That’s My King!

I love this video

Hey

So I haven’t posted in a while. I have had to work through a lot this summer in my relationship with God. The truth being that whenever I get close to getting it and really starting to live for God, on a new level, I get scared. It’s such a huge thing, realising what I am giving up, what I am committing to. It’s what I want and yet I just can’t, and as I get scared I back away, in fact I run, I try to get away from God as quick as I can. I retract to old ways, to trying to move away from faith. I know it’s not what I really want but I almost can’t help it. And this is what I have been working through.

However God has been speaking to me over the last year or so really, trying to get me to really and truly understand grace. Through people he has put in my life, songs, Bible passages and situations the message is there. Even to the point where I spoke about it myself but still couldn’t get it in my own life. It’s easy to understand grace working in someone else’s life but it’s hard to accept in our own. However through God’s persistence with me, wanting me to understand and be able to accept his great gift I am finally getting it and this week more then ever I have been able to accept it in my life more.

Hebrews tells us to “approach the throne of Grace with confidence” which is just amazing. We don’t need to approach God and his grace with guilt (otherwise it wouldn’t truly be grace), we don’t need to shy away (as I am all too guilty of) or try to explain our way out of what we have done, we don’t need to hide from God, for he has a gift of grace for us to receive. We are to approach the throne of Grace with confidence for we know that we will be accepted and that we will be forgiven, that God is there waiting to love us, for he loves it when we approach him and come back to him. He can’t wait to accept us and bring us back to his Kingdom and restore us ready to do his work.

There have also been a lot of other things spoken about that take the pressure away from persuming we need to be perfect, the disciples – not only were they the outcasts of the day the got it wrong, they misunderstood, they denied Christ and yet they were still accepted by him as his followers – in fact he chose them. God spoke to me months ago now, something that I included in my testimony for my confirmation that he meets us where we are and that he works with us from there, building us up. I was reminded of this recently when someone spoke of this interaction between Christ and Peter:

John 21:15-17 (AMP):
“When they had eaten, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these [others do--with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Feed My lambs.

Again He said to him the second time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father]? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. He said to him, Shepherd (tend) My sheep.

He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me [with a deep, instinctive, personal affection for Me, as for a close friend]? Peter was grieved (was saddened and hurt) that He should ask him the third time, Do you love Me? And he said to Him, Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]. Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep.

“

Christ and Peter use a different work for love. Christ was asking Pert if he loved him “with reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion, as one loves the Father” but Peter answers “You know that I love You [that I have a deep, instinctive, personal affection for You, as for a close friend]” it is somewhat of a lower form of love. Yet the third time Christ asks “do you love Me [with a deep, instinctive, personal affection for Me, as for a close friend]“. He knew that at this time Peter was unable to answer that he loved him in the way that he was asking him and he accepts this, coming down to Peters level. He met Peter in the place that he was at. That is part of the grace God holds for us, he knows our short comings and will meet us there.

There is more I can say but I will just leave you with a couple of songs that have helped. If this is something that you struggle with as well work towards being able to accept the grace God holds for you, that he holds for all. It is the message of the Bible and God wants us to approach him with confidence to be reconciled and to be part of his great Kingdom with him.

More Cardboard Testimonies

More that I found on Youtube.

Cardboard Testimonies

I hope that she doesn’t mind but I got this from Raging-Genius’ Blog. (http://raginggenius.wordpress.com/)

done

New Creative Blog

I have started a blog for my creative inspirations ideas etc.

http://jamescreativeblog.wordpress.com/

It will be used primarily for college.

Beautiful Scandalous Night

I love this song. The imagery of a beautiful scandalous night is awesome, the juxtaposition really places emphasis on what happened on the cross.
What happened was tragic, horrific and yet so wonderfully beautiful all at the same time.
I want to get a piece of art done of the cross based on the idea of a beautiful scandalous night.

Western Society

Matthew 5

The Beatitudes

1Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying:
3″Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11″Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Luke 6:20-26

20Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

I am increasingly disillusioned by western society. We (a generalisation) are about money and capitilisation, over sexualisation, greed, power, knowledge. We value the wrong things. Christians don’t escape this, being bought up and living in this culture it is indoctrinated into you the want for stuff.

In Africa they see miracles – in some areas they are practically a common place occurrence. So why don’t we see this here? In Africa their need and therefore their faith is greater. They have nothing else to turn to, they don’t have money, they don’t have a health care system, they can’t use an abundance of food to comfort themselves (by the way I am not saying that God cannot use these things for good in Western Societies or that miracles do not occur at all in Western Societies – but it is much less frequent) so they have no choice but to turn to God. The deaf and blind are healed, food turns up just at the right moment. Do they lead a particularly happy life? Perhaps not. But, through relationship with God and the great faith they have – they find they have to have in him, they live blessed lives.

African Church leaders say that they feel sorry for people in the west – not because they live “better”, happier lives, but because they live blessed lives. We, in the West, are cursed with apathy – because we can turn to other things to meet our needs. We should be ashamed that people which live such hard lives in some of the poorest countries feel sorry for us we really should – but we are some how perversely proud of our way of life, of our values – how stupid is that? That we are proud of that which is coming between us and God.

I am not saying that we cannot have a relationship with God or that we are incapable of believing in him but that we are going to find it very hard to reach the level of faith that some people have in Africa, the level of faith that will allow us to see miracles go from one of, occasional occurrences, to common place occurrences revealing the blessed life lead with such great faith in God.

My current prayer is that God will help me to have a greater faith in him, and to come to rely on him more – I am scared of what this may mean, what I may have to go through to get there, at times I try to word my prayer more carefully so as not to suggest that I want to go through particularly hard times to get there, but I am trying to fall back on the great hope I can find in a life lead with such great faith.

Anyway sorry for the rant but it is something that is on my mind a lot at the minute. I tend to bring the mood down when I’m out with friends or on dinner break at work lol.

James
xx

More trailers

This time they are embedded – I have to admit that I prefer the one that I had to link to on the official site, but here are the others. I can’t wait to see it.

(if you can’t tell I am quite a Torchwood fan)

Torchwood: Children of the Earth

http://www.bbc.co.uk/torchwood/
(unfortunately I can’t embed this video)

Monday 6th July 9pm

I’m looking forward to it! I’ve been wondering when it was going to be knowing it was originally planned for Spring. It looks good the trailer is brrill and very well made so I have high expectations for the series. Looks as though it should be dark in a twisted and creepy way – always a good combination lol.

Summer project

I would be grateful if you would help me with my summer project by visiting this link:

http://www.james-lock.co.uk/id.htm

Thanks,

James

xx

Social Vibe

IF you want to help a good cause click on the social vibe widget on the left hand pane (——->), it is currently at the bottom of that pane.
Click on the To Write Love on Her Arms logo to find out more about the cause or on the Help Now button to rate a video and get the sponsor (sprint) to donate to the cause!

Thank you

Thoughts

Just some thoughts I had after Sanctum yesterday.

1) One of the biggest masks we rely on is “I’m ok”, when we are not. Because it is the socially acceptable answer to give. But we need to admit that we are not ok, it is ok to not be ok sometimes. And Church should be the place that we are most comfortable to admit this. I find that I know in my head it is ok to talk to people but my heart stops me, through fear I hold back. It is hard but it is something that we can change together.

2) Humans tend to think:

I have therefore I am (somebody, valued, hold worth etc)
I know therefore I am ||
I do therefore I am ||
I eat therefore I am ||
I live therefore I am ||

But God just says “I Am”.
These things – knowledge, stuff, where we live, what we eat etc… that the world, and we mistakenly value are not the things that God values.

That’s it – just a couple of thoughts,

James
xx

Children’s book

For my last project of the year at college I have had to create my own children’s story and illustrate the cover and one double page spread from the book.

My story is based around Percy the pencil, who likes to write. His friends think that it is not cool to like to write and tease him about it. In an effort to fit in Percy tries his friends hobbies, such as playing football with Bertie the Ball and trying to play music with Rebecca the Recorder. Finally Percy realises that he just isn’t good at anything else and enjoys writing his favourite story.

The moral of the story being that God makes us all different, and gives us all different gifts so that we can work together for His glory. We should be happy and concentrate on that which God has gifted us with rather then wishing that we had been gifted in a different way.

Cover:

Double page spread:

The Reason

When we (I) find ourselves (myself) slipping into the old ways that we turned away from we (I) need to remember the reason that we turned away in the first place.

The Reason lyrics

I’m not a perfect person
There’s many things I wish I didn’t do
But I continue learning
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

I’m sorry that I hurt you
It’s something I must live with everyday
And all the pain I put you through
I wish that I could take it all away
And be the one who catches all your tears
Thats why I need you to hear

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is You [x4]

I’m not a perfect person
I never meant to do those things to you
And so I have to say before I go
That I just want you to know

I’ve found a reason for me
To change who I used to be
A reason to start over new
and the reason is you

I’ve found a reason to show
A side of me you didn’t know
A reason for all that I do
And the reason is you

James
xx

God’s plan

Ok I’m not going to post for at least a few more days while I work through some stuff. I also have a college hand in again next week which is keeping me busy (well once I get going, seems as it’s half term).
However here is something that I have already written to send to a parent of one of my best friends.

Just a bit of background, I was on holiday with the family of my friend when I received my A.S. level results which, while not a complete surprise to me, were not as good as I would have liked, or really could have done with. I ended up going for a walk up the beach on my own and spoke on the phone to another good friend, I then returned to where the others were on the beach.
A week before I was due to return for A2 I was contacted by the college to tell me that the drama course I was one would not be continuing as only 2 of us wanted to do the course, I was advised to take a one year A Level, but I knew this would mean a lot more work and may have meant that I would struggle to get on a drama course at Uni (I wanted to be a drama teacher). So I took a year out and worked, which wasn’t the easiest of years at times, in fact I hated it at one point. I found a new course to do in Multimedia design along the way and went for it.

Here is the message:

Someone was asking me how I ended up on the course I am on and so I was reminded about this.

I am sure that you remember being on the beach nearly two years ago and telling me that my grades were just part of Gods plan that I just couldn’t see. Well I guess I kinda knew you were right, but still couldn’t get it.

But I can now look back and see how it was.

To be honest I realised that drama teaching wasn’t right but saw no way out of the path I was already on. I was just kinda stuck in it continuing with my head down. So if that and the drama course being cancelled hadn’t happened then I would probably be sat in a drama room at uni realising I was doing the wrong thing. It gave me the opportunity to take time and out and work out what it was I was supposed to be doing and find my current course.

There have been times this year where I really wanted to know what God was playing at leading me to this course at this time, because there have been problems with the class and a few other things and very nearly left (I told my tutor I was doing so, who quickly dragged me in the office for a chat lol). But I can see what I am supposed to be learning along this bumpy path. And I have now come to a point where I am really happy on the course and I am enjoying it. I am doing things that I would never have thought I would do and loving it. The class have finally settled down and we are all getting on really well.

So thank you for those wise words all that time ago, they helped me at the time – although I was still confused, and looking back now I can see exactly how true they were.
xx

End of message

So I went through some harder times in the path to get to where I am now, which I am happy with (at least in referring to my college course) and I am sure I will go through hard times again on this path I am walking. But it is all worth it, allowing God to lead me.

James

xx