doing it right

When you’re young the word sex and everything about it is funny for some reason. Past the point of puberty, things change pretty quickly. Almost the opposite happens. Cooties and the war against the other gender is what becomes funny. It’s that youthful peer pressure that forces our young souls to become accepting of the other sex, and kissing and all that good stuff isn’t icky anymore. It’s welcomed… because that’s what everyone else is doing.

I never understood how sex and baseball became so alike, but it seemed very sportlike to get to the next base. That’s just what you do, and there’s no questioning it. But that’s only true for the world. When you grow up Christian, it’s a lot different. You’re parents know you’re growing and these things are to come. They want to do their best to keep you clear of the pressures of such things, but don’t want you to rebel and do it anyway at the same time. Same with drugs and all of these other teenage epidemics.

I’m sure it serves the same in a lot of Christian households, but in mine, the law was that sex was to be saved for marriage. Back then, I really couldn’t see why, but the fact that it didn’t seem the same for the world kept me puzzled.

Today looking back on it, I can see for reasons other than religion, it was really a good idea. The negatives of sex are either disease or unwanted pregnancy, or both! In my opinion, sex should serve two purposes: Procreation and Intimacy. The world makes it out to be something recreational or just something to do for fun, or to feel wanted or loved. Procreation and Intimacy should be practiced between lovers. That just how I see it. And who else better to love, than your spouse – whomever you’re married to. That way you’ve had time to be married and prepare yourself for a family. Sex after marriage greatly reduces the risk of disease as well. Promiscuity, or having sex with multiple people is a lot less welcome when you’re married, at least for the faithful. But besides all that, it’s just better to wait.

Now speaking from experience as a teen and a young man in the same, sex is a very powerful tool the devil loves to use. Sexual sin ranges from lust, to masturbation, all the way to fornication. I’m sure a lot of you know what these things are, but to bring us back to elementary: Lust is sexual thoughts; Masturbation is practicing sexual acts alone, and Fornication is having sexual intercourse before marriage (or at least along those lines). Without getting into too much detail, my experiences as a growing boy were haunted by sexual sin on a daily basis making it a struggle for me to live righteously.

At times, I felt the only thing Satan had on me was sexual sin when I was doing everything else right and I began thinking being a Christian was too hard. It was frustrating, depressing, and just a negative experience. I felt weak and very alone at times. Turning to my youth leaders was one of the greatest decisions in the struggle. They let me know that I wasn’t alone at all in my struggle and many people go through the same. Knowing that alone didn’t help me through the struggle though. It just made it somewhat acceptable.

To this day I still struggle with keeping my mind free from sin. I speak for many young men when I say it’s hard. (Ladies, I honestly don’t know how it is with you, but I can only talk what I know… sorry!) The devil is a coward and attacks when you’re most vulnerable, or at your weakest, and uses my weakness against me more than anything.

He under-estimates my strength and desire to please God time and time again however. Things I like to do to keep myself right are:

- Seeking help from God through prayer.

When I know in my heart and soul I’m out to do the right thing and please God, I know and feel God understands my struggle and is more than willing to help me. I pray for strength and guidance from God to aid me in doing the right thing and staying on the right path. I of course seek forgiveness as well. If your hearts in the right place you have to believe he’ll forgive you as long as you’re willing to change.

- Seeking guidance in the Word.

I’ve found relief in the word many times in my bible. When it may seem like you’re not finding what your searching for, that just means you’ve gotta be sure to stay in the word. I never said I found it right away, but I thank God I stayed in the word long enough to be able to benefit from it through my struggle. With that said, a verse that often helps me is 1 Thessalonians 4:3. “It’s God’s will that you keep away from sexual sin as a mark of your devotion to him.” It helps me put God and I in a relationship where falling under the influence of sexual sin is like cheating on him and drives me toward being faithful that much more. I also like to prove my devotion to God through doing so. Other scriptures that help me are in 1 Corinthians. 6:13 says, “The body is not for sexual sin but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.” 6:18 speaks on how sexual sin is different from all other sin, and how you sin against your body (God’s Temple) when you fall under sexual sin. I look at that like vandalizing or destroying something precious to God.

- Seeking help from someone you trust.

I’ve turned to many people, on numerous occasions in my youth, like male ministers and even my dad. It may seem very embarrassing talking to someone about things like that but that’s why I said turn to someone you know you can trust. I thought I’d be punished for telling my dad, or looked at differently by my youth leaders, but thankfully that was never the case. Every time they shared their own struggles, or expressed to me that I wasn’t the only one going through it. It’s a very relieving process though. Just be sure your help is from someone who could understand, meaning someone the same sex as you. I think my mom would refer me to me dad if I told her, and it would make for an awkward situation for me to talk to a female minister about such a thing.

But that’s about it for this devotional. Thank you for taking all this time out to listen! I pray this be blessing to your life, should you need it.

sex lies

They talk about it on TV, in commercials, in movies, on songs, and you talk about it at school. So why not talk about it on the Cross Over devotionals and find out the truth about sex. Sex is something I grew up thinking was just something we were supposed to do whenever you had a chance. I mean everyone else at school was doing it (so they said) and so that was the thing to do. My closest friends were doing it so it's just a part of what you do. That's what I thought. The music I listened to talked about it, they did it in the movies I watched so it was alright to do it with any girl I thought was cute that gave me the chance. And plus no one ever told me there was anything wrong with it. As long as you had protection it was all good. So before I got to high school I had sex. Then in tenth grade I got drunk and had sex with a girl that I probably would not have slept with had I not had soo many drinks. Do you know what happened? I caught something and it was pretty painful. I could tell you some stories but just to keep things short I want to make a few points. Sex is good, and it's clean, and it's right, and it's perfect. Trust me I am married and I can say that sex is awesome! It's only good, clean, right, and perfect at the right time. Sex was created by God to be performed inside of a marriage covenant. Do you know when the right time to have sex is? That's right. When you get married. I know that society will tell you otherwise. The world will tell you it's okay to do anything as long as it feels good. Just because it feels good does not mean that you should do it whenever you feel like doing it. I feel like punching my boss sometimes and I know it would feel good if I did, but does that mean I should do it? No, of course not. I would get fired and probably thrown in jail. Who knows? I would have hit him and it would have felt good but what are the consequences. I have no job, therefore no money, and now I am spending time in jail. For what? Because I wanted to do something that felt good. Would it be worth it? I don't think so. It's the same with sex. Just because you think it would feel good to do it does not mean you should do it illegally. Do you know what I mean by illegally? It's legal all day long when you are married but it's illegal outside of marriage. Maybe you don't feel loved and you think sex will fix your problem. It will only make matters worse. Maybe you want to fit in and you want your friends to think highly of you because you had sex. Would it be worth it for you to catch an STD just to impress people? Trust me it's not. As I mentioned earlier I got burned once and it was not worth it. I want to end you with this. Sex is right but only at the right time. Ladies, if he is not willing to wait until marriage then he doesn't love you. Fellas, I know how you feel. But trust me if you wait, it will be worth it. It's like playing sports. A running back in football can't just run wherever he wants whenever he wants to. The best running backs are the patient ones because they know how to wait for their blocks. The best hitters in baseball don't just swing at everything because they would strike out all the time. They wait for a good pitch they can hit. A good shooter in basketball doesn't shoot the ball every time he gets the ball. He creates opportunities and when he is open he shoots the ball. Your opportunity is when you get married. Wait. I'm telling you it's worth it. God said, "A man should leave mother and father and cleave unto his WIFE..." Notice he said WIFE. That means they are married. God said sex was okay as long as you are married. If God said it's okay then it's okay but it has to be the right time.

Mick

Seeing is believing… NOT!

The world uses the term faith loosely and throws it around like any other word and as vain as the phrases, “Oh my god!” or “Jesus!” I personally can’t go without thinking of God when exercising faith or think about faith. Faith is another one of those powerful words with multiple meanings.

As Arlene explained in her devotional, there is “Faith” – the noun – and “faith” – the verb.

Faith when expressed as a noun has religious ties, like the “Christian Faith” for example. It still means belief, but it’s a religious belief. Like a belief in Buddha, or Allah... or like a belief in Christ.

Faith as a verb is “to believe”. It’s the discipline and strength to believe in the impossible. To know the desires of your heart will happen, when and how you want or expect them to. Faith is also a belief in things you cannot see.(Hebrews 11:1) That’s why when the world says “Seeing is believing”, I disagree. Faith is believing! You don’t need to see everything to believe. I’ve used air as an example before. I can’t see air. Don’t know about you, but the world seems to make us believe it’s there. There’s no question about that! And it’s just so hard for them to wrap their minds around Christ rising from the dead, or even believe in his existence. If they didn’t see it, it couldn’t have been true! 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “Our lives are guided by faith, not by sight.” So believe that! If Christ hasn’t come back to life, your faith is worthless and sin still has you in its power, 1 Corinthians 15:17.

To me, faith is believing strongly with my heart on something, and knowing it will come to pass with the help of Christ. With my trust already in him, the impossible part is for what I believe not to come true.

Faith is power though, and like Spider-man’s grandma said, with great power comes great responsibility. And with that said, you have to know that in order for your faith to work at its peak power, you have to continue doing what is right and what makes your heavenly father proud. Faith by itself is dead if it doesn’t cause you to do any good things, James 2:17.

Doubt, the opposite of faith, can easily come over you when you misuse your faith. Expecting your faith to pull through for you, when you aren’t doing the right things is useless. Things might not work in your favor and the result of that can easily become doubt. We’ve all probably been through this. So why not keep our faith strong, and make sure it continues to work for us and not against us.

Be strong!

- C.j.

Faith Acts

Hebrews 11 (Amplified Bible)
1...NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
Hebrews 11 (The Message)
2…The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.

For as long as I've been in church (and it's been almost my entire life) I've heard about faith. It's believing in something you can't see with your physical eyes. If you believe that Jesus died on a cross for your sins, you have faith. You didn't see it yourself, you weren't there but you're confident it happened.

This aspect of faith I got down. Faith lets us own what we believe. If we 'own' what we have faith for then we will live based according to this.

Look at verse 2. Faith goes from just being a noun (the name of a thing) to being a verb (an action).

The act of faith. What is the act of faith? The act of faith is when we act according to our faith! There are thousands of people around us who say they believe in Jesus who do not live accordinly! What does 'living for God' mean? I'm sure you've heard the expression at some point. When we love God, we believe in the Bible and we belive that what is in His Word is the truth. So if the Bible says 'do not steal' we don't steal! If it says to obey our parents, then we obey! If it says love and forgive, we love and forgive! If it says 'do not lean or walk in your own understanding (or wisdom) and lean on God in all you do' then guess what we do?!

Faith is not just a belief, it's living based on this belief.

Look at John 2...

14What is the use (profit), my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it]? Can [such] faith save [his soul]?

The bottom line is that if we have faith, we will live by it. We will act like it. How do you know how to act and what to do? The answer is the Bible. Don't just read it and believe it.... if you truly believe it you will act like it's true in all aspects of you life!

We have may great examples to go by. I challenge you this week to pick up your bible and read the entire chapter of Hebrew 11. If you're unfamiliar with some of the stories it is referring to, look it up!

Be blessed and stay strong!!!

Arlene

{{{spirit filled}}}

I’ve been spirit filled for some time, but I can remember back when I was young(er) and still learning about Christianity. I remember being in the sanctuary with all the grown ups, and when in the atmosphere of worship, they were mumbling things that sounded like Spanish but surely wasn’t Spanish! I’ll admit I was freaked out a little, but at the time, I figured that’s what strong mature Christians did. So of course, my curiosity came out of me, and I just HAD to ask what they were doing, and it was the first time I ever heard of the term, Speaking in Tongues. I’m not even going to get into how weird that sounded to me. But as I continued to watch my elders and continued to mature, I later learned that Tongues was a secret language between you and God, and this secret language is a very powerful weapon which I began to use against satan (Do you believe my word processor actually has the audacity to make me capitalize that!?!).

Did you know that the devil can hear your prayers? I was heated when I found this out, and could easily look back over everything I’d prayed for, and could see how the devil fought for it not to come to pass. I picked up speaking in tongues real quick then!

So, I’m assuming you’ve read Part One of this devotional, and if not, YOU’RE SLACKIN, but for those who have, and know what it’s like to be spirit filled (Ooh, makes you wanna read it now, don’t it?) to speak in tongues, you pray with a combination of being lead by the spirit. By that I mean (here’s what I do):

- Close your eyes [eliminate distractions]
- Pray with your mind [pray quietly! (because your body is about to be busy)]
- Allow your spirit to encode your prayer out loud

I lost you there didn’t I? (If not, that was the Holy Spirit havin your back.) But you have to understand, when you pray in the spirit (also called interceding) you’re speaking a holy language. Kinda like Spanish or something. Don’t you ‘very much dislike’ when you don’t know another language too well, and people around you are talking and you can’t tell what they’re saying! Well the devil HATES when you intercede to God and can’t tell what you’re saying. This is what you do when you pray in tongues. It’s basically you and God talking, and the devil trying to eavesdrop, when the Holy Spirit walks up chanting “LALALALALALA!” really loudly while the devil is trying to listen.

And that’s basically my take on Interceding. My greatest experience with it, was about a year ago from today, when I embarked on my first trip out of the US on my first missions trip (“Lemme go! Lemme go!”). I’ve never before prayed that much in 9 days, let alone in tongues. And it was an experience of being very close to God that I’ll take with me until Jesus returns (to what grave?!).

I can easily link all the feelings I’ve manage to express through both these devotionals to illustrate to you now how great a relationship you can have with the Holy Spirit. Through the missionary experience I’ve just explained to you, I wanted to show you how the Holy Spirit and I became best friends. From this full devotional, the experience I’ve gained is reuniting with a long lost friend. I hope you can take something with you from this experience friends. I’m glad to have been able to experience it with you and I’m thankful for it!

Be blessed, stay blessed, and be a blessing!

C.j.

you've got a friend in me

Thinking back to earlier this month, when I got the topic memo, my initial thought was, “Oh no.” The second thought was, “What a shame. I don’t know the Holy Spirit.” As I began to devote, I did my small bit of research and everything slowly began to come back to me.

Think back to elementary school for a second. (You’ve had to have made it past that to be reading this far!) Now think about all your little friends, and their little faces. Now I don’t know about you, but I really can’t remember those faces to well. But imagine if someone you knew back then came back into your life, and automatically you remembered! Okay well that’s how the Holy Spirit just came back into my life.

I think back on my Christian walk and remember how tight the Holy Spirit and I use to be, and I can’t remember where we lost one another. I want to illustrate for you how powerful a force and righteous you can be with the Holy Spirit on your side.

Now, I’m not real sure how often you go to church, but for those who do go regularly, you know that every once in a while (sometimes even after every service), there’s this thing that the church folk call an “altar call”. That’s the time near the end of church when the Holy Spirit plays a game called “Guilty Conscience” with you, making you think back over the wrong things you’ve done since the last time you went up for prayer. You know you need to, but you either are too embarrassed to, or you don’t want to look like you just go up there every week. Think about it like this though. Honestly, if it’s so bad that someone sees you going up there every week, they’re in the wrong for not offering you prayer or a helping hand. It’s hard struggling alone.

The point is, you’re not the only one going through it. Aside from all this though, (this is a message for the winners) you know that feeling – that cleanliness – you feel after you’ve gone up and received prayer. I believe that’s what it feels like to be spirit filled!

The mistake I make, time after time, (and I’m sure I’m not the only one) is that I rely on the feeling – not the Spirit. The moment I mess up, I feel the feeling go away, and it’s back to the old me, not caring, and dreading next Sunday when I’ll have to go back up to the altar for more prayer. It doesn’t have to be that way though!

Try this! (Don’t even wait for the next altar call to get this going either! Do it now if you have to.) Ask God to fill you with his Holy Spirit. From there, discipline yourself to do the right thing. (I find it a lot easier to do so, when I know and feel I’ve got a Coach [the Holy Spirit] that’s got my back.) If/When you fall, pray asking the Holy Spirit to lead you and lean on that feeling of cleanliness that’s close to you, and allow that to help you do the right thing.

The other thing I wanted to get in to was how you pray, and I know if you’re like me, you probably need a break. I can completely understand that. That’s why I’ve made a Part Two of this devotional, about being filled with the Spirit. So go on and relax your brain, and come back for more when you’re ready. I highly encourage you to do so. I’d just appreciate it if you did anyway!

we're not alone...

Jesus came to earth for only a short time. He came here to preach about God's kingdom, about how to live on earth and then he died for our sins. He was born and he died. But before he died he told us that he was not going to leave us alone.

John 14:15-18 (Amplified Bible)

15If you [really] love Me, you will keep (obey) My commands.

16And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever--
17The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you.
18I will not leave you as orphans [comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, helpless]; I will come [back] to you.
He was talking about the Holy Spirit! When Jesus went back to Heaven he told us that he would not leave us alone! The Holy
Spirit is like God's "bodyguard" for us!
The Holy Spirit is intimately involved in our lives. He is here to guide us as we live out our lives for God. Think of a specific time in your life when you've needed one of these things:
A Counselor - someone to help you work out your issues, to give you advice and help you see things you wouldn't see by yourself
Helper - someone to help you!
Intercessor - someone to pray for you or on behalf of you
Advocate -someone to speak up on your behalf, to defend you
Strenghtner - someone to help you be strong!
Standby- someone ready to act, respond, or be used immediately when needed.
We have what we need! If you've ever felt lonley or alone... you're not. The Holy Spirit is in us willing to help us live our lives to the fullest for the Glory of God.

Ask him to help you. Want to be a better Christian? He is here for us and with us!