Reflections and Breaking Resistance - Purity 799
Good morning,
Today’s photo of what I call “A River Torrens Reflection”
comes to us from Dave Baun Photography (https://www.facebook.com/DaveBaunPhotography)
as Dave made the best of the requirement to commute to work earlier than necessary
on Saturdays due to the local train schedule by taking walks with his camera
and capturing scenes like this along the way. Dave testifies that the time he
gets to spend doing something he loves before work on Saturday morning usually
sets him up for a very good day.
While I often say it’s not where you start but where you
finish that matters, I have to agree with Dave’s sentiments that doing
something you love to start the day can certainly help set us up to have a very
good day.
For me, my mornings are spent in the spiritual practices
of gratitude, prayer and meditation, and the study of God’s word. By reminding
myself of who I am in Christ, who God is, and all that He has done in my life,
I start the day humbled and grateful and use the time to ask the Lord to help
guide me through the day.
But I also use several days of the week to exercise my
body as my mind and spirit. Although our
Christian walk of faith is a spiritual endeavor, there are plenty of verses in
scripture that tell us that our bodies are important too. Our body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit, so we should be good stewards with what the Lord has
provided us with but scripture also indicates that part of our walk of faith involves
“crucifying the flesh” as we seek to walk in the Spirit and not in the
flesh.
While the world pushes comfort foods to provide self-care,
Christ said that the Holy Spirit would be our comforter. While we need food to live, we shouldn’t necessarily
live for food. When our relationship
with food is out of balance, our bodies show it with digestive issues and aches
and pains that result from weight gain.
So part of our spiritual walk should include a reflection
of how we are treating God’s temple and possibly the decision to make changes
in how and what we eat as well as taking time to exercise our bodies to make
them healthy and strong enough to diligently pursue what the Lord would have us
do.
Exercise enthusiasts will tell you all about the benefits
of exercise and I am here to encourage you that the care of our bodies isn’t
just a self-centered practice of vanity but can be a rich part of our daily
spiritual practice of walking in the Spirit.
I have struggled with overeating and seeking emotional
comfort from food for all my life and recently realized that even in the midst
of my regular practice exercise I had turned a blind eye to my eating habits
and the weight gain that resulted.
But my body was telling me all along that things weren’t
good as my back would periodically ache, but I resisted those messages and
persisted with my cheat days and what I though were only occasional over
indulgences.
But the truth is when you give up on your discipline over
what you eat, even just a little bit, it’s like you let the dam break and all
kinds of food comes flooding in.
Comedian Jim Breuer once did a routine about drinking and how drinking
was like a party in your stomach and how you shouldn’t mix different alcoholic
beverages because it would make you sick (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW-PqYrnruU)
. His routine documents how once you let
somethings into your life, other things just pour on in. In his routine, Breuer talks about how after
beer is let into the “party in our stomachs” other types of alcoholic beverages
sneak into the party with disastrous results – leading the stomach to throw everybody
out, and up!
Thankfully, even though I can relate to Breuer’s routine, the
Lord helped me to be set free from those problems forever. But the analogy of compromising our better
judgement still stands and I have seen how it goes that way for food. When you decide to indulge in sweets or other
foods that go against your health goals, your tendency to compromise again and again
increases and what may begin as a one time indulgence once a week turns into
regular “cheats” that compound over time and result in the pains of weight
gain.
In the process , you know its happening but you just
ignore it and you resist doing what you know have to do, you have to stop and
go back to the habits that gave you success but you resist it and keep it a
secret, and even may resort to secretly eating in front of others to hide your
compromise, at least I did!
But if you persist in your compromise the pain will
increase until it’s impossible to ignore anymore.
I heard it said somewhere that we only change when we are uncomfortable,
and it was only after being uncomfortable for quite sometime that I decided to
go back to the drawing board and try to get my temple back to where I had it. I
wish I had done it sooner, but I’m glad that I decided to confess it and to be
intentional about making the month of August a month where I get closer to
where was to get healthier.
I have learned that we are only as sick as our secrets and
if we are hiding our behaviors from others, we need to “rat ourselves out” to break
the resistance to change that seems so hard.
With one day in, I can say I am on the right track. My eating
yesterday was within the parameters of my plan and I exercised yesterday and did
again today and I feel good about it.
In my reflections of what I need to change, I have also resolved
to “stay out of enemy territory”. Before August, I had a tendency to throw all
my convictions to the wind when I found myself at parties or went to certain
places, saying “When in Rome!!”
But I was reminded of the importance of “places” for
people in recovery. Former alcoholics should avoid the places where they used
to drink. Similarly, I should avoid the places where I would eat the things I
shouldn’t. So I have resolved to stay away from Stewart’s. The only thing I get at Stewart’s, for the
most part, is their ice cream and when I do, I eat the whole half gallon! So, I
resolved that Stewart’s is “no man’s land”.
And I am also
recognizing my personal responsibility to be true to my health goals,
regardless of the places I go and the company I keep, so I will endeavor to try
to be “self-aware” and not declare that I am in the capital of Italy and let my
convictions roam.
The good news is that I am not alone. I have a wife who
supports me in this walk but I also have the Holy Spirit to lead me in the Spirit
and He has helped me to overcome this struggle in the past.
So as we go into the second day of this new month, let’s
keep walking and talking with God. Let’s
reflect on “the way life used to be” and all “the love” that the world the
flesh and the devil “took from me”, and decide that we are going to stop being
uncomfortable with the compromises in our lives that cause us pain and instead
decide to lean on the Lord for His strength and guidance to lead us in the way
we should go.
Hey Rome wasn’t built in a day and a journey of a thousand
miles begins with a single step, so put best foot forward, trust in the Lord, and
start walking towards the abundant life of freedom and victory that He has for
you,
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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:
Revelation 3:8 (NLT2)
8 “I
know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can
close. You have little strength, yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me.
Today’s verse comes from the Lord’s message to the church in Philadelphia and speaks of how the Lord gives us opportunities that no one can take away and the importance of being true to our relationship with God with obedience.
In that letter in the book of Revelation, the church at Philadelphia was facing challenges to their faith, but the Lord acknowledged their hear for Him and encouraged them to persevere in their faith and their obedience to His ways with the assurance that if they held on to what they had they would be protected and have a place in His kingdom forever.
So although we aren’t necessarily from Philadelphia, we can draw the general principle that God has “opened a door” for us that no one can close and that we should use our “little strength” to faithfully obey the Lord’s will for our lives, with the assurance of His divine favor and protection and our eternal place with Him.
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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.
Christ Alone Is Supreme
Paul
was convinced that the teaching of his opponents at Colossae presented a direct
challenge to the absolute lordship of Christ for these believers. By giving
credence to the “philosophy,” they were transferring their allegiance from
Christ and giving it to the principalities and powers. Quite likely fear of the
evil supernatural world motivated them in part. They continued to dread the
influence of terrestrial spirits who could injure them in day-to-day life, the
astral spirits who controlled their destiny, and the underworld spirits who
could torment them in the life hereafter. Could Christ truly protect them from
those powers? They wondered and were apprehensive. Their doubt compelled them
to take the “safest” route—worship Christ and
the other gods.
In order to restore
their confidence in the Lord Jesus, Paul began his letter by including one of
the most eloquent and moving pieces of poetic praise of Christ in all of
Scripture. Colossians 1:15–20 touchingly affirms the sole supremacy of Christ.
The poetic arrangement, choice of words and beautiful expression have caused
numerous scholars to refer to it as an early Christian hymn. Possibly Paul
quoted a hymn that was known and sung during worship in the Colossian and other
churches of Asia. Although Paul could have composed this passage specifically
for the Colossians, the rhetorical power of his argument is enhanced all the
more if he has cited an already existing hymn. In effect, the Colossians would
be guilty of not internalizing what they were reading and singing!
Paul prefaced the
hymn by establishing the fact that they are no longer in bondage to Satan’s
dominion. Paul says, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and
brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Col 1:13). The hymn then
brings out the Son’s character in a twofold way: Christ is both Lord of
creation and Lord of reconciliation.
As Lord of creation,
Christ is described in his unique relationship to the one, invisible God.
Christ is not himself an angelic intermediary or one among many. He has a
temporal priority over all of creation and is distinctively related to God by
being both the “image” of God and possessing all of the rights of a firstborn.
Christ is also Lord of creation because he is the Creator. Paul took special
pains to point out that he was not only the creator of everything on earth and
in heaven, but especially the realm most feared by the Colossians, the
invisible realm “whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities” (1:16). In
fact, these powers owe their continued existence to Christ since he is the
sustainer of the creation (1:17).
As Lord of
reconciliation, Christ is portrayed in the second part of the hymn in his role
as bringing ultimate harmony to all of his creation. Marred by rebellion against
the purpose of God, the creation faces constant upheaval and distress due to
the degenerative impact of evil. The work of Christ provides the basis of hope
for the future. At the consummation of the age, all things will be reconciled
to God through Christ. Again, Paul stressed that “all things” include the
heavenly entities, namely the principalities and powers.
This hymn brilliantly
affirms the lordship of Christ over the principalities and powers. How
comforting it must have been for the Colossians to be reassured that Christ is
superior to the powers they fear and once worshiped. He not only created them,
but he is their life-giving sustainer. History is in his control, and the
powers will ultimately be brought to their knees before him.
Paul continued to
build his case for the supremacy of Christ by declaring later in the letter
that Christ is “the head over every power and authority” (Col 2:10). This is
based on the fact that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily
form” (Col 2:9), which was also evinced in the hymn (Col 1:19): “For God was
pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” Christ is again portrayed in a
unique and close unity with the God of Israel. Tom Wright explains that the
incarnation of Christ “was and is the ‘solid reality’ in which were fulfilled
all the earlier foreshadowings, all the ancient promises that God would dwell
with his people.” God is now truly with his people, indwelling their lives and
giving them direction and strength. In verse 10, the emphasis falls on the
certainty of Christ’s control over the powers—not one evil angelic power stands
outside the sphere of his sovereignty. Believers now share in this authority.
The high point of his
case for the supremacy of Christ over the powers comes at Colossians 2:15. The
principalities and powers were defeated on the cross. This sign of the end for
the powers was decisive. They were stripped of their compelling influence over
believers. They are now like vicious dogs on a leash. Although they are still
active and continue to wreak havoc and promote evil, they are under the control
and authority of one more powerful, one they are compelled to obey.
Christ is not one
among a number of powers at a certain level of the angelic hierarchy. He is at
the top. He is supreme. Despite the claims of other religions and counter to
the assumptions of magic, the Colossians could truly worship Christ as
pre-eminent. In spite of Paul’s eloquent and powerful case to this effect, we
cannot minimize the difficulty it would have been for the Colossian believers
to believe this truth in the deepest recesses of their consciousness. Years of
believing in a multiplicity of gods and spirits and learning how each could be
placated is quite different than trusting in one—who is so different.[1]
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tomorrow------------------------
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness:
Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove,
IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 1992), 142–144.
