Just Some Old Hymns

Had the chance to share my testimony at the Salvation Army this morning. Before that we sang a hymn that just hit home with me. I'm not usually the biggest fan of singing hymns but this one was great. It's called kneeling in penitence.

Kneeling in penitence I make my prayer,
Owning my weaknesses and my despair;
Failure I cannot hide,
Broken my selfish pride,
Pardon thou dost provide,
Pardon declare.

Nothing can I achieve, nothing attain;
He that without thee builds, labors in vain;
Shatter my own design,
Shaping a plan divine,
Come to this heart of mine,
Saviour, again.

Though few the gifts I have that thou canst use,
Make thy demands on me; I'll not refuse;
Take all there is of me,
Take what I hope to be;
Thy way at last I see,
Thy way I choose.

Loved that last bit, and the whole thing in general really, where it says take all there is of me, take what i hope to be...That's really tough to ask God to do because we have our own selfish desires and all of our own goals in life..but to say to God "I don't want it...you take it and make it yours" is just stunning to me. So I do ask God to break my selfish pride and shatter my own designs, I only want what he wants for me, because it seems like everything I want is just the stuff that gets me into trouble.

Last thing, the other day I was reading an argument between some Christians and one of them was talking about how he was a "proud (specific sin) christian who doesn't care what society says to him because Jesus loves him." I'm not gonna say the sin because that's not the point of my argument. I was a bit caught of guard because my opinion is that of Romans 8 which says that you can only live for the spirit or the flesh, but not both. What I believe is that if you are pursuing Christ, then you are fighting sin and fighting temptation. Yet, this man was saying he was embracing sin in his life and embracing Jesus. Others had the same mindset as me and they posted them telling him what scripture says, and he kept saying "well I don't believe that verse or that part of the bible" and I was reminded of a lesson from Tim Fritson on a fall retreat at Windermere a few years back when Tim started ripping out pages of the bible then when his product was finished he held it up and said "now this is the bible i want to believe in," but the point of his talk was that we can't do that..we don't make the bible what we want it to be so it will fit in with our lifestyle. In fact we should do the opposite, match our lifestyles to that of Jesus (Ephesians 5:1) and that only happens through observing his word (ALL OF IT) so please don't underestimate the power of scripture. It has transformed my life and I know it can do it to anybody if it can do it to me.