Hello! My name is James Francis, and I am first and foremost a Christian, but I'm also a musician, composer, artist and student (amongst other things). This is the first installment to what I have incrementally labeled a blog, but is more of a platform that I willl use to write and upload Christian devotions, but has a lot of capacity to expand beyond that, and may often talk about my personal experiences or about certain passions such as music or theology.
I hope that in some way that my website may bring people content or happiness, but first foremost bring people to God, or possibly closer to God if they already believe and trust in Christ. I myself am a young man, and am very much aware of my tendencies to make ill-advised decisions. However I beliveve that as the Bible shows, almost all of the people that Christ chose to sit at his table where broken people , and therefore the result is twofold. First of all it means that God can use the most broken stubborn resentful people (such as myself) and utilise their past pains to further them and others into the book of life and therefore his kingdom. It also means that all of us have that capacity to grow from our current states, whateevr our anguish, if we let down our walls and completely allow God to guide our lives and speak to us.
Over the past years I have almost always been broken, and a number of times been stubborn and resentful, and I believe that bringing other people to God is what God wishes me to do, as a couple of years ago, God called me to it - both a pastor and someone I did not even know (amongst many other people) approched me to say that it is God's will for me to serve him and go into some form of evangelism, and I felt that in my heart God called me to it. However despite all of these very obvious occasions of my spiritual vocation, I ignored it, and decided that I would become a classical musician, and tried not to look back. only recent events have followed that I felt God called me again to evangelism again, and it was so profound, and at that recent time I had been delivered from so much that I decided to act on it. This is part of why I know that reaching out to other people with the word of God is my calling - because I didn't want to do it! At the time, the blissful ignorance of pursuing my lifelong passion of music was obviously more appealing that evangelism, but I have recently grown to know that the more you folllow God's plan for your life, the more you will be spiritually rested. Mind you it does not mean life will be easy - Jesus was without sin and was murdered in the most horrific way. But I believe that the knowing that there is an all-powerful God who will protect you and love you unconditionally whether you accept it or not is amazing, and I honestly want to reach out to people as I know from personal experience, that there a quite alot of us that live with pain, and it's been there so long that it has integrated itself into your daily life and in a number of cases began to dominate it. Therefore, in my first post I shall leave a short prayer, which for those who want to accept the Lord into their heart is there for them to say, but I do not believe that evangelism should be forced on people, as then a true relationship can't always be formed. So if you would like to pray, just say in your mind and heart, "Lord, I'm sorry for my ignorance, but open my heart to be able to recieve you. I repent of my sin, and hope to live in your ways, in Jesus name. Amen." That simple prayer if you prayed it and believed it in your heart I believe that you have entered into the fellowship of Christ.
Underneath this blog i'll leave two videos, the first of which is mainly light hearted but stilll adresses what it is to be a christian, and the second sermon explains what it means to live for christ wholeheartedly, which I believe to have some rather mature themes and therefore if you are i'd say under 15, maybe steer clear, but otherwise I believe that both of these are great serrmons if you have time for it.
God bless.
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