Purity 314: Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

 Purity 314 01/15/2021 

Good morning and Thank God it’s Friday!

Today’s photo is provided Samaritan’s Purse as they recently sent relief supplies to California where their team is busy preparing an emergency field hospital to care for patients with the coronavirus. 

I share it to shine a light on their good works, knowing that they will not only provide medical assistance but will be able to provide hope for the soul as well.   

I also share it because the weekend is just hours away and I know many of my friends could use relief for their souls, as some are fighting the disease and others have recently lost dear love ones to Covid-19.

I wish we could all just get on a jet plane and fly away from this pandemic, but I know that if we continue to abide in God’s presence, He will provide comfort and peace. Those who wait on the Lord shall have their strength renewed and they shall mount up with wings like eagles and they will not be weary so they can rise above these dark days.  The Lord is still with us. Bring Him into your presence. 

I pray for all my friends to enjoy their weekend and to be renewed. 

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.  

11. Why should I ever be in bondage when I know that there is freedom where the Spirit of the Lord is (Galatians 5:1)?

 Our claims to success are revealed to be untrue if we are in bondage.  

 When we come to put our faith in Christ, we are given a new life and are set free from sin.   However, God doesn’t delete our memories of the past and our sinful habits and the lies we have believed have to be repented of.

 In my walk with God one of the biggest lies that I had to overcome had to do with my concept of freedom. 

 My concept of freedom was that I could do whatever I wanted, recognizing that if I broke laws or rules, and got caught, that I would be punished.  So my sense of freedom held no consideration for others and recognized that authority was something to be rebelled against, but in a way that avoided detection.   “Rules are meant to be broken, but don’t get caught” was actually a saying that some of my peers and I had as one of the rules for life. 

 With this philosophy of life, I developed a double life. On the surface, I seemed like a law-abiding citizen but at times I would lie, cheat, steal, vandalize, abuse drugs and alcohol, and do just about anything that “I wanted to!”  

While I tried to be clever, in avoiding detection, I had several instances in which the alcohol either blurred my senses or completely destroyed them as I would “black-out” only to be welcomed back to consciousness by police officers. Luckily, I didn’t cause too much damage. Although I did karate kick a young woman’s car window once, when she offered to give me a ride home and I mistakenly thought she was mocking me, as I was just a block away from my dorm.  I realized my mistake almost immediately and fled but campus police came a knocking anyway.  I got disorderly conduct and had to pay to repair the window.  However, my philosophy to conceal things prevented my parents from ever finding out, although I did disclose it years later.  

 Anyway, that double life and that sense of freedom to do “whatever I want” had to corrected.  God doesn’t want rebels who defy legitimate authority. God doesn’t want us to be selfish people that have no consideration for others and only look to serve themselves.  

 So I surrendered to God and eventually I trusted Him to take away my chains that I had clung to so tightly for so long.   When I did, He revealed to me what real freedom was. 

 True freedom is being the person that God created us to be, that person we always wanted to be but who we never thought we were capable of becoming.

 When our faith is in Christ, there is nothing and no one that can keep us from being the person that God created us to be.   He wants us to be free for our bondages and through Him we can do what we thought was impossible.  

 So trust the Lord with those chains. Jesus is the bondage breaker and when you walk in His ways and exchange the world’s lies for His truth you can renew your mind and experience the peace that goes beyond all understanding.               

 

This morning’s meditation verse was:

Psalm 119:73 (NLT2)
⁷³ You made me; you created me. Now give me the sense to follow your commands.

 I have the creeping suspicion that I may have shared this verse in the past as I found some index cards behind my desk last night and added them to the “mix” to choose from.  I couldn’t confirm my suspicion so here it is, again?

 Regardless, if this is your first time seeing it or not, the plain simple truth of this verse doesn’t grow old. 

 This verse spoke to me because the psalmist is acknowledging that they know that God is the creator. They know that He is supreme. They fully admit that.  They know He is to be obeyed. 

 That knowledge, in itself, is significant. Believe me. Ask around. Not everybody will admit that God is the creator who should be obeyed in this self-centered, “I am the Captain of my destiny”, world.  

 So the psalmist “gets it” but they also know themselves and their failings.  So they are humbling themselves before God and praying to Him to provide the “sense” to follow His commands.  

 This simple prayer of repentance can lead to a transformed life. If we genuinely seek the Lord, He will bless us with the power, strength, and wisdom to follow His ways.   

 So humble yourself before God and surrender to Him the things that you have been holding on to, or the things that have been holding on to you, and He will help you to walk out of those bonds into freedom and a new life.   

 Today we begin chapter 10 of Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope Again.

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:

A Commitment to Freedom from Depression

The root of the evil lies in the constitution itself, in the fatal weakening of families from generation to generation....The root of the evil certainly lies there, and there's no cure for it.

Vincent van Gogh

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:31, 32, 35, 37-39

The apostle John records the story of a man who had been lame for 38 years. The Lord singled him out at the pool of Bethesda, where many other blind, lame and paralyzed people were gathered.

The people who were there believed that an angel would occasionally stir the waters, and that anybody who was in the pool at the time would be healed. But this poor man could never get to the pool before the waters stopped stirring. "When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?'"(John 5:6, NIV).

That is either the cruelest question in the New Testament or one of the most profound. Obviously, it is the latter because the Lord asked it.

The lame man answered:

"I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked (John 5:7-9, NIV).

The context reveals that the man really didn't want to get well. He never asked Jesus to be healed, and he always had an excuse why others could get to the pool and he couldn't. Later, Jesus found him in the Temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" (John 5:14, NIV). Then the man actually went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well, turning Him in for healing him on the Sabbath!

Applying this incident to the problem of depression, here are 10 commitments to be made if you can answer yes to Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?"

Commit Yourself to Complete Recovery

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation, and sustain me with a willing spirit (Psalm 51:10, 12).

Do you want to get well as much as this psalm indicates King David did? Are you willing to humble yourself and seek the help you need from God and others? Are you willing to face the truth and walk in the light? Do you want a partial answer or the whole solution?

We ask these tough questions for your sake. More than 50 percent of those struggling with depression never ask for help or seek treatment for their depression. There are adequate answers for depression, but you have to want it more than anything else in the world, and be willing to do whatever it takes to be free.

The key to any cure is commitment. We are not offering a Band-Aid, a quick fix or a partial answer. We believe that if you will follow the procedure in this chapter in the order in which it comes, you will have a comprehensive and adequate answer for your depression.

Recovery begins by saying, "I have a problem and I need help." Your diligence in reading to this point demonstrates your commitment to seek the help you need to gain total victory. We have a God of all hope. He is "our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1, NIV). The story of the lame man reveals that God is fully capable of healing someone even against his will and regardless of his faith. Rest assured that your heavenly Father will be faithful in all that He has said and in all that He is. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).

Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression.

 

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

 

God bless you all!