continuing to pursue holiness.

God is so good to know what we need right when we need it. As I started my first year at ISU last year, He began to change my heart more and more drastically to things He adored, rather than things the world adored, or I adored. Man, so thankful for that! I look back on journal entries that I wrote a year ago, to now... and it's incredible what the LORD did in my heart, and to my heart. I'm still not by any means, 'good' or 'perfect' but I know that His work is continuing in and through me, it's such an encouragement to see. As I read these entries, my heart began to be more intense and passionate for ministry, and for this generation. Such lost souls, and so few people who were willing to make a difference. I'm so little, and not very vocal on certain subjects, yet I wanted so much more than what I, myself, had been striving for (teaching). I knew that the passion in my heart was for revival, for this generation to wake up and start believing in TRUTH rather than the lies of the world. Better yet, I knew it was time for the church to stop sleeping and being complacent to this world.. we were comfortable, I was comfortable and was sick of it. The LORD began to spark a flame in my heart to walk in holiness. I am so blessed and amazed at Him.. how He knows my past yet, still wants to use me for His glory, regardless of all I took part in. So amazing :)

My heart for the past few months have been in regards to holiness and purity. These words mean so much more than just physical. It's everything we are. God requires us to be holy in all we do. Speech, thoughts, motives, gestures, actions. It's not just about the physical, yet, that is a huge part of it. He began to give me a heart for young women and, we started a purity conference just this past July for the young women in Calvary Chapel churches across the Midwest. God totally blessed it, as nearly 20 young women came out. Incredible!! And now, since I am home, He has opened the door for me to lead worship and minister to young women in my churches Fragrant Life for Girls ministry. A Bible study once a month for young women. 9 years ago was when Fragrant Life started... I was the first batch!!! :) I can't believe, 9 years later, He is using something that grew me, to help encourage and minister to these sweet precious young women. It's amazing.

As I continue to yearn and strive to walk in holiness, the LORD has shown me so much. My dear friend and worship leader handed me the book "Holiness, the Heart That God Purifies" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss. Ah, so incredible. God has used this tiny little book in my life to continue to pursue holiness, righteousness, and purity for my life. It's so much more than what I thought. Sometimes it's easy as Christians to look at others and say "Man, I am a GOOD person compared to that one over there.... he continues to live in sin, and I gave all that up!" Why are we so quick, as believers, to say this yet not want to reflect on our OWN sin? This book has taught me that it should be a daily prayer that the LORD reveals my sin to me, that I would be convicted, and living a lifestyle of holiness. Sin doesn't have to be something such as murder, sexual impurity, porn, drunkenness, whatever. For me in my life, it can be something as simple as television, or Facebook. These things take up way too much time and dull my spirit in an awful way. I should be filling my spirit with GOOD things, and things that edify...things that make me desire a lifestyle of holiness. How can that happen if I'm stuck watching television 9 hours a day? Or on Facebook 5 hours a day? The LORD has convicted me of this.

He is so good to continue pressing it upon my heart to live a lifestyle of holiness. It's sad that this world has become more and more dark. As believers, we need to stop sleeping and being comfortable with this. Our sin has become "ok" in our eyes, and we have asked the LORD to reveal it to us, so that we can pursue a lifestyle of holiness. We are fine and think that 'one sin isn't as bad as the other'. I know that in my own life I have thought this.

I love this quote I found in the book. I pray that it encourages you to seek the LORD daily and ask that He continue to reveal any little or big sin in your life. All sin is weighed the same. Not one is higher than the other or more important. Sin is SIN. We need to realize it, repent, and be renewed by our God.

"Surely that man must be in an unhealthy state of soul who can think of all that Jesus suffered, and yet cling to those sins for which that suffering was undergone. It was sin that wove the crown of thorns; It was sin that pierced our Lord's hands and feet and side; It was sin that brought Him to Gethsemane and Calvary, to the cross and to the grave. Cold must our hearts be if we do not hate sin and labour to get rid of it, though we may have to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye in doing it." J.C. Ryle, "Holiness"