Have a humble spirit. As a man, my ego can be hard to control sometimes. It’s probably one of the hardest areas in my life. Growing up playing sports all my life, my competitive, prideful spirit has always been there. I loooove sports; basketball, football, baseball, tennis, volleyball, softball, paintball, snowboarding, racing go carts, golf, swimming, all the way down to ping pong. Ha. Whenever I got together with some of my guy friends, sports was the one thing we always did. Everything is a competition to guys. You know why this is? It’s because every guy on this planet has an ego. Yes, some may be bigger than others but everybody has an ego. When we see another guy who is better then us we think, “I want to be better then him.” When we find out what we received on a test, we immediately ask everyone else what they got. When we take a road trip we gloat on how it only took us 18 hours compared to your 20. haha Our minds can be revolved around competition.
The thing is though; God doesn’t use prideful, egotistical man and women. God uses the humble in spirit. In my devotionals today, I read in Psalms 34 when God tells us in verse 18, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. God uses those who are completely committed to him. He uses those who put their complete trust and obedience in Him. I mean look at David. He was a small, scrawny kid who was completely committed to God. He knew he was nothing without his Lord. Look at Daniel. What a young man with Integrity. He was completely focused on doing the right thing in the eyes of the God. There are so many examples in God’s Word of Him using the humble, willing, and even young. Always remember that if you humbly seek God face, he will stretch out his arms!! No matter how old you are. God Bless!

Live a Life of Purity! Growing up, I have found that my thought life is one of the utmost achievements or most terrible downfalls in my walk with Christ. When I was right in my thought life, and even physical life; I established that I was closest to my Heavenly Daddy. But when I was falling into the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh; my relationship with Christ was on the crumple. It is totally true that when someone is trapped in sexual sin; their intimate relationship with Christ falls away. This is because God does not tolerate it. When you let this sin rule your life, you are hurting the name of our Savior. It is putting yourself or someone on this earth before our God. “It is putting the created before our creator,” (Bill Shannon) which goes against the second commandment alone. The Bible tells us that this private sin will find you out. Many people caught up in it feel nobody will ever find out. Nobody will ever be able to tell what I’m doing. But they forget that when our relationship with Christ is becoming less and less apparent, people will notice it. Our Christian brothers and sisters will see us struggling; eventually causing our secret sin to become public. God calls us to purity.
Secondly, falling into sexual sin is sinning against our own bodies. “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18) God commands sexual purity right in His word. This is the one sin that shows love of our selves over our love for our Savior. When we sin against God in this way, we forget about our thankfulness for our salvation, and we forget about the graciousness of the Lord. You see, when we accepted Christ as Savior, we allow the Holy Spirit to enter into our life. God lives in everyone who puts their trust in Him. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you received from God? You are not your own; you are bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19,20) So when we sin against our own body, we are hurting God who is living in us. We hurt the one who loves us more then we can even comprehend. You hurt the one who died for us. God doesn’t want this and will fall away the longer we engage in it. God calls us to purity.
Thirdly, our sexual outlook now, will determine our future intimate life in the degree of marriage. When someone puts asides God’s commands and engages in a sexual thought life or sex outside of marriage, he is hurting his potential with his future spouse. This is because when you have multiple partners early in life, once you get to marriage, you will have a problem not comparing your wife to your mistakes prior in life. This I believe is one of the biggest problems of the 50% divorce rate in our churches today. I may not be married yet, but I do know that a couple’s intimate life in marriage is a crucial component. So I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be as a man to have to compare your pure, amazing, Christian wife to a immoral act you were part of in the past. This is a great example on why God commands us to wait until marriage. God created intimacy for us. But he commands us to keep it in the confines of marriage. I can’t wait for the day when I get to say to my wife, “I waited for you.” God calls us to purity!

Smile in the Face of Adversity! The last couple of Days have been kinda a struggle for me. I think that school pressures and being so far from home is kinda taking its toll on me maybe. But I know this is the place where the Lord wants me and that he is always with me.
The other day in my Devos, I was reading about Joseph and how he completely trusted God and smiled in the face of adversity. I mean think about it. He was beat up and thrown into a pit by his brothers who later sold him into slavery. Then after hard work and a godly spirit he was appointed the personal attendant to Potiphar, the captain of the Egyptian army. I mean what an honor! It shows that with God anything is possible. But the story gets worse before it gets better. One day, when Potiphar was out and all his servants were gone out of the house. Potiphar’s wife came to Joseph and asked him to come to bed with her. Now through class and study I have found out that Joseph must have been a good-looking guy. So this worldly woman didn’t have second thoughts about committing adultery with such a handsome, respectable, and nice young man. But God was with Joseph. Joseph was committed to doing right in the eyes of the Lord! I mean, he could have easily got away with it. Nobody was around. Nobody would ever have known. But that is where you are wrong. God was there! And Joseph knew this. So when she asked, Joseph ran! He didn’t say, “no I can’t do that to my master.” He didn’t say, “ maybe later.” He didn’t even just walk away. He ran from sin! He ran from sin, and ran to God. Now this is where the story gets interesting.
Growing up or early in our Christian walk, many Christians believe that if they get saved, if they have the presence of God in there life; all the problems and hurt in this world will go away. But we see right in the Bible, right in the word of our Lord; that with God it might even create problems in our Life. Think about it. Didn’t Jesus say in the New Testament, that if you put your trust in Him, we will be mocked and hurt for it? We will be persecuted for our faith. “All men will hate you because of me.” (Luke 21:17) What I have learned is that people will not like the fact that we believe in God. They won’t like it that we have a happy, caring spirit all the time. I mean it’s not normal in this world. It’s only with the manifest presence of God that we get to have this character. It’s only with our Daddy’s presence that we can smile in the face of adversity. Because we know that with ever trail and testing God puts in our life something good will come out of it. Our God loves us so much that He disciplines and tests us to make us grow closer to being like our savior Jesus Christ. Proverbs 3:11-12 says, “My, son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son delights in. With adversity comes wisdom, and a better understanding of our Lord. Like I said in my last blog, “Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. (Proverbs 3:13, 14) So God does not take all the problems out of our lives when we turn to him. That would take away the whole point of faith. The Lord tests us to make us grow closer to him. What I have found though is when the trials of life come, this is where people either turn their back on God, or mature in their relationship with the Father.
After Joseph ran from the sin of adultery, he was put into prison by Potiphar for attempted rape. This is where the story started to really amaze me as a young Christian growing up. I mean how could anybody who has been put into this situation keep his relationship with God so strong? How could he not become rebellious and resentful? I can sum the answer to that up with four words: God was with him. Joseph never turned his back and God. So God never turned His back on Joseph. His desire to please the Lord was so strong that any persecution brought on him for his God’s sake didn’t matter to him. I mean of course he didn’t like going to prison, but if he was in prison, that is where the Lord wanted him to be.
Everything that happens in life is part of the Lord’s plan. I love the quote by Dave Early in my devo book that says, “Faith is like radar, which sees through the fog – the reality of things at a distance that the human eye cannot see. As Christian’s we need to remember this. God isn’t bringing persecution and adversities into our life to “get back at us.” He is doing out of love and the desire to see us grow and to fulfill the future plans He has for us. He wants an intimate relationship. He desires those face to face talks. Everything in life happens for a reason.
We see as we finish up the story of Joseph that the plans of God in his life were so great! Joseph kept trusting the Lord and living with God’s presence. He did not faulter. After being appointed from prisoner, to running the prison, God brought the biggest plan for Joseph’s life. He was appointed the Prime minister of Egypt. You thought being Potiphar’s attendant was an honor? He would later on save all of Egypt from starvation. What an amazing life lived for our Lord! Joseph could have given up and got bitter at God during any of these life changing trials. But he stayed strong in the Faith. He trusted Lord to get him through. He became everything the Lord wanted him to be.
After reading a story like that, it makes you think about the trials your going through right now and how minuscule they really are. But at the same time these miniscule trials are helping you grow closer to having the manifest presence of God in your life. Let’s put this idea to what I’m going through right now for example. I may be having a rough time here the past couple of days, but I know the Lord is trying to really teach me something. Over the last couple of weeks I finally broke out of the stale mode I was in with my relationship with my Savior. I am finally growing again! But with this I know will come some trials and testing from my Daddy. He wants me to grow. He wants to teach me and bring me closer to him. He is teaching me patience and trust. Patience until I can go home again, and for me to trust Him with school. The Lord is making me live my life verses out! Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto your own understandings; in all thy way acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:5, 6) God Bless!

~Zack

Living in His presence. Lately I have been praying immensely hard for God to bring his presence on me. Through my devotionals, I have learned a lot about my Heavenly Daddy’s presence. There are three different presences of God. The first of course is his omnipresence. Which means God is everywhere and everywhere is God. He can be everywhere at one time. This is more a distant thinking of our God I believe though. It doesn’t show a relationship with our Lord and Savior. The second is the abiding presence of God. This is the belief that God is with us everywhere we go; in the car, in our home, at work, everywhere. But the third is the kind of presence I’m praying everyday for. It is the manifest presence of God. It is the only one that comes with a growing relationship with the Lord. This is faithfully seeing, “God’s creative, excellent, living, loving, joyful, encouraging, faithful, true, good, and holy presence flowing around and within us.” (Dave Earley) We may not have the ability to visibly see our God. That we will have to wait until Heaven for. But right now we can have Heaven on Earth. We can live everyday close to our God, Lord, Savior, Daddy, and friend. He loves us more than we can ever comprehend. He wants to have a close relationship with us. Every time we talk to him, study him, and think of Him, He smiles. I have learned to love my time with the Lord everyday. I look forward to it. This is something I haven’t had in a while. Everyday I go to the same place to talk to and learn about my Friend and Daddy. It’s my prayer closet. I turned my closet in my dorm room into my place with the Lord. In this place, I can feel and hear His presence. I love it there. I go there in the quiet part of the day; when everybody else is in class. There I can hear the quiet whisper of God speak to me. I speak my mind, and talk to him like my best friend. I have a face to face talk with my God. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world. My love for my Savior is growing more and more everyday. Along with my wisdom. Like it says in Proverbs 3:15, “Wisdom is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare to her.” We have the amazing chance to learn about and speak to the creator of us and everything around us. God’s word is sharper than any sword. With God we can withstand any temptation. The Lord is with us through any trial. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But with the Lord we don’t have to fear anything!!