Only by His grace...

If I take a moment to reflect on what the Lord has done in my life over the years, I should be, and definitely strive to be, very thankful to Him. The Lord has changed the desires of my heart to be focused on Him, though I definitely struggle with this at times. I think where my biggest struggle is is trying to find a balance of being who the Lord calls me to be without having legalistic tendencies or lean to far the other way and fall into sin. What I'm beggining to realize is that, for me anyway, I would much rather be on the side of being "conservative". I've tried the last couple of weeks to be more open and talkative and stuff with people in general, but more specefically at the college here. What I'm realizing though is that temptations and sin and sin struggles seem to be more of a problem for me if I try to do this. I would much rather not express my "Christian liberty" than to lean to heavily on this statement and not be as effective of a messenger for my Savior. This is where it really becomes a challenge though. I don't want to seclude myself or not be very talkative. But I feel like the more that I talk, about blah-blah stuff, the more chance there is that I could ruin my testimony in Christ. I came across a verse in Proverbs that reads as follows," In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, But he who restrains his lips is wise." (Proverbs 10:19, NKJV). To me, this seems to imply that the more that I talk about things that don't seem to serve any spiritual encouragement or pertain to the tings of Christ, the greater the chance is that that conversation can turn into sin. Now I definitely believe that there is room to talk about other stuff (I like to talk about football:), but I don't think that it should dominate our conversations (my Dad told me this and I agree with him). So I guess that this is where I stand on the matter. All I know is that when this short life comes to an end, I want to have served the Lord in the best way that he sees fit. Now this cannot come at all from my own merit (I sometimes realize this, but too soon forget), but all I can do is pray that He will keep me focused on what really matters in this life and stay in His Word for guidance on how to do this. And that's all that He expects from me :) With every morsel of energy that the Lord gives me, I want to serve Him. And my heart longs with such heavy anticipation being in heaven with the Lord. But, for now anyways, he wants me here. May he grant me the grace to stand strong in Him and never back down from that which He has called me to. Forever in Him, Josh Gilbert