Purity 310: Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

 Purity 310 01/11/2021 

Good morning!

Today’s photo comes from a friend who went on a winter hike this weekend at the Corkscrew Rail Trail in Stephentown NY.   

I have been sharing lots of sunsets and sunrises. So what better day to bring us back down to earth than Monday!

But seriously, I love this photo of the snow, the trees, and the path that seems to go on forever.  I like it so much that it may make me reconsider my opinion about hikes on snow covered paths. We shall see.

But as for Monday, we can go down the “path of this week” with fear and anxiety or we can enjoy the sights as we go and know that God goes before us and that this “path has to go somewhere” and that wherever it takes us God will be with us all the way until the end.

Today I continue to share Dr. Neil Anderson’s “Twenty “Cans” of Success”, to encourage my friends that are fasting as well as those who aren’t.  

7.  Why should I accept defeat when the Bible says that God always leads me in victory (2 Cor. 2:14)?

 A great deal of our success comes from our attitude. When we follow the Lord our attitudes are built on the truth of God’s word which tell us that He always leads us in victory.     

 If we know that God has gone before us to prepare our way and has guaranteed us eternal security because of our faith in Christ, we should know that we are never defeated. 

 If obstacles or circumstances don’t cooperate with our plans for success, we need to remind ourselves that we already have the ultimate victory in Christ. 

 When we run into opposition, we need to remind ourselves that Jesus is perfect, and people hated Him for it, but He kept on doing good for those who didn’t understand Him.  

 So if we face obstacles or opposition, we can guard our hearts with the knowledge that we are accepted and secure in Christ and we can either persevere and overcome that which opposes us, or we can recalibrate and reconsider what we have placed our efforts in or the way that we are trying to accomplish what we wish to achieve. 

 God is for us.  If what we want is His will for us it will come to pass, but we may have to be patient and wait for it or we may have to change how we are trying to obtain it.   

 However, it is always best to examine what we are doing and what we are seeking because sometimes we are pursuing selfish desires and are merely begging God to give us what we want rather than what He has prepared for us. 

 I know that life can be daunting at times but if we know that God always leads us in victory, we can face life with a hope and expectancy that will allow us to be shaped by Him to pursue and work for the things that are meant for us rather than chasing after castles made of sand that will crumble and fall and play no part in His kingdom. 

 So rejoice and live the victorious life that God is preparing for you.

 

This morning’s meditation verse was:

1 John 1:5 (NKJV)

5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

 Here the Apostle John reminds us that he is merely relating the message that He heard from Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, so that we would know, with authority, that God is light and there is no darkness in Him. 

 That means God is righteous and good and anything done in His name that is not righteous and good is not of Him.  While God will judge sin and punish sinners who don’t repent, this is the justice that we would expect from a God who is good. Vile murderers and other sinners who are never apprehended and never repent, will pay for their transgressions when they enter eternity. 

 That also means that if we are to profess to be God’s child that we are to not walk in darkness.  

 John makes that point throughout First John, but I would like to dwell on the fact that there is no darkness in God.  

 A great deal of the problems of this world come from a distorted image of God, as that angry judge who sends people to hell and doesn’t want us to have any “fun”.  

 As stated above, God’s judgement is justice for the ones who sin and, out of the hardness of their hearts, don’t repent and turn to Him.

 As for the “fun”, there isn’t a need that we have that the Lord hasn’t made a legitimate way to fulfill.  

 He gives food abundantly to us but when we seek comfort from it instead of God, we overindulge and suffer the consequences of indigestion and obesity. 

He gives us drinks that hydrate us, but if we choose drinks that literally “toxify” us we will suffer. Alcohol causes us to lose our inhibitions, to act foolishly, or to do and say things we regret. When we overindulge, we again suffer the consequences of hangover or addiction. 

 He provides a way to enjoy sex, in a marriage covenant, that calls for mutual love and respect, but we decide we want the pleasure without the love and respect, and we use one another and feel guilt and shame.  The more casual our sex the more risk we take to suffer negative consequences like unwanted pregnancies, disease, and broken heats.

 With God we can have all the “fun” we want and when we do it His way, we can do it without guilt, shame, regrets, or pain. 

 Some religions portray God as distant and ambivalent and say that no one can know Him or know if they are accepted by Him.  These religions also deny the deity of Jesus Christ or deny His death on the cross.  

 Jesus was a living demonstration of God. He lived without sin and did only good but was hated and despised for it. He even willing gave up His life to pay for the sins of the world that hated Him.  That’s pretty selfless. That’s pretty good.

 God made a way for all of us to be reconciled to Him by placing our faith in Christ, so we didn’t have to endlessly work to make ourselves approved.  He gives Christ’s believers the power to overcome and enjoy a life of peace when they walk in His ways.  I know that’s good because I’ve experienced it.

 So if your concept of God is of that of the “angry, abuse, distant father”, I pray that you would look to the cross and know that He is only righteous and good and that He loves you and wants you to seek Him and embrace His truth and His ways to walk out the rest of your life in the peace of His presence.

 Today we continue chapter 9 of Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope Again, where the authors were discussing the perception of God’s absence and now warn not to “create your own light”.     

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Anderson’s books for your own private study and to support his work:

Don't Create Your Own Light

The second lesson we learn from Isaiah is, Don't light your own fire. In other words, don't create your own light. The natural tendency when we don't see it God's way is to do it our way. Notice the text again: "Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with firebrands, walk in the light of your fire" (Isaiah 50:11). God is not talking about the fire of judgment; He is talking about fire that creates light. Notice what happens when people create their own light: "And among the brands you have set ablaze. This you will have from My hand; and you will lie down in torment." Essentially, God is saying, "Go ahead, do it your way. God will allow it, but misery will follow."

Let us illustrate from the Bible. God called Abraham out of Ur into the Promised Land. In Genesis 12, a covenant was made in which God promised Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous than the sands of the sea or the stars in the sky.

Abraham lived his life in the light of that promise, then God turned out the light. So many months and years passed that his wife Sarah could no longer bear a child by natural means. God's guidance had been so clear before, but now it looked as though Abraham would have to assist God in its fulfillment.

Who could blame Abraham for creating his own light? Sarah supplied the match by offering her handmaiden to Abraham. Out of that union came another nation that has created so much conflict that the whole world now lies in torment. Jew and Arab have not been able to dwell together peacefully to this day. All this as a result of Abraham's trying to provide his own light.

God superintended the birth of Moses and provided for his preservation. Raised in the home of Pharaoh, he was given the second most prominent position in Egypt. But God had put into Moses' heart a burden to set his people free. Impulsively, Moses pulled out his sword, attempting to help God set His people free. He killed an Egyptian taskmaster, and God turned out the lights.

Abandoned to the back side of the desert, Moses spent 40 years tending his father-in-law's sheep. Then one day, he turned aside to see a burning bush that wasn't consumed, and God turned the light back on.

I'm not suggesting that we may have to wait 40 years for the cloud to lift. In our life span, that would be more time than an average person's faith could endure. But the darkness may last for weeks, months and, possibly, for some exceptional people, even years. God is in charge, and He knows exactly how small a knothole He can pull us through. We must only remember: "The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these" (Isaiah 45:7).

Let me share our second period of darkness. Five years after Joanne's surgery to remove the lenses from both eyes, her doctor suggested that she have a lens implant. So much progress had been made that implanting a lens was done as outpatient surgery. At first Joanne was reluctant. In addition, our insurance wouldn't pay at first, calling the surgery "cosmetic," but it finally came around. Joanne's doctor and I convinced her it was the best thing to do.

The surgery was successful, but Joanne emerged from the anesthesia in a phobic state. She had been anesthetized in surgery before, so I couldn't understand why she was so fearful now. I certainly could understand her apprehension before surgery, because cutting into one's eyeball is not something you look forward to. Just the thought of it can send shivers down your spine. So her emotional state before surgery was somewhat troubled.

But why was she traumatized after the surgery? Could the anesthetic itself have caused her emotional state? Or could the nature of her postoperative care have been a factor? The cost for medical care has pushed many hospitals into day surgeries that leave no time for rest or recovery after such a traumatic experience.

The nurses had to ask for my assistance in helping Joanne come out of the anesthesia. Joanne was just one of several patients that day, and I think part of their motivation was to clear a bed for other patients. Most people need more emotional care than that. If she had been permitted to recover from her experience gradually and spend at least one night in the hospital, she might have recovered a lot better. Bringing Joanne home that afternoon was an ordeal for both of us. She just couldn't stabilize emotionally.

The possibility that this was also a spiritual battle became evident the next day. Joanne thought she had a foreign object in her eye that had to come out. This made no rational sense at all because the surgery had been successful. She could see with 20/30 vision.

I didn't understand the battle for our minds then as I do today. Since then, I have seen young women struggling with eating disorders have such thoughts. Along with Paul, who said, "I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good" (Romans 7:21), such people believe they have evil present in them and they have to get it out. That is the lie behind their purging, defecating and cutting themselves. But the evil is not their blood, feces or food. And the evil that Joanne was fighting was not the physical kind; it was the lie of Satan, which came at a very vulnerable moment.

It is painful to recall this because much of what followed could have been avoided. Joanne's struggle with anxiety led to sleeplessness and finally depression. She went from her eye doctor to her primary care doctor, to her gynecologist and finally to a psychiatrist. Because they could find nothing physically wrong with Joanne, they assumed she was a head case or a hormone case. They tried hormones, antidepressants and sleeping pills, but nothing seemed to work. She lost her appetite and her weight dropped significantly. She was hospitalized five times.

Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression.

 

------------------------------more tomorrow--------------------------

 

God bless you all!