God was with him;
He rose to prominence among the prisoners – God was with him;
He was forgotten in jail – God was with him;
He rose to prominence in all of Egypt – God was with him;

Do you see a pattern? Yes God was with him all the time. He was silent in places but He was never absent.

Can anyone really forgive? Forgiveness is not for the weak. The most courageous thing you can do is to forgive. Easy words to write but are they easy to do? In life people that have hurt you the most will one day need you. Joseph found himself in that very position, he could have taken revenge against his brothers, and he had the power. But he did what anyone would have knowing that God was with him do. He gave what they did not deserve.

It is at that moment that an abused person has the tendency to abuse. It might not even be the person who mistreated you in the first place but you now have the power. Knowing that God is always with you, what will you do in that situation? Would you be God's rod that smiteth? You see, it is easy to play God than give what is not deserved.

When things go well

How come when things are not going well in our lives that we spend a lot of time in prayer or even blaming God but when it is all smooth sailing God is pushed aside or forgotten? I have told the following story before, so I do apologize to those who have already heard it. Matthew, my son, who at the time was just learning to read, had downloaded an internet game from a safe site and was playing. Soon he got stuck and could not continue and he cried out to his daddy. I came along and started to read the instructions out loud for him. Not far into the reading, Matthew got the gist of the game and pushed me aside stating that he has got it. I had to stand back and watch him go boldly forward only to get stuck again because he did not hear the full instructions.

It dawned on me that we as Christians are just like this. While trying to live our lives we soon get into a rut and call out to our heavenly Father for help. He starts to show us how to get out of our problem but as soon we get the idea of where He is going, we push Him aside saying to God that we can handle it from here, thank you very much. We treat God as a Mr Fixit and only call on Him when something needs fixing. We tend to forget about God when things are going well.

The second part of the Legend of Joe Jacobson, Return of the Dreamer, deals with just this. Joseph’s life had changed from dreadful to unsurpassed and he did not forget God. How did he do it? He was confident that God was with him in all things. I must admit that it is very difficult to live each day as if God is with me when God is blessing me and my family. Andy Stanly asks the question “When things are going well, are you failing the Test of Prosperity?

Andy gave us three points to help us pass this test when things are looking up for us . . .

- Publicly Declare: Break the silence, give credit to the rightful one, God. You got to go public with your dependence on God.

- Leverage: It was never yours to start off with. God did not bless you because of you or for you, but he blessed you to be a blessing to others.

- Reminders: Find a way memorize where we came from and how God has brought us to where we are now. To be always reminded of what God has done for us.

Let Go and Let God
Jerome