Latest / Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris / 12 16 2025 Clear Boundaries

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12 16 2025 Clear Boundaries · Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris

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