Bubbles

We have safely arrived from Costa Rica and I asked 3 people to share some testimonies of what took place on the trip and what God is doing in their life. We also prayed for Raquel who will be moving on and going to Cal Baptist University (congratulations!!) So the first half of the podcast is Brittany, Dayne, and Raquel sharing, and the second half is me talking about what to do once you get off the mountain, do you keep running, or do you hide in a cave? The choice is yours.

This is the message on the Saturday night right before we left for Costa Rica. It was a night where a decision was laid out, which flavor of Pura Vida do you want. Do you want the Quick, or the Lasting. Do you want all the sparkle and glitter of this dieing world, or the completeness of eternity with God?

"I got your back" such wonderful words when we are running around playing laser tag or going paintballing, but it is truly something we need to live by. As Christians we need to be concerned for our brothers and sisters. If we see sin in their life we should talk to them about it in a loving way. I mean there is nothing better than a relationship with God and we should want nothing to create a divide between us and God. There are times we are unaware of our sins, and we see this in the example of David and Nathan. There are other times we know of our sins, but perhaps we are trying to keep them a secret. But as people who love one another, we should protect one another and go to them in love. I just hope traffic listens the first time, so i dont have to go round up her friends from the dog park....

Well we had a special guest speaker this past Saturday night, our very own Jr. High Director Matthew Bradley. He did a wonderful job of challenging us to as Christians not be stagnant. He vividly showed us how stagnant water is absolutely miserable, and in fact in the quaint town of Puerto Viejo, where we are going in Costa Rica, stagnant water is illegal. You can be fined if stagnant water is found on your property. So to keep the mosquitoes out of your life, listen to the message!

We worship a God who answers by fire, and that is so cool! James 5:17 tells us that Elijah was a man just like us and he had mighty prayers. This is the same for us, when we pray, God listens. We don't worship a God who can only hear sometimes, or we have to shout or dance to get His attention, we worship a God who is all loving and all caring.

So another week in the discussion of prayer. As James closes his prayer using the word prayer 7 times we can see the importance of prayer to him. This week we looked at the concepts of healing prayers as well as how we should be in continual prayer IN all things.

So tonight we talked about Prayer, and that was it. Just Prayer. Prayer is such an important part of our faith, yet many of us dont spend enough time with God in prayer. If you need to remember the memory device for the different elements of prayer, here it is:

Acts
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication

In Scripture we are called to wait. But does this mean to wait in line? Are we supposed to grab some beach chairs and wait patiently for the Lord's return? James answers this question for us!

Although this message started out a little complicated, with that whole math concept of 1/2 distances and all (not on the MP3) but it all boils down to the simplest of concepts. God loves you, a lot. God wants an indepth quality relationship with you. So if you want this too, James gives you 5 steps to do it.
1. Submit
2. Resist
3. Purify
4. Grieve
5. Humble

Following these will foster a much healthier and more quality relationship with God.

James once again tells us that we can receive the best wisdom for our lives from God. He told us earlier that God will provide us with wisdom and direction for our lives if we only seek Him. James now tells us that there we can seek counterfeit wisdom, wisdom that isn't wise from "The World", from our flesh, and from Satan. James tells us that we should seek Godly wisdom and follow it, thereby showing others our Christian walk by our actions

In James 3:5-12 we can see the power of the tongue. How we have the ability to Praise God and curse man. James gives us 4 more examples of the powers and ability of our tongue. He also calls us to use our tongue for God. We need to strive to be a people who watch carefully what we say, making sure what we say is uplifting to God. We can do so much for the kingdom, and we must strive to be examples, living righteously so that we can be most effective. And if you are at all curious in watching the video of the ruthless and evil squirrel attacking evan, then click below.

Squirrel Attack

This week as we start the third chapter of James, we see James focusing on our tongue. A small part of our body, but a part that can control so much of what we do. James devotes this entire chapter to the tongue, discussing how our tongue Directs, Destroys, and Delights. Tonight we see how the tongue can direct our lives and James compared our tongue to the bit found on the bridle of a horse and the rudder found on a ship. Both very small parts of the "machine" but control such a large part. The same rings true of a steering wheel of a car, a relatively small part of the car, but the part that directs the entire car. If your car has no steering wheel, your car isn't going to go where you want it to go. It will either go straight without turning, or maybe just get itself stuck doing donuts. As Christians we need to be in control of our tongues as they direct our entire life.

As we close out chapter 2, we look at 2 examples that James gives us for people who not only had faith, but they lived their faith: Abraham and Rahab. We also saw that faith isn't believing in spite of evidence but faith is believing in spite of consequence.

This week we took a step back from our series in James and focused on the Passion Week. A week so named because of the Passion that Jesus displayed, endured, and suffered through because of His love for us. Nothing forced Him, at any moment He had the ability to put everything to an end and save Himself, but His dieing love for us brought him to death and then through resurrection. And just as Christ rose from the dead we too are promised a new life with Him in eternity.

We are not saved by our Works. We are saved by the works of Jesus. But why then does James talk about works? What does he mean when he says "Faith without deeds is dead." Do we need works to be saved or not. Upon deeper inspection we can see that James never states that we need works for our salvation, but he sates that if we have a true saving belief in Jesus then our life will show it. If we believe what Jesus taught then there is no way our lives won't reflect it.

So this past Saturday night was a night of Worship here at Frequency. We did have a mini-message, entitled "A Stark Contrast" focusing on a brief history of the lives of Isaiah and Uzziah. The worship was wonderful, no wonder the Frequency band is out recording a record right now. Then after the amazing night of worship we played an all out game of dodge ball. It was pretty amazing, thankfully nothing got broke, which is always nice and no one got injured.
As I write this post I am still focusing on the Weekend. Its only 3 days away right now and I am so excited. Still lots left to do to prepare, but we are on track for a great time!

James 2:1-7 discusses the concept of playing favorites. Should we treat rich people better than poor people? Should we give better seats to people that are better dressed, smell nicer, or look more presentable? James tells us plainly that we should not do this, but since we know that we shouldn't do it, why do we do it. And knowing why we do it, how do we stop doing it?

In this final section in the first chapter, James gives us a wonderful message on comparing our walk with us looking into a mirror.

James 1:19-21 is the transition from James' introduction of his book to the meat and potatoes. We see in verse 19 the Outline of his book: Quick to Listen, Slow to Speak, and Slow to Anger. As Christians we should be quick to listen to one another, not bouncing to get a word in, or to share our nuggget of advice, but to simply listen to someone's needs. Secondly there is a time for speaking, but an appropiate time, and when the time comes we should stand behind what we say. We shouldn't be speaking without putting thought behind our words. Next James tells us to be Slow to Anger, not that we should never get angry, but to only reach anger at appropiate times and God demonstrates to us that we should not stay angry forever. Finally we saw that what influences we surround our lives with will have a deep and lasting impact on our Spiritual lives. We should live as Psalm 1 teaches, to be firmly planted in the Living Water

Be smarter than the fish. Okay, i'll be honest, if I was this fish in that tiny bowl and there is nothing to do except gnaw on that shinny hook, that might be tempting. But I am smarter than the fish (at least I think I am) But in James 1:13-18 we see James teaching us how to overcome temptations. We saw that there are two types of trials, Tests from God and Temptations from the Devil. How God tests us so that we grow and can be closer to His image and likeness, but Satan tempts us in an attempt to have us stumble, to sin and thereby be seperated from God. We also learned that God gives gifts to us and the 4 things that are associated with God's gift giving.

Also if you haven't checked, all the White Noise Photos are on the Photos site (accessible by the pull string or the link at the bootom of the page or by clicking here!