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Thursday, November 5, 2020

Purity 257


Purity 257  11/05/2020           

Good morning,

Today’s photo was taken by yours truly on Merry Rd in rural Amsterdam NY. The weather was very pleasant for November and the clarity of the blue skies and the brilliance of the sun made me thank the Lord and capture the moment.

It’s Thursday again and capturing moments is related to the message I will be teaching tonight at Celebrate Freedom as I will be sharing the importance of taking continuous and periodic inventories of our progress as we attempt to live our lives according to God’s will rather than our own. 

Walking away from our hurts, habits, and hang-ups isn’t easy at first but the freedom we experience can begin to define who we are as our new life becomes clearer and clearer as we leave our former darkness in the past. 

As funny as it may sound, walking in peace and joy goes against everything we ever knew in our old lives that were defined by conflicts, struggle, reactivity, and pain.  So as we walk we want to keep an eye on what we are thinking, saying, and doing to make sure we are not slipping into those old familiar patterns of brokenness.

As an added bonus, beyond the normal lesson I will expand upon the material to discuss the role of self-deception that can play a part in our going astray.  As familiar as we are with ourselves, sometimes we knowingly make decisions that will eventually lead to negative consequences and I intend to shine a light on the processes that we may be participating in that can halt our growth or negate our progress. 

One key to avoiding self-deception is simply to speak the truth. We need to speak the truth about: who God is, who we are, where we were, and where we want to go.  When we consider all of the above and stay committed to our walk with God, we will be far less likely to fall off.

Our walk is like riding a bike, we have to keep moving those legs. We have to keep peddling. We can rest for a while and coast from time to time but if we do that too often, we will slow down, lose our balance, and fall down.  Or if we are just coasting, we will run into a hill to climb unexpectedly and not have the momentum to overcome what would have been easily surpassed had we kept our momentum.  

It may seem like we are all alone on that bike and all we do is peddle, but God is with us and sometimes when we least expect it we can suddenly encounter a Mighty Rushing Wind that comes behind us to pick us up and to move us along just when we thought we weren’t going to make it. 

So keep going, God is with you on this ride and He will be there when it brings you to a new heaven and a new earth.

 God bless you all!

 

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