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Key Bible Verse: For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him Philippians 2:13. Bonus Reading: Phil. 2:12-15

I decided to clean up my act. I began disciplining myself to speak without the splatter of four-letter words epidemic in army talk. I could get my point across without them.

I stopped drinking. Alcohol was part of my family growing up, and everything we seven in my detachment did together—going to the movies, playing volleyball—included a couple of beers. I can still hang out and have a good time, I told myself, I'll just have a Coke instead. But the six quickly asked, "Hey, what's wrong with you, Streucker?"

I also excused myself from certain movies I would have seen before. Then I started cleaning out my music collection. I'd been raised on classic rock, and bought a lot of heavy metal too. But the lyrics started to bother me. I got a big garbage bag, loaded it up with hundreds of cassettes and CDs, and dropped them on our unit's front desk. "Here you go," I said, "They're yours, free for the taking."

"Streucker must have joined some cult!" they said. I'd already heard how they ridiculed Kurt Smith behind his back. When I told him about it, Kurt calmly said, "So? I'm not concerned about what they think." That became my stance as well.

—Jeff Streucker in The Road to Unafraid

My Response: Where have I let what my peers might think inhibit clear-cut discipleship?

Thought to Apply: Once you get a taste of where you want to go, motivation takes care of itself.—Chuck Daly (basketball coach)

Adapted from The Road to Unafraid (W Publishing, 2006) by permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

May you receive glory and praise, Father, because the faith I claim and the life I live square up.

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