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Pressing In to Grace

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10)

Here In 1 John chapter one verses five through ten we learn 3 things concerning sin. They are obvious, and basic things. God is a God of the basics. He commanded His people Israel go over the basics of faith from the time he gave the basics to them. That way they would be saturated in them and share them with their kids and their kids kids. As christians this passage is bread and butter. We need to cover our lives in this truth and never forget. Then we pass it down through the generations.

The first thing we find in this passage is that God has no sin. Like the contrast of light and darkness God is not only sinless but He is the very opposite of it; simple enough. Yet there are those who have a tendency to blame God for their sinful stumbling. This passage and James 1:13 makes it very clear that is not the case “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”

The second thing we find is we are sinners. Look closely at verses six eight and ten and there is no doubt. Yet there is still a heresy stalking many churches today; that of Sinless perfection. Verse 9 alone flies in the face of this poorly conceived Doctrine that somehow a person can stop committing sins in this fallen world. Whether accidental or willful.  We are positionally perfect in the eyes of the Father all because of what The Son did for us on the cross. Practically however we will continue to fail until Christ comes back for His bride.

What happens then if we do sin? Well that would bring us to our third point. Confess your sin to the Lord and He is faithful and just to forgives us of our sin. Not only that but He cleanses us of all unrighteousness.  We can fall on the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The devil will try to tell us we can’t possible come to the Lord after we sin like we did. However God’s word is true. We can come to Him at all times with anything, and He is faithful even when we are faithless. Press in to that grace today.

-Mike Miller CCNH-

The Purpose of Prayer

…one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray…" —Luke 11:1

This week we gathered as a church to pray for the needs of our fellowship, therefore I’d like to share a devotion from Oswald Chambers with you all.

https://utmost.org/the-purpose-of-prayer/

Prayer is not a normal part of the life of the natural man. We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer. When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God is born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life. Prayer is the way that the life of God in us is nourished. Our common ideas regarding prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.

“Ask, and you will receive…” (John 16:24). We complain before God, and sometimes we are apologetic or indifferent to Him, but we actually ask Him for very few things. Yet a child exhibits a magnificent boldness to ask! Our Lord said, “…unless you…become as little children…” (Matthew 18:3). Ask and God will do. Give Jesus Christ the opportunity and the room to work. The problem is that no one will ever do this until he is at his wits’ end. When a person is at his wits’ end, it no longer seems to be a cowardly thing to pray; in fact, it is the only way he can get in touch with the truth and the reality of God Himself. Be yourself before God and present Him with your problems— the very things that have brought you to your wits’ end. But as long as you think you are self-sufficient, you do not need to ask God for anything.

To say that “prayer changes things” is not as close to the truth as saying, “Prayer changes me and then I change things.” God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person’s inner nature.