I know I know... I have missed WAYYYY too many posts. We bought a bus that needs A LOT of work-- we still don't have running water:-)-- however, no more excuses, Holy Spirit told me to write and I'll be catching up on many missed posts over the next week. Without further ado, here we go!
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Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts (Zechariah 4:6 NASB).

So many, many times I tried in my own strength, in my own power; only to fail again and again.

Do you ever notice in Christian circles how we quote half of a verse? We also take verses out of context. But, many times the other half of the verse is pretty important!

I think I have heard, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” over 100 times. Do you think repeating that ½ verse is helpful to your walk with the Lord? I don’t. I think it’s pretty depressing. To me, it means your spirit wants communion with God, but alas, your flesh can’t make it happen.

Jesus is always more encouraging than that. Matthew 26: 41 says, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Watch and pray! Watch and pray! Jesus is inferring that if we watch and pray, He gives us the power to OVERCOME weak flesh. It’s only by us aligning ourselves with Him, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we are able to withstand the temptations of our flesh.

I just met a 19 year old that is sold out for Jesus. He led us and some other families in worship and I couldn’t help but think, “Wow! I wish I was in this place at 19.” We have the saying, “The sky is the limit,” however, with our wondrous heavenly Father, the sky isn’t even the limit. This 19 year doesn’t have a limit! Oh, what God can do with a humble, willing heart!

When I was 19, I had gone down the road of satisfying my own sinful desires that had grown and grown. That’s what sin does. If you make those poor decisions, if you don’t watch and pray, it always leads to death… one step at a time. It’s like you’re slowly digging your own grave!

I’m getting ahead of the story, but next, I’ll be sharing about a glimmer of hope during the later part of high school. We’ll also be looking at a sovereign Father showing me what a Godly woman actually looked like. Stay tuned!

My apologies for missing Tuesday! We have been meeting with four other families and some locals in Staunton, VA to pray and seek God's face for the future. God is doing a new thing!! We will be telling more about this story soon, but please pray with us through Wednesday next week when we'll be traveling to Washington, D.C. Here is part 6!
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Hitting high school in the mid-nineties kept me from easy access to pornography via the internet. However, the TV could be almost as bad. I prided myself as being one of the only kids in my class who didn’t party on the weekends. On Saturday nights, I would go to the school gym and play volleyball with all ages from the community.

But, the devil had gotten a foothold. You see, while others were out drinking and doing other dumb things, I was watching movies that were bringing sexual images into my mind. Sometimes I remember even hitting record on the VCR and going to bed. The late night shows were even worse, or at that time in my life, I thought better!

I would use these late-night recordings later to feed the lust in my eyes. I don't remember having much conviction over doing this. I do remember it being secretive and exciting. I knew I didn't want my parents to find out, but I never thought about how it affected a holy God's heart. 

I also remember many of the shows from the 70s through the 90s -- even the ones that were considered "family" shows -- regularly had seductive women in bikinis, men who had all the women attracted to them (James Bond, Face from the A-Team, etc.), and countless other things that polluted a growing young man's mind.

Thankfully, I wasn’t exposed to continual hardcore pornography, but my steps toward spiritual death were continuing down an ugly path. When a person continues taking these steps in succession, it is a slow, and many times unknowing, process toward destruction. Someone doesn’t just decide one day to commit adultery. They arrive at that awful destination one bad decision at a time.

The bible says, "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! (Matthew 6:22-23)” Although Jesus said this in the context of money, I believe it applies to other lusts as well. In other words, if your eye is feasting on things that feed lust, how can you stay pure?

I think 1 John 2:16 backs this up, “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” The lust of the eyes goes all the way back to Eve in the garden. It absolutely applies to both money and sex.

And of course, Paul’s answer to this problem is found in Romans 8:13, “for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Lord, help us to walk by the Spirit! It says, “by the Spirit…” It doesn’t say by your hard work, by your diligence, or by your discipline that you will succeed. You are powerless to change some things in your life without the work of the Holy Spirit. Please go back and read that last sentence again. Seriously. OK, I’m going to type it again: You are powerless to change some things in your life without the work of the Holy Spirit. Think on that for awhile, and we’ll discuss that idea next.