23rd I.B.S.

Eph. 6:1

- "Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right."

Col. 3:20

- "Children obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord."

These verses are two verses that I have taken very lightly in my life. Obviously I know that I am supposed to obey my parents and I know that it pleases God, but have I been obeying my parents with the same heart that I need to have while serving God? I sadly would have to confess no, no I haven’t been. But to think how much trouble it would have saved me. I mean I wouldn’t have gotten into half of the garbage that I put myself through if I had just followed my parent’s instruction. Now I do have a confession to make, I would have to admit that I was blessed greatly by God for the parents that raised me. I have friends who have tons of parental issues and I can’t ever imagine having to go through things such as divorced or alcoholic, drug addicted, adulterating parents. I’ve seen how that can affect a growing boy and it causes me to step back and be so thankful for the ones that God has put over me. Actually, when I think about it, not only was God blessing me with my parents, but I was receiving His blessing and saying, "Oh gee thanks God… SIKE!" and throwing in the trash. Now I’m not saying I don’t love my parents, because I do. I understand that they love me as well and make constant sacrifices for me. I can see my Gods love through them in so many different ways. So, the question I have to ask myself is, why in the world don’t I love them like I serve God. I’m getting to a point in my relationship with God where I WANT to serve Him. I’m stepping into that by giving Him this year. Why don’t I want to grow closer to my parents and love them, and respect them, and bless them near as much as I want to do those things for God? I’m not saying my parents are just as good as God but He placed them in my life as a blessing and I need to be honoring that.

The next time we get WiFi, I will skype my parents and apologize.

22nd I.B.S.

Romans 6:16

- "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?"

Well, I guess since Christ has saved us we can sin all we want right? No, this is not the case. A lot of my Atheist friends have used that line against me actually, they say Christians use the fact that Christ died for them to cover up the fact that they sin continually just as everyone else does. Honestly, I don’t blame them for thinking that, they look at the world’s picture of Christians, and most of their friends, and see hypocrites. This verse, however clearly tells us that this is wrong to be a Christian and to not have a heart of repentance. If we are to be servants of Christ, we should obey His word. It really sucked for me because while I love the Lord, there were some sins that I could not seem to give up. Knowing completely that the things I was doing, wasn’t what a Christian should do, and that everyone saw me doing so. Honestly I think the thing that kills Christianity in the worlds eyes are the hypocrites, but of course I find myself in that same category, sinning and not caring. So, if we are to be the servants of God, we are to follow His word meaning to we are to have a repentant heart that seeks Him, and we are not to judge our brothers walks with Him as well. Which is exactly what I was doing. Matthew 7:3, "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but consider not the beam in your own eye?" We need to realize that we are just as bad, if not worse than the next person. I think that once we truly understand this truth, we can be servants to Christ as He wants us to.

I need to humble myself daily to the least of my brothers and sisters. That way I can accept correction from others. So I’ll draw a less than sign on my hand.

21st I.B.S.

Acts 5:29

- "Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men."

WWJD is the first thing that popped into my head after reading this passage. The apostles answer that we should obey God other than men is a mindset that Christians need to have. Looking back in the Old Testament, there are many examples of people who did what God told them to do even if it went against what man said. Because at the end of the day, we need to ask if what we did was for God, or for mans eyes. Of course, this doesnt mean that we dont do anything that man tells us to, how in the world would any work get done. However, whatever we do, we are to do it as if we are doing it for Jesus. While we may not like deep frying chicken and getting hot oil splashed on our hands, with a never content boss telling you how to do something better than you are doing it, we should do it with the mindset that we are doing it as unto Christ. This applies the same idea as Radrack, Meshack, and Abendego. While they were working in a chocolate factory, and listened to what their boss told them to do, when it came time to bow down and worship the Bunny, they knew that this was not something that would please God, so they obeyed God over man. While man would say, just bow to the idol and dont mean it in your heart, they knew God would like for them to bow at all, that He wanted them to stand up for what they believed in.

I need to be more bold with my faith because what I don't say can harm those around me.

The 20th I.B.S.

John 15:14

- "You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you."

Reading this verse for the first time was kind of wierd. Most likely because I read it out of context. The verse before says "Greater love hath no man than this, that He would lay down His life for His friends." And the verse that follows this says, "henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant doesnt know what the Lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things i have heard of My Father I have made kown to you." Here Jesus is talking to His disciples and I can't imagine how honored they were to have Jesus tell them that they were His friends. And as We read, we see that they were His friends because they did whatever He commanded then to do. As a modern day Christian, I don't think I can say that I do everything that He asks me to do, I know I do a lot of things He doesn't tell me to do, but looking at the qualifications on being a friend of Christ I feel more comfortable calling myself a servant of Him. Of course I think it does without saying that I want to one day be called a friend of Christ, and do whatever He commands of me. So there we have something to strive for.

Memorize John 15:13

I.B.S. #19

Psalm 17:50
"As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I wake, with thy likeness."
We will be content when we awake and we are in His presence. This is the time when we will be truly content, when we are face to face with our father. When we are no longer searching for Him or seeking to be like Him. There is only one time when we should not be continually seeking after Christ, and that’s when we are with Him in His kingdom. During this time, we will be like Him, we would have found Him. We would have found Love, Peace, Kindness, Joy, Gentleness, all the fruits of the spirit because He is the Spirit. We will have no wants, because He is everything; and while He is our everything on earth as well, our sinful human bodies don’t allow us to be in complete Joy etc. We are separated from Him by sin, but when we go to be with Him, there will be no more sin.

I will strive daily to be more content on earth, which will allow me to grow closer to Him.

I.B.S. #18

Philippians 4:11
"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."
I pray that one day I could say that I have learned to be content in whatsoever state I am in. That’s probably challenging thing I have ever heard of. In whatsoever state we are in, we should be content. Personally, I know that I am always in want, like I said yesterday, not of material items, but in the little things. For example, let’s say it is a hot day in Florida; it’s 98° outside, with 80% humidity. Naturally, I am complaining about it being hot so I want to go to the beach. So, I call up some friends and we head over to the beach. We get there and it is packed, and the only parking space is a quarter mile down the road. Now I’m complaining and wanting someone to back out so I can take their spot. Finally I park, get to the water and it’s too cold. So now I complain and want for it to be warmer. Then I realize that the water is too salty when it gets in my mouth. Then I realize that I want to go to a pool and not the beach. Of course I could keep telling this story, but I think you get the jest of it. Contentment is hard to have in every state we are in. honestly the example I gave wasn’t even that hard of a state. I just couldn’t seem to be content with the weather, or with the temperature of the water, or with the kind of water. It makes me think of Goldilocks and the Three Bears story. I think that story truly encapsulates the human mind. It’s kind of sad to think that when she was hungry, and came upon food, she was still picky about the food. When she was tired, she was picky about the beds that were there, and it is so true with the rest of us. I can’t count the amount of times when at school I would say, "Thank God its lunch time cuz I’m starving, what are we having?" "liverwurst." "Why can’t we just have like a salad?" We need to be content in whatsoever state we are in. while I think that’s one of the biggest challenges I have ever heard of, nothing is impossible with Christ’s help, through His power we can accomplish this.

I will practice more content in my daily life by not complaining about the food or temperature.

I.B.S. #17

Hebrews 11:5
"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for He has said, I will never leave you or forsake you."
Being honest, I’m usually a pretty content guy when it comes to material items. The only reason why I think that I can say that is because God has blessed me with those things that I do have. I honestly can’t remember the last time I looked at a car or a phone or TV and thought man why do I have this sorry piece of junk phone/car/TV. Sure I admire other peoples stuff, saying oh that’s pretty cool and finding out more about it. But, I don’t think I’ve ever looked at something else and became upset and said why can’t I have something like that? I deserve a nicer car, or I deserve more than I have. Like I said earlier, I think that is because God has blessed me with so many things, including the parents to raise me to know that everything I have is a blessing from God, and that I do not "deserve" anything but death. Knowing my past, and my experiences, I shouldn’t even have been blessed with the things God has given me. Now obviously I wanted things growing up, and I definitely cried and complained about not having the Beyblades my friends had. But throughout the years, God has continued to work in my life to grow away from that. One thing I do struggle with, is being content with myself. There are talents and skills that I possess, yet, I constantly find myself looking at other people and wondering why can’t I do that? Or, why can’t I be like them? I know that I possess skills and talents that others do not, and I need to be content with what God has given me. I need to be content with what I have, and not talk about other people’s stuff in a covetous manner. What do I have? Jesus, as He did say, I will never leave you or forsake you meaning He will always be with us. God is enough, He is everything, so why would I even think of wanting someone’s objects.

I.B.S. #16

Luke 3:14
"And the soldiers likewise demanded of Him, saying, and what shall we do? And he said unto them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages."
John the Baptist tells the multitude that they may become children of Abraham by chopping down the trees that they have grown that do not produce good fruit. The multitude of people, tax collectors and soldiers all ask how they can produce good fruit. He tells them the way by giving to one another, if you have two coats, to give to someone who doesn’t have one, the same goes with food. When the soldiers ask him, he says to do no violence towards men and to not accuse falsely. While John gave a message to all, these men of authority have to apply that message to their lives a little differently. They knew how to become Abraham’s children because John just told them, but because they are men with power and authority over others, they need to be careful in how they correct those who may not always follow this rule. John tells them first not to do anything violent to them; I know that, for me at least, that my initial thought when someone is doing something wrong is to physically correct them. Of course I do not have the authority to do so, these soldiers on the other hand, do. He then tells them to not accuse others falsely, to be honest, and to get the facts straight before you are going to say anything to the person. Then to also be content with their wages; what they have earned. Those of us who, in the human eyes, would be considered to be in a higher position have to realize that when we have heard and know the truth, and have more power and authority over someone, have more of a responsibility to not just follow these rules, but to make sure that we are correcting others properly in doing so. Because we have to realize that we received that position by God, and we are to be content with what God has given us. That being said, if spiritually, we are all on the same level in God’s eyes, we need to be content with where we are at with Him and He will bless us and we will grow closer to Him as well.

I need to listen and accept correction from those above me with a happy and content heart, knowing that God has blessed me with that leader or leaders to help guide me in my walk with the Lord.

I.B.S. #15

1 Timothy 6:6-8
"But Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content."

There are honestly only a few people who I now who think like this. Meaning for the most part, everyone I know, while they know they can’t take anything to heaven, still want nice things here on this earth. I am someone who likes to have worldly items, what I have to work on, is being content with the things God has blessed me with. I believe most people, including myself, would say, "Oh, well God if you bless me with this, can you give me this too right?" that’s obviously not the right mind set that we need to have. God will bless us when we bless Him. He is the creator of all, and the giver of all. He brought everything into this world, and will take everything out of it, but still, He will bless those who He wants because He knows best. If we are Godly and content we will gain much. This reminds of the "Last will be first" rule, just as we would think, "oh the last can’t be first, that doesn’t make any sense," we would also think, "so those who are content with what they have will receive?" These don’t make sense in man’s eyes, but God, the only One whose thoughts count, looks at the heart of the man who is content, and the heart of those who are serving. I liked the way that this sectioned ended with, "having food and clothing, let us be content." Food and clothing are the bare necessities of life. If we have those things, we need to stop complaining and be content with those things, because the truth of the matter is that there are some people who don’t even have those things.

I will add thanking God for all the blessings that He has given me so graciously to my morning prayer.

 

I.B.S. #14

Hebrews 6:12

-          “That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

The first thing that sticks out to me in this verse is that there is a distinction between being slothful and being patient. it’s kind of funny cuz when I read this, the first thing I thought of was all the times when my parents told me to be patient and wait and so I slumped myself of the couch or lied down on my bed. For me at least, I would group being patient and doing nothing as the same thing in some senses. But here we read to not be slothful, but to follow those who through faith and patience inherited the promises. This is what you’re doing, this is what I want you to do. Instead of sitting around doing nothing during our times of waiting, we are to be walking with faith and patience, then we will inherit the promises that He has made. So let’s say for example that I found an interest in a discipleship school in Guatemala. So let’s say I pray about it, to see if that’s something that God wants me to do with my life, and He tells me yes. So, let’s just say I apply and get accepted, but there is a financial expense to it that I do not have, but God said that He wanted me to go so I can just sit on my couch and sloth it up and I will inherit to finances to go right? While I don’t think that is an impossible thing, because with God all things are possible, I shouldn’t be slothful in this time. I should continue to wait for the finances in faith but also put effort into raising those finances while having a patient heart.

Right now there is something that has been on my heart from back home that I desperately need patients for and so I will write “The Lord Has Her” on my hand.

I.B.S. #12

Colossians 1:11

-          “Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”

We are to endure all patience with longsuffering and joyfulness. I think everyone knows that one person who is so happy all the time that you can’t stand them any longer. In high school, I was that guy. One example of this was during my senior ski trip to NC, we got into bumper to bumper traffic and so I naturally turned up the volume on our music, hopped out of the car, and began to dance in between the cars. Later that night I was approached by one of the leaders, he apologized to me. He told me that while he was sitting in the car, and I was making a fool of myself, he was annoyed, but then realized that what I was doing brought joy not only to myself, but the people in our car, and the people in the cars around us. While a lot of people look at bumper to bumper traffic and think, wow this sucks I’m going to be here all day, you made that longsuffering experience a lot more fun. After high school, I started to help out with the youth group at my church. One of the things we do every year is attend Rock the Universe, a Christian concert at Universal Studios. My youth leader asked me to lead a group of kids and so I did. Now, if anyone has experience with middle school boys, I think you will understand that they can get pretty crazy especially when their parents aren’t around. So having a group of 8 middle school boys in an hour and a half line to go on the Mummy was a trip. As, I leaned on that wall and figured I’d give up on telling them to calm down because they won’t listen, I decided to join them in their sing a longs which switched to worship songs, and eventually we had a couple other groups join in with us. Obviously there are times when we need to be serious, but I believe that in times of waiting, especially physically waiting on something, and we are strengthened with all of Christ’s might, our joyful fruit should be produced.

I will pray in the mornings to not grumble and complain when I am to be patient, but instead have a joyful heart.

Eleventh I.B.S.

Luke 21:19

-          “In your patience possess ye your souls.”

I’m not sure if I completely understand this verse, but I guess if I were to write something from what I understand it to mean, then I guess I would have to simply say that this verse says we need to have patience in everything. Not just a physical patience as we are waiting to do something or waiting to go somewhere, but a spiritual patience as well. I would say that our patience needs to possess our souls as well as it does our bodies. While we may be asking God to do something for us that is physical, such as a healing of pain or sickness or bringing opportunities our way, we have to be patient about those things in a physical sense and in a spiritual sense. If we are praying to God for something like guidance for our self or for a friend or family member to grow closer to Him, we need to have a patient soul, we need to be patient in knowing that it not our time but it’s God’s time and that He will do things in His time. While our souls should be restless in wanting more and more of Him, they need to also be patient in knowing that He controls all.

I know that I am a very impatient person, physically and spiritually. I pray for God to do something and expect it to happen the next day, or at least in that same week. During my morning prayers, I will ask for God to help me become more patient both physically and spiritually

Tenth I.B.S.

Luke 8:11-15

“Now the parable is this: the seed is the word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among the thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.”

For whatever reason, when I read this passage, I thought of new believers, the ones who have just received God’s seed. God sows seed which is His word to those who have not heard it yet. He gives it out to all people but only the people who hear with an honest heart will keep it and bring forth good fruit. However it seems to me that the people of the way side, rock, and the ones surrounded by thorns are illustrations of the state of their heart. The ones by the way side hear but then the devil comes in and takes it away from their hearts before they completely believe it. The people of the way side make me think of those who I know who hear the gospel and believe some of it but not all, they have unsure hearts. They seem not grasp some concepts of Christ and so the devil uses that to his advantage. The people on the rock make me think of the people who are invited to a youth camp or retreat, who hear the word, are “on fire” for Christ but because they don’t have a rooted relationship, they fall at temptation. Their hearts are not wanting to grow closer. Those among the thorns are those who may have a solid amount of faith, but when they are faced with decisions what they want for themselves becomes priority over their faith. Their hearts are not completely given to Christ. In my life, I know that I have been in all of these states of heart, but I think that He uses being choked by thorns, and temptation to bring us to the good ground where we will bring forth good fruit. He makes all things work together for my good and for His perfect plan.

This week I will write “Good ground” on my arm to remind myself to continue to grow fruit on the good ground that I have found through Christ.

 

Ninth I.B.S.

James 1:5-

“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraided not; and it shall be given him.”

In my previous applications I had added asking the Lord to grant wisdom unto me during my morning prayer. I added that because I realized that I needed Him to grant wisdom unto me. Our God gives liberally to all men, meaning, our God who knows all, will give to those who He knows need His wisdom, and who truly seek His wisdom. Just because someone says, oh lord please give me wisdom so I can be smarter than everyone else, doesn’t mean He’s going to grant it to them, just like the people who say, oh lord I give me a 2014 Lamborghini Gallardo because I need to show people that you have blessed me. These people don’t have the right heart for these things. They are just asking God for stuff that they want for personal gain. As a Christian, we should be wanting and striving to grow closer to God, having wisdom is something that God will grant us if we truly have hearts that seek Him and that want Him more than anything. If someone is solidly rooted and built on the foundation of Christ and they receive wisdom from God, they are going to use that wisdom to continue to grow closer to God and in some ways, use that to draw other people closer to God as well. God knows who will be able to handle/properly use the wisdom He grants them. This makes me think of the times when I would ask, oh why did he get that? Or, oh I would be a lot better at that than that person if I had that, but at the same time maybe I didn’t get that thing or that position at work for a reason. Perhaps I believe I was ready to accept something as such but God knew differently.

This week I am going to try harder to submit to those who may not be labeled in authority over me, because God has chosen them to lead me.

Eigth I.B.S.

Colossians 3:16

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

When the word of God dwells in us richly in all wisdom, we will teach each other in spiritual songs and we will sing with grace in our hearts to God. The most major part of my testimony is the influence that music has made on my life. While it may sound like some kind of excuse, I would say that you can blame everything that went wrong in my life to a handful of artists. I never would have never expected that throwing out and, in some cases, destroying my old music would have changed me as much as it did. Let me just say that I have an extreme need for music in my life. I woke up to music, I showered to music, I ate to music, I drove to school to music, sat in class listening to music, dove home to music, and went to bed listening to music. As Bill and I were talking yesterday, he brought it to my attention that whatever we go to when we were either angry or happy, was our idol. When I had a problem, I would listen to music and when I was happy I would listen to music.  Music had become an idol to me, honestly I had never seen it that way until writing this. One day when I realized my life was going in the opposite direction that I wanted it to go, I knew the reason for all of this was what I was rooting my heart in. It was ridiculous how fast a change of music changed my life, honestly because it was an internal change. I began to think differently, the songs that were stuck in my head were pleasing to God, and memorizing lyrics from these new artists lead to me to memorizing scripture. My minds perversion was changed radically in a matter of weeks, and truthfully I don’t have a real attraction to those artists music anymore. It’s the opposite of garbage in garbage out, God’s word in, God’s word out. So, while I know there are a lot of different thoughts on this and I don’t know about anyone’s walk with the Lord, I want to suggest to everyone that they check that which they are putting in, because for my life, I told people for years that “well music doesn’t really affect me,” it did affect me and it does to everyone, don’t give me that. This verse says to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. When it is in us, we will sing spiritual songs with grace in our hearts to Him.

I would like for anyone, when or if they hear me singing or humming a song that is downright sinful to call me out on it.

Seventh I.B.S.

Psalm 111:10-

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments: praise endureth forever.”

Seeing that the fear of the Lord is just the beginning of wisdom, I see why I wasn’t very wise. The word fear here doesn’t mean to be afraid of God, this isn’t saying that if you are scared of God you will gain wisdom. This word refers to a fear of respect or reverence towards God, if you have reverence towards God then you will begin to gain wisdom. Growing up, I have always seemed to have a problem with authority. In elementary school, I was constantly getting into trouble, in middle school, I was best found in the Principals office and in Freshmen I sought to fit in at school leading me into trouble as well. But then something happened in those last three years of high school. I looked back at those years that I used for my personal enjoyment and all the people I hurt trying to do so, and realized that it was all for nothing other than the fact that I didn’t want to listen to my parents, or teachers. I recognized at this point that the reason why I was so stupid and lost was because I had no respect, reverence, or fear for these people who God put in authority over me. Truthfully I wasn’t fighting against my parents or my teachers, I was fighting God. I was telling Him by my actions that He had no authority over me and that I could do what I want when I want. Those last few years of high school, there was an obvious change, began to obey my parents, my teachers, and as best as I could, God. The more I started to do that, the more my life seemed to fall back into place. While I still had a mess to clean up, I feel like God was right there with me helping me the whole way through, honestly I think He was there the whole time, I was just to Ignorant to listen to Him.

I will add to my prayers each morning that I will submit to the authority over me because I know that those people are part of Gods plan to keep me in His arms.

Sixth I.B.S.

Psalm 90:12

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

This Psalm makes me think of all the times that I’ve heard people say YOLO. While this term was made secularly, it can be taken and used in the Christian lifestyle. While the world will say that life is short so do whatever you want, this life is for your enjoyment and you can just accept Christ on your deathbed. The Christian can say life on earth is short, you don’t know when you’re going to die, or when Jesus is going to come back, so prepare yourself and do His will until that day comes. Live for Him every day because our days on earth are numbered. If we are taught to number our days, then we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. If we knew how many days we have to live on this earth, we would live them differently. I’m think that if God put a stamp on every babies foot when they were born to show the doctors and the parents how many days that child would live that 1, there would be no doubt In anyone’s heart that there is a God, and for the most part, 2, that those families and those kids would be living their lives to please God till the end of their life span. They would live their lives applying wisdom unto their hearts. They would treat others differently, they would understand life is not worth living for the world, they would have wisdom that can only come from above. While people feel like Christians use the “you don’t know when you’re going to die” or “God is coming soon” lines almost as a scare tactic, but truthfully one of the reasons why Christians need to be living for Him in wisdom now is because there is no later. We can only live for now and now is when we need to prepare for Him when He comes at that now.

I need to be living with heavenly wisdom in my heart all the time. I will add to my everyday prayer that God will not only fill me with His Holy Spirit, but with His wisdom as well.

Fifth I.B.S.

James 3:13-17

“Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envying and a strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For the where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”

When in a conversation, a wise man will be known by the humbleness of his wisdom. This the kind of wisdom that is from heaven. From personal experience, not to call any of my friends out, but I know a good handful of people who are super smart with facts and statistics and scholastics. I know this because every time I have a conversation with them, they make me feel like the dumbest person in the room. While that might be true, it still stands that these earthly wise people seem to have this pride issue in that they think because they have earthly wisdom they need to brag about all they know to make themselves feel better than others. While I believe it is good to have earthly wisdom, you have to use and control it properly. If you look at the people who I know with earthly wisdom and those who I know with Biblical wisdom, there is honestly a huge humility difference in those with Biblical wisdom.  Honestly I believe it’s because that if you truly have Biblical wisdom, it’s because you read the Bible and if you read the Bible then you not supposed to be bragging about your knowledge and wisdom. These verses say that the wisdom from above is pure then peaceful, gentle, submissive, merciful, full of good fruit, and without partiality or hypocrisy. This might be just me, but I love it when the Bible gives us signs when we are doing something right, as in if we have heavenly wisdom, then people should be seeing these things mentioned through it. What stood out to me in this listing of characteristics is that heavenly wisdom should be willing to yield or submissive. It seems like a lot of the times in the Bible we see this common theme of the highest in position taking on the lowest of positions, just how Jesus was Christ the Lord and also a servant to those who persecuted Him. Those who are true leaders, should be also the ones who are willing to submit to other leaders. Clearly this is not the case with the people I know who have all this earthly wisdom. Honestly I don’t have a lot of earthly wisdom to brag about but the little I do know about I find myself using to exalt myself over the few who might not know as much. As a Christian we called to be better than that, for that type of knowledge is “Devilish.”

I will try to be the best light that I can be by keeping in good conversation, and being gentle and peaceable with those who I converse with. I will add to my prayer in the mornings that I the Lord would bless my conversations throughout the day, and that he would keep me from speaking these “devilish” things.

Fourth I.B.S.

Matthew 6:30-34 –“wherefore, if God so clothe the grass, of the field, which today is, and morrow is cast into the over, shall he not much more clothe you? Oh you of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? For all these things do the gentiles seek: for your heavenly father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

When I read over this verse, for whatever reason, there is only one phrase that sticks out like a sore thumb to me, “for your heavenly father knows that you have need of all these things.” this phrase makes me remember all the times that, when I was told to do something by some authority figure, asked a whole bunch of questions. “What about..?” or “but when will…?” it’s the same principle here. When God calls us to go or to do, we shouldn’t be asking what we will eat or what will we drink? Actually, come to think of it, this verse applies to all of us a little bit. Reason why, we are all about to be sent out into the world to where God wants us to go, and if you’re like me, you would’ve said that you had a preference of where you would want to go but you know that whatever Gods plan is will be best for you. After reading this verse over and over, I realized that God is speaking to me directly. Because the only reason why I have a preferred location is because I want to stay in my comfort zone or I want to make sure that my six months is just right for my personal needs. I know that wherever I am going to be sent, Gods hand will be over me. He will protect me, feed me, quench my thirst, and give me clothes to wear. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” If I would just die to self and seek Him, all of my necessities will be met by Him. I don’t need any more than God, and God knows just what I need.

During my morning prayer, along with praying that I will die to self, I will thank God for all of the blessings that He has given because He has given me more than the basic necessities. Also I will pray that He does not send me out onto the field to where I want to go but where He wants me to go.

Third I.B.S.

Acts 8:15-16- “Who when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them, they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Here, we see the spiritual baptism of the people of Samaria. Growing up in the church, I always knew that there was a difference in being baptized in the Spirit and being baptized in Jesus Christ. While this does sound weird, considering the fact that the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are the same person, I also believed that just because someone believes in God doesn’t mean they believe in Christ. Being baptized in Jesus Christ is different from being baptized in the Spirit. I believe you are baptized in Christ once to recognize the passing away of the old man into the new clean man, while you can ask daily to receive power of the Holy Spirit. We need to have the Holy Spirit come upon us and to be with us daily for the reason that, truthfully, we can’t make it through a day without the Spirit of God with us and filling us to the point where all that is seen from us is the love of Christ. We as Christians are just vessels that Christ uses to show His love to others and we only know this through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I need to remember that I need to die to myself every day. I need to be praying every morning for the Holy Spirit to give me a fresh outpouring for the day. I also need to remind myself that I am just a vessel that needs to be used by God and that I need to die to myself and just focus on what He needs from me

Second I.B.S.

Galatians 5:22-23- “But the fruit of the spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temperance: against such there is no law.”

“The FRUIT of the spirit” are these things. Attending a private Christian school for 9 years certainly had its ups and downs. Of course, looking back everything that I learned at that school, I see now, that God used that school to prepare me for the rest of my life spiritually. One of the things they repeated over and over was the saying, “root to fruit.” This is the basic idea of whatever you plant your roots in, will determine what the product looks like. So if you plant an apple tree in soil and give it the proper nutrients it needs to grow every day, you’ll get some beautiful apples. However, if you plant an apple tree in soil and don’t give it what it needs, you’ll still get apples, but those apples won’t be any good, you wouldn’t want to share them with anyone, and if you did, they wouldn’t want them or like them. Now let’s look at this root to fruit thing from a biblical stand point. If you plant your roots in the Word of God but you’re not feeding those roots every day, you might still produce fruit but nobody is going to see a beautiful fruit, they won’t look at you and say wow, I wonder what’s different about that guy, because your product will be just as rotten as the worlds. However when we do continue to feed our roots in the word, we see here in these verses that people will see Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Temperance through us. I think one thing we need to ask ourselves is, what are we rooted in and what are we feeding ourselves? While I do know I am rooted in His word, I wonder at why I feed myself with some of the sinful things that I feed myself with. While I was blessed by God for raising me in a Christian home, I know at one point in my life, I chopped down the roots of the tree that my parents helped me plant and said, “Nope, I’m growing something different!” Other people didn’t grow up in Christian homes, I was blessed by that, yet I still wanted to go my way. It’s funny because the more that you feed a tree, the stronger the roots get and the harder it is to cut down that tree. It took a while for me to cut down my tree, I hope it’ll be even harder for the evil one to cut down the tree that I am building up right now. But the thing about trees is, even when your chop one down, you have to make sure you dig up the roots or else it can grow back.

I hope to continue to strengthen the roots that I am growing right now and to keep the old ones away. From now on, I will write now in my devotional and commit to being an example of at least one fruit per day.

First I.B.S.

I.B.S. - Hebrews 11:6

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”- Hebrews 11:6

Through past events, I’ve seen that God is the honestly the only God worth serving. For the reasons that 1.) He created all things, 2.) Loves us until the end of eternity, and 3.) Is the Alpha and Omega. (beginning and end) To me these three points means that He started all, takes care of all, and will end all. God is so great that He is outside of time. While we as humans look at our lives and remember little bits about our childhoods and then can only imagine what our futures will look like, God stands aside and watches our lives from beginning to end all in one place. Now, I believe that people, myself included, would read this verse and say, “without faith it is impossible to please God… yeah okay cool I have to have faith to please God.” It seems like such an easy thing to grasp. But it is more than what we think it is. “Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please Him…” do we know how hard it is to do something impossible? Have you ever done something impossible? This verse is saying that it is impossible to please God unless we have faith in him. I said those things about God earlier because I think that if we know even just those three things about God, we should want Him to find pleasure in us. I’m not sure about other people, but I want the creator of all, the lover of all, and the finisher of everything to be pleased with me. Even better so, if we seek Him diligently, if we sit down and sacrifice time and wait on Him and really seek him, we will be rewarded.

To grow in your faith with God, we must diligently seek him. So that is a challenge I want to give myself. When I wake up in the mornings, I am going to give my time before breakfast to the Lord, diligently waiting and seeking Him.