In Constant Transition – Finding Balance and Peace– Purity 689
Purity 689 03/26/2022 Purity 689 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a pier or dockside view of sunset comes to
us from a friend who captured this sight at Riverview Park in Sebastian Florida
and shared it on social media back on February 20th, 2022. My friend also shared a short poem with his
post. His untitled piece says:
“A second, a minute, an hour, a day
You can't stop time
Though try you may.
An image will capture
a certain position
Of time that remains
In constant transition.”
Ain’t that the truth. Try as we may to hold onto the present
moment and find peace in it, time marches on and moves us to the “next thing”
as our lives really are in constant transition. Peace comes from enjoying the present moment for
what it is but there is wisdom in knowing that we can’t hold onto it as every
moment slips through our fingers and we must eventually let it go and be
purposeful stewards of what God has given us and tend to our responsibilities.
We can find peace in our lives when we find the balance to
take care of our responsibilities and to stop and rest from time to time to
enjoy what we have. We must be content
with where we are, but we are also given the hope of making things better
through our work on earth and through drawing closer to God.
Because time marches on and things have a tendency to fall
apart in this ever changing world, we can’t just rest because if we do we will
suffer when things fall into disrepair and we can’t just keep “working” because
there will always be something we could be doing and our constant efforts will
eventually cause us to burn out.
Establishing balance is a real juggling act. Finding peace can be a real mystery.
But God helped us by giving us the clues to solve the
mystery. God interacted with man and
chose the nation of Israel to reveal Himself to the world. They were given the honor of His miraculous
interventions and were given the responsibility of documenting His words in the
holy scriptures to show us the way we should go and to tell of a coming Savior and
King.
Christ was the fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies
and His earthly ministry was the wake up call for all mankind. Eternal life, peace with God, and peace
within ourselves comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
So while we could “stop and smell the roses” and employ
various strategies to cope with the stresses of this world, those measures of “self-care”
only go so far. We can comfort ourselves
with substances and rest but unless we answer the big questions of meaning, purpose,
and eternity we are only creating a fleeting peace that goes from moment to
moment with no eternal assurance.
Without being reconciled with God through faith in Jesus, we will
just be ‘doing the best we can” to keep
juggling the circumstances of our life to create the conditions for circumstantial
peace and happiness that are subject to the conditions of the world and our
performance.
No, to have the peace that goes beyond all understanding, we
need the assurance of moving into the transition from life to death with the
certainty of our security that is only possible through the Prince of Peace,
Jesus Christ.
We will have to manage that balance of responsibilities and
finding rest in this world by meeting our needs and taking time to enjoy the
journey but that whole process can be one that is undergirded by peace when we
know that we are accepted, significant, and secure regardless of our abilities
to create the conditions of peace.
Finding peace in the storm, comes from knowing that you have
peace with God and that you have the assurance that nothing and no one can separate
you from His love.
A lot of people think that we will never have peace in this
world and they view death as the only place where we will have rest. They look
to eternity as “resting in peace” or going to a “better place” because they
haven’t entered into the rest and peace that Christ has given them in the here
and now.
They believe in the peace of heaven but don’t believe in the
peace that Christ gave them on the earth, in Him.
God’s word contains His instructions for living. Christ said
John 14:27 (NKJV)
27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I
give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be afraid.
The problem with us is that we have
learned to find a measure of peace as “the world gives us” peace – by pragmatic
ways to “get peace” or “be happy” that cater to the flesh and disregard the
spirit. Our hearts are troubled and we
fear because the peace the world gives is slip sliding away every moment and
can’t be maintained forever.
Prior to His assurance of peace, Jesus
commanded His disciples to obey His commandments, which draws us into a close
relationship with God and which are counterintuitive to the ways of the world.
The peace that Christ gives us is through
establishing a relationship of trust with Him.
When we put our faith in Him, He gives us the indwelling presence of the
Holy Spirit that abides with us, guides us, and empowers us to follow the Lord’s
ways for living. Our peace is realized
in the Lord when we rest in Him and meet our responsibilities in life according
to His ways.
The juggling act of dealing with
responsibilities and finding rest will still be required but the way we do it
will be different. Instead of
desperately reaching for circumstantial remedies for happiness, we can actually
hold on to and keep the joy that comes from knowing and living with the Lord in
our lives.
So keep walking and talking with
God. Yes we do live from moment to moment in constant transition, but the Lord
is with us and He will help us to abide in the peace that He gives us, and He
will be faithful to remain with us from here to eternity.
______________________________________________________________________
If you are
interested in taking an online course with Freedom in Christ Ministries below
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of April. Our prayer is that you will be able to set aside time for
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Starting Wednesday, April 6 at 10:00 AM EDT.
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Starting Tuesday, April 5 at 7:00 PM EDT.
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to Freedom click here or search
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______________________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book
for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is :
Romans 3:24 (NLT2)
24 Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are
righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty
for our sins.
Today’s Bible verse
speaks of the Lord’s underserved kindness and how it is through Christ Jesus
that we have been set free from the penalty of our sins and are declared righteous.
As we shared
yesterday, we all have fallen short of God’s standard because of the fact that
all of us have sinned. So we all
rightly deserve to suffer the wrath of God as the penalty for our sins.
But God is kind
and through His mercy and grace He provided a way for some to be set free from
the penalty of their sins.
The word of God
tells us that God doesn’t want any to perish but wants everyone to come to
repentance and to receive the forgiveness of their sins and peace with God by
placing their faith in Christ Jesus.
But God doesn’t
force us to love Him and gives us free will. We are all presented with the problem of life
and death and if you have ever heard the name of Jesus Christ it was up to you
to investigate His claims and to discover what He said and what it would mean
to your life if you believed Him.
We didn’t deserve
a way out of the penalty of our sin but God kindly gave us one, but we must choose
it for ourselves. If we choose to
dismiss the word of God and what it tells us about Jesus Christ, we refuse God’s
offer to be declared righteous and set free from our sins.
And I think
that really is the biggest sin of all, to disbelieve the Lord who made you, to
dismiss God’s revelation, and to dismiss the person of Jesus Christ.
Many people
like to debate just what sin will send them to hell and want to debate the
relativity of one sin over another. But those things don’t matter. All sin has
the penalty of being separated from God because they show our rebellious
disbelief and lack of respect for Him.
The fact that you
didn’t obey His commandments shows that you either don’t believe in Him or reject His
authority, making you fully deserving to pay the penalty for your
transgressions.
But beyond God
past that and kindly provides a way to
be forgiven of all of our sins. We can be set free of the penalty of our sins
through Christ. There is no other way,
we are saved, declared righteous and forgiven through Christ alone.
So if you know
this truth, share it. The world is in desperate need of kindness. The Lord’s
undeserved kindness is available to all who would place their faith in Jesus,
and we must try to share His kindness with those who will otherwise have to pay
the penalty for not believing in the God that made them and One who paid for their
sin.
We didn’t deserve
God’s kindness but if we have received it we have to try to share it with those
who desperately need it.
As always, I
invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent
Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in
Christ with their walk.
Today we
continue sharing from June Hunt’s Overeating: Freedom from Food
Fixation.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase June Hunt’s books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $5.00.
E. What Is the Root Cause of Overeating?
We
all have three God-given inner needs for unconditional love, for significance,
and for security. Compulsive overeating is typically an attempt to meet one or
more of these needs through consuming food. If you believe that you don’t have
the willpower to resist foods that give you pleasure, be assured that you can devise a successful plan that
includes relying on God’s promise to meet all of your needs. He can and will
provide the power to resist temptations to overeat. The Bible guarantees …
“The Lord will guide you always; he will
satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You
will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
(Isaiah 58:11)
Overeating
is an attempt to meet one or more inner needs for …
|
• Love |
eating food in order to feel nurtured |
|
• Significance |
eating food in order to feel a sense
of control |
|
• Security |
eating and hoarding food in order to
feel secure because of fear of deprivation |
The
problem with using food to meet any of these inner needs is simple—it can’t be
done! Nothing physical—no human being and no food—can meet your inner needs and
satisfy the longings of your heart. Only God can do that. When you yield your
will to His will, His supernatural power can give you the victory over
overeating and provide joy in your life. Getting your habits under control will
take a while, but today you can take the first step.… You can embrace the hope
and freedom that God is offering you.
• Wrong
Belief:
“I
can’t sustain enough willpower to resist the foods that give me pleasure.”
Right Belief:
“The
issue is not the power of my will, but the power of my
God—He will fulfill my deepest inner needs. When I have Christ living
in me, He is able to change my fixation on food to faith.”
“You will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free.”
(John 8:32)[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
June Hunt, Biblical Counseling
Keys on Overeating: Freedom from Food Fixation (Dallas, TX: Hope
For The Heart, 2008), 23–24.
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