Summertime Fun and The
Pain of Self Deception - Purity 796
Purity 796 07/28/2022 Purity 796 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the beach on the shores of Long Pond comes
to us from yours truly as I captured this scene yesterday when I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Grafton
Lakes State Park in Grafton NY.
While it is Friday, and we should thank God for that,
thank you Lord, because I have to work Saturday it is more like a Monday for me
because I had the day off yesterday and because I had my one day weekend to enjoy
I felt the overwhelming compulsion to try to make the day worthwhile as July
will be over come Monday so I meditated upon the idea of “if you only had one
day to mark the Summer of 2022 with, what would you do?”
For me summer has always been associated with swimming and
if I was going to have a “perfect summer day” it would include that. Also I love the cinema, in every season, but as
Hollywood releases a lot of it’s “blockbusters” in summer, I also associate summer
with going to the theater, and watching movies as a good time in general. Luckily,
I have already had both these experiences this summer so as I contemplated what
to do yesterday, I didn’t feel I “had to” do anything really but felt because I
had the day off and July will soon be a distant memory, I decided to be
intentional in “doing something”.
Because we can see a movie anytime, swimming was “the something”
I decided to pursue, but I wanted the experience to be some how new, and as
much as we may enjoy going to our old familiar places, I wanted to do something
different. So I let Google be my guide
and searched for a NY state park somewhere between my country side home and “RiverHouse”
and Grafton State Park fit the bill.
In the Freedom in Christ Course, one of the lessons
teaches that fun comes from being spontaneous, and I teach it and so I live it and
have discovered that the lesson is true! It is fun to be spontaneous! So even
though the experience at Grafton State Park was similar to other past swimming excursions,
the fact it was new and spontaneous really satisfied my desire to “do something”.
One of the other things I have learned about having fun is
to not put expectations or arbitrary limits on our “fun experiences”. Having expectations can lead to disappoint
meant if we build something up in our minds and our experience falls short of
our vision. So I set out to Grafton with
only the knowledge and expectation that “there is swimming there”. So no matter what I experienced, I would know
that, whether I was successful or not, my intentions to “go swimming” were
true, and even if the beach was unexpectedly closed, I had acted in “good faith”
which is really all we can ever do.
Another way we can get in the way of our fun, is by
imposing arbitrary rules on our experience that take away our freedom. These possible strongholds of tradition or “doing
things right” are strategies that we were taught or have developed that can be either
insure a good time or destroy it. These
strongholds are usually revealed by condtional statements or arbitrary policies
that we have developed and while they can be useful, could also keep us from
experiencing our freedom.
For instance, one such statement could be:
Since I’m going to the beach, I must ______. Fill in the blank. Must we? One must would be to “get my money’s worth”
by spending a certain amount of time there. Or doing something specific, like
swimming. While it was a goal of sorts
to swim, what if the beach was closed? Would I turn and leave, or would I
choose to make the best of the trip by going for a hike or by exploring other
options at the park? And guess what,
there is no “right” answer there. It really depends how you feel in your
spirit, the rule of thumb is to examine your emotions and to see if you maintaining
your peace. If you have peace leaving to go home, or elsewhere, do that. If you have peace in staying and doing something
else do that. The key here is to keep
your peace and to freely choose your path.
Yesterday’s trip for me was fun because I “enjoyed the
journey”. I literally enjoyed the drive because I when through some back
country roads I would normally not drive through, so just getting there was
part of the fun, and it was fun to see the facilities that are at the State
Park at Grafton Lakes because I have never been there to enjoy myself. And
while I was there I was open to do what I wanted and not impose any limits on
myself. When I felt I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish and enjoyed
my visit enough, I picked up and left. Experiencing
the freedom of movements is a joy in and of its self and it doesn’t hurt our
experience of “fun” when we realize that and appreciate it.
And that is the ultimate key to fun, to appreciate it. And if we are grounded in the truth of our
existence, it is right to pass our appreciation of our lives “up the ladder” to
the One who created it all: God.
As always, I never travel alone and because I know that the Lord is with me where
ever I go, I make a point of it to talk to Him and thank Him for all the things
I experience: my life, the drive, my safe comings and goings, the things I see,
the places I go, the weather, the sky, and the ability to do it all are all examples
of what we can thank God for.
So as we enter into, what it’s the last day of the work
week for most, I encourage my friends to appreciate what you experience today
and to use the last days of July to have some summer time fun, and to do so
without expectations and without putting limits on your freedom.
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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:
Philippians 4:9 (NKJV)
9 The things which you
learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace
will be with you.
Today’s
verse reminds us that God of peace and the peace of God will be with us when we
do the things that we have learned and received in our walk with God.
As
touchy feely as my Summer time fun encouragement is, I have a confession to
make: I haven’t been doing what I have learned and received from my recent walk
with the Lord and it has slowly brought pain into my life.
My back
hurts.
And I
wish I could say that it was due to a sudden injury rather than a slow but
steady fall into compromise and neglecting the things that I have come to know
are true.
I
have an addiction background and as much as I have had victory with my issues
with drugs, alcohol, and sexual immorality, I have had less success with
crucifying the flesh when it comes to food.
We
all have our weaknesses right? But as understandable as our weakness are, as
Christians who are seeking to live in the comfort and peace that comes from
walking in the Spirit, it is especially disappointing when we continually find
ourselves comforting ourselves with other things and neglecting the practices
that are based on the things we have learned and received in our walk of
faith.
I
know all about overcoming, making small and continuous progress, and being transparent
and accountable but somewhere along the line I decided to give up on the accomplishment
of my health goals and have given myself “grace” for my failures and by giving
myself “a break”. And now my back, and
my conscience, hurts because I have allowed myself to ignore my patterns of
compromise and to blatantly turn a blind eye to what was happening.
While
I have been rather diligent in following my eating plan during the week days, I
have also thrown my plan out the window on weekends and special occasions. In my faulty logic, I decided that “cheat”
days were okay!
But I
was only really cheating myself.
My
patterns of unbridled overeating on weekends and “special occasions” started
slow and have progressed over the last few months to the point where I have
gained back about 30 pounds from where I was, where I felt the joy and peace
that comes from carrying less weight and from being a good steward to the body
God gave me.
The
first conscious step on this slow down fall was the decision to stop weighing
myself. I thought I was being wise
because I didn’t want to be controlled by a number and thought that my body
would tell me what I needed to know, and it has been trying to tell me what I needed
to know for months – you are too heavy.
Another
subtle hint are the photos I see of myself that reveals, oh yes, you have
gained weight.
I
have struggled to right the ship and feel I have been up and down with success
but my weigh in today has told me that what may have felt like “ups and downs”
has in truth been a steady decline in progress and a significant increase in my
weight!
So I
am outing myself and resolving to weigh myself each week, like I had been when
I was making progress, to keep myself aware and accountable to myself and my
Lord if no one else, because frankly that is all we really have in the end- us
and God and that is a relationship that we have to honest in.
We
can’t blame others, weekends, or special occasions for diverting from the
things that we have “learned and received”.
So
like today’s Bible verse encourages us, I will encourage myself to simply do what
I have learned and received in the past, and use those strategies to be
successful again and to be diligent to stay in the guidelines that I had
established before.
God gives
us the desire and the power to overcome but we have to do our part and be
honest and transparent with ourselves and do the things we have learned and received,
without condemnations, but with the conviction that many times our suffering
comes from our denial, self deception, and failure to do what we know is
right.
So do
what you have learned and received, and as today’s verse the God of peace will
be with you to help you experience the peace of God and the good results that
come from living according to His wisdom and ways.
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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 Clinton E. Arnold’s
“Powers of Darkness”
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Clinton Arnold’s books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $20.00.
Hindering the Mission of the Church
Not
surprisingly, Satan also seeks to curtail the evangelistic efforts of
Christians. Evangelistic activity represents a frontal assault on Satan’s
dominion. Indeed he makes every effort to frustrate Christians who seek to
reveal the redemptive message of the gospel.
Satan is “the god of
this age,” who “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see
the light of the gospel” (2 Cor 4:4). The church’s mission is to bring sight to
the blind. The gospel must be proclaimed in the power of the Spirit because the
church faces an enemy of supernatural proportions, who commands a host of
angelic powers seeking to prevent the spread of the kingdom of Christ.
Paul gives us one
glimpse into the satanic opposition he himself faced in his endeavor to preach
the gospel to the Thessalonians. According to Luke’s account in Acts, Paul
barely had three weeks to preach the gospel to people in Thessalonica (Acts
17:1–9). He was forced to leave abrupdy because of a violent local outbreak of
persecution. Fearing for the spiritual well-being of those who had become
Christians, Paul earnestly wanted to return and spend more time with them. He
wrote the Thessalonians and told them that he and his companions had tried to
come to them again and again, “but Satan hindered us” (1 Thess 2:18 RSV).
Paul did not reveal
the specific manner in which Satan had thwarted his efforts, but certainly Paul
perceived the course of events preventing his return as the powerful working of
Satan and not as the redirecting providence of God through the Holy Spirit
(compare Acts 16:6–10). Commentators have made many suggestions as to how Satan
worked—through Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” opposition from the Jews and
restraint by the civic officials of Thessalonica. Whatever the method, Paul
perceived Satan’s hand as behind it.
Paul taught the
church that it, too, would face powerful demonic hostility when it preached the
gospel. Consequently, the church would need to depend on God’s power in order
to make the gospel effectively known. This reliance is essentially the
offensive aspect of “spiritual warfare” (Eph 6:10–20).
Paul taught that
Satan would actually set traps to malign the church and ultimately hinder its
mission in the world. One of the qualifications for an overseer is a good
reputation with non-Christians so that the leader would not be slandered and
thus cause the church disgrace (1 Tim 3:7). Paul described such a disgrace as falling
into “the devil’s trap.” According to Gordon Fee, “It is a trap set by the
devil when the behavior of the church’s leaders is such that outsiders will be
disinclined to hear the gospel.”
Such a disgrace to
the gospel could come not only through the church’s leaders, but also from the
rank-and-file members. Paul saw an opportunity for Satan to slander the church
when young widows became idle gossips and busybodies (1 Tim 5:13–16). As a
result, he counseled this group to get married, raise a family and manage their
households well.
There is a clear
lesson to learn from these two passages in 1 Timothy. Unruly or sinful behavior
among its members sharply blunts the ability of the church to reach its
community with the gospel of Christ. It is important for believers to resist
satanic impulses to displease God, not only for their own spiritual good, but
also for the effective evangelistic outreach of the church. Our lives must
adorn the good news we proclaim.[1]
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tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
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Encouragement for the Path of
Christian Discipleship
