Speaker 1: Most of us eat every day, some of us too
much because yesterday's food is not enough to supply energy
for today's needs. Why then, do some of us expect
yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to
keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are
going to change all of that. Let's experience God's words
today and receive the power we need to live healthy,
vibrant lives. Welcome to Your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker, Elle David Harris.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. It is Tuesday, December sixteenth,
twenty twenty five. Hello, my name is El David Harris.
I am your host in this is your Daily Portion,
where we give you God's word every single day, and
today is no exception. We are continuing in our lesson
study series Lessons of Faith from Joshua, and our caption
for today is clear Boundaries Boundaries. Before we get into that,
I'd like to say welcome to everyone joining us, especially
those joining us for the very first time. I'm asking
you to go over to your Daily Portion dot com.
Please join our online community, pick up your Daily Portion
Life application guide, and let us know where you are
in the world. Please if the Lord is guiding you,
please go ahead and click that donation button. This is
one of the ways that we continue to build faith
and fellowship. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank
you for this day and for setting a clear boundary
between us and sin. Help us never to step over
the line. We don't have the kind of time God. Please,
in Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amen again. One
of the reasons some of you are having difficulties in
some of your relationships, the ones that stress you out,
is because you've not set clear boundary that was free.
I just figured I would use this opportunity to, you know,
give you a freebee, give you a freebe. Okay, and
so let me just begin our lesson number one before
I go off on a tangent. Somebody just got it.
Set clear boundaries. Our lesson number one is obedience requires
distinct spiritual boundaries. Now, the Bible reads in Joshua chapter
one and verse seven, only be strong and very courageous
that thou mayst observe to do according to all the law. Okay,
let me read it again. Only be thou strong and
courageous that thou mayst observe to do all according to
the law. Okay. So to guard is a term shamar
in Hebrew. It means to guard. Okay, I know, to guard,
to keep watch, to preserve. What are you keeping watch
over in your relationship with God? What are you preserving?
What are you guarding or guarding against in your relationship
with God? Right now? So Joshua repeated these same instructions
to God's people in Joshua Chapter twenty three. Because obedience
is never passive. This is one of the reasons why
there are people getting text messages at the wrong time
of night. You getting a text message from somebody, Oh,
and then that text message is trying to get you
to do something that's not holy. And because some of
the people of God have not set clear boundaries ahead
of time to guard their relationship with God, to keep
watch over their heart and connection with God, to preserve
a holy attitude and come comportment with God, they fall victim.
You understand, And so obedience to God is not passive.
We can't just wait for it to happen and hope
that it happens. We have to be active in this fight,
the good fight of faith. It requires guarding the heart
and mind and habits. God's people's greatest danger had nothing
to do with military defeat. It was a spiritual creeping compromise.
The same issue is happening today. So our action step
in that regard is to identify one boundary. You could
have anticipated that, right. I'm not just talking to you.
I'm coaching in a spiritual sense. I want you to
identify one boundary you need to strengthen your spiritual life.
Is it how much time you are on social media.
I'm not making social media the enemy, but it may
be an enemy for you. Is it the kinds of
what do you call it, conversations that you will entertain?
Yes or no. There's some people when they ring your
phone or they start texting you on WhatsApp or whatever
app you use, there are some You look at it
and you're like, Yeah, that brother's gonna gossip, that sister's
gonna gossip. This person is prone to complaining, and so
this is going to bring me down spiritually. So I
have set a boundary to say, Nope, I'm not accepting
this call, I'm not accepting this text message. Guard it
with intentional obedience. This week less and number two influence
is more dangerous oh than opposition. The Bible reads in
tewod Corinthians, chapter six and verse fourteen, be ye not
unequally yoked to get there with unbelievers. In another translation,
it says, do not become partners with those who do
not believe. This is very important, and I have said
many times that, like in the case of choosing a spouse,
in my case choosing a spouse, there is no a wife.
In my case, there is no person who was more
influential over you than your spouse. And can you imagine
being yoked or tied or bound together, supposedly going in
one direction with somebody who's not interested in God, that's
not fully connected to God. How are you going to
pull forward and do the work that God has given
to both of you and your family by extension, and
your legacy, by further extension your community. How are you
going to do that if you are not on the
same page, unified, yoked equally, and so unequally yoked. There
is a word I won't try to pronounce it, meaning
to be mismatched tied together with what pulls in another direction.
The late Martin Luther King Junior used to talk about
it's like having two headstrong horses pulling in two different
directions if they're connected by a rope. Joshua warned that
Canaanite friendship posed greater risk than Canaanite hostility. It would
have been better if the Canaanites just ran down on
the people of God. I don't mean better in real life,
but really it's less insidious, like it's less a subtle.
Bible says that the serpent was more subtle than any
beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
And then he comes with an insinuation of doubt. Yay
have God said? And then he exaggerates he missed, he
miss uh, what do you call?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 2: Appropriates what God had said, et cetera. And so Joshua
was warning, like, listen, listen, you co mingle. That's worse
than them running down on you. Wrong association shape our thinking,
alter our values. We can conviction and invite idolatry. Can
I just say there are some things that I just
literally do not watch. I don't First of all, I
don't use my TV. But even if I did use it,
there's some stuff I'm not watching on it. I do
use YouTube, and well really YouTube, And so when I'm
on YouTube. If I'm watching something that is not unholy,
it's benign. Okay, it's just a normal show. Say it's
a home makeover show. If I notice that in the
home makeover show there are some things that go against
my core values in that episode, click it's right off.
I turn it off because it slowly shapes thinking, alters values,
weaken conviction, and invite idolatry influence from the quote, world
works quietly but powerfully altering the believer's spiritual direction. Here
is the action step. Evaluate your closest influences, Choose one
relationship or environment where you need healthier boundaries, and adjust
it prayerfully. Is it in the gym? Is it at
work by what they call the water cooler, meaning really
the place where you can just kind of let your
hair down and people are they gossiping and talking about
the boss behind her back?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Really? How do we find a healthier space in our
minds and then live according to those boundaries? And then finally,
Christians live in a world without becoming like the world.
And we already know the passage for that. Clear boundaries,
healthy boundaries, healthy spiritual life. Peace.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us listening, friends, always remember we cannot
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God. This has been your daily
portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,