Repentance - Independently Dependent on God - Purity 1389

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning! Today's photo of a hazy, misty sunrise on the shores of Lake Lucerne in Lucerne, Switzerland comes to us from Michael Grace, who is currently sharing lots of his views on social media of his European vacation. Although Mike's photos may fill me with wanderlust to boldly go overseas, I am reminded of my friend's wisdom in doing so with an organized tour group, because sometimes it is best to exercise our freedom within certain boundaries and overseen by someone who knows the way. Well, it is Monday, July 1st, and as we Americans near and far are preparing for our country's Independence Day on Thursday, I am similarly reminded of how good it is to to live free in Christ, but to be guided by the Lord's word and the Spirit's— the Holy Spirit's ways. After surviving through my birthday month, I am ready to put to death any semblance of pride because it's a sin and because sometimes the exercise of our supposed freedom really is our choice to be obedient to the bondage of the flesh. June's periodic fleshly indulgences in the areas of food, of food caused by my spirit, by the spirit of my birthday, my months, months-long birthday celebration have me feeling listless, guilty, and ready to repent. So it's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life in Christ, and a new month to renew our intention to walk in the spirit. Rather than rolling around in the flesh. According to Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything under heaven, and seeing as my flesh has abused the time to gain, I think it's time to lose whatever extra weight I have undoubtedly picked up and to resume my commitment to my physical health with a time of fasting of sorts. I'm no— I am no stranger to fasting and may go all may go all out with a no— with a nothing but water fast if I feel the Spirit move me. But for today, I feel content with being true to my carb— my low-carb, macro-sensible food plan that will turn the tide of indulgence and get me back on track in a few days. During this current season of resting before recovery ministry season resumes in a few weeks, I feel the call to enjoy the time off, but rather— but after June's foolish choices, I know I have to be more self-aware and dependent on God. Ironically, when we want to be free, we have to choose to be dependent on God. Trying to change or taking corrective action will have limited results when we do it in our own strength, but when we rely on God's strength, comfort, and guidance, we can overcome discover a whole new life. So I'm going back to basics and going to turn away from the flesh by pressing into the Spirit. Fasting is one of the best ways to combat the flesh and to be more dependent on God. And as quote-unquote fate would have it, this morning's devotional offering from The Chosen's Get Used to Different student guide that I'm reading through just happened to be on the topic of, you guessed it, fasting. So let me share a little bit of the tail end of chapter 26 on fasting, uh, to invite us all into the fasting spirit. The Chosen team writes, Jesus clearly stated that the Father will reward you for fasting, which means the exercise of fasting isn't really about skipping a meal but about getting a reward. Of course, we fast to remind our bodies who, who we're truly dependent on. We fast to establish God at the center of our lives. We fast to find freedom from self-medication.

We've asked to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, but we also fast to get a reward.

The chosen team then suggests that fasting um, from more than food, uh, suggests fasting from more than food by suggesting that our phones and technology could be fasted from. And they write, and so intentionally unplugging from techs— tech for a brief time might be exactly what your heart and mind need. But we digress. Regardless of what you choose to fast from, your urges can act as reminders to move toward Jesus. To pray, to praise, to read your Bible, to reach out to someone who might need a kind word, to rest, to lean into the Lord, declaring your dependency on him and freedom from everything else. By entrusting yourself to the Lord, even when it comes to something as important as food, you're ensuring a reward— that God— that the God who sees what you do in secret will draw near And there is literally nothing more soul satisfying than that. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Humble yourself before the Lord and he will exalt you. James 4:8, 10. Then the chosen team invites us to pray. Father, you are so good. You hold the weight of the world in your hands, yet you care deeply for me. You alone know what I need. I've become dependent on so many things that aren't you. Help me know what I need to fast from, Father. Then give me the strength to do it, because I know I can't do it on my own.

Amen.

So on the first day of the month when millions of Americans will declare their freedom, I choose to repent of my selfish, foolish, and fleshly indulgences and choose to ask God to help me live in the Spirit instead. I independently choose to make myself dependent on God because I know He cares for me and He will lead me in the way I should go. You know, the Word says that today is the day of salvation, so we should never put off tomorrow our decision to turn toward God when when our hearts and minds recognize that we need help. So today, I surrender. I give up doing things my way. I give up the foolishness of living in ways that I know just don't work and weigh heavy on my mind, body, soul, and spirit. I choose life and life more abundantly by choosing to follow Jesus and by fasting from the things that separate me. From him. Today's Bible verses come from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on Example, Good or Bad. And today's verses are from 1 Thessalonians 1:5-7 from the New American Standard Bible say, for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. Just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. Today's verses fall under the fourth point of the, our counseling reference resource section on example. And that fourth point is: Paul taught new Christians at Thessalonica by his godly example, and so they soon became good examples of—

for others.

Today's verses speak of the power of living in the Spirit and how our being imitators of the Lord can not only impact our own lives with the joy of the Spirit, but can be an example of believers everywhere. The reason I blog, besides the discipline of journaling and the healing power of being transparent and confessing my weaknesses, is that I want to be an example of someone who is earnestly trying to follow the Lord, albeit imperfectly. While this battle with the flesh in the area of food addiction is an ongoing struggle, my experience of freedom and victory in other addictive areas demonstrates the possibility of freedom. And that is the example that I want to impress upon everyone. Freedom through our faith in Jesus Christ is possible. You need only follow Him and His ways to find it. And not for nothing, but even my failures can be an example to you, a bad one, not to be followed. Victory and freedom are established through diligence and leaning on the Lord, but maintaining your freedom requires consistency and continued diligence. So I just have to lean on the Lord and pray that the bumps in the road of 2024 will help me to learn, to learn how to stop the insanity and live free in the future. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.com, 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 According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And today's devotion highlights chapter—

oh, let's see—

1 Corinthians chapter 15. And from that chapter, Alford shares a portion of verse 10, which says, I labored, yet not I, but the grace of God which was in me. And Stephen Alford writes, how forcibly I am reminded of that other scripture which reads like this one. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20. In that Galatians scripture, it is Christ supreme in, in life. Here it is Christ supreme in service. Paul could say, by the grace of God I am what I am. 1 Corinthians 15:10. Grace has changed him, grace has made him, and now grace was using him. I labored, yet not I, but the grace. Verse 10: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9. This is grace: self-depreciation, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice for the blessing of of others. And Alfred ends his devotion by praying, Grace, grace, God's grace, may such grace be at work in and through my life and service. Amen.

Amen.

And, you know, grace, grace, grace is sometimes confused because, you know, the definition of grace, I think we know— Amazing Grace saved a wretch like me— and and grace upon grace and whatnot. But, you know, grace— one of the definitions for grace is divine favor. You know, God gives us favor.

You know, we're saved by grace and through faith in Jesus Christ.

It was God's favor towards us, and he pours it into our lives. And that grace sort of is like an outflowing of the Spirit when we decide to follow him.

And that's what's offered, sort of showing here in the service, you know, that, you know, how did, how did Paul do all these things?

It was by the grace of God that empowered him.

It gave him motivation and power to overcome really hard circumstances, to share the gospel and to do good works, and miraculous works at that.

You know, it's all through the grace of God. Why are some people healed and some people not? Well, some people, you know, the miraculous power is because of God's grace.

He doesn't have to choose to give us his favor, but he can choose to. And so we have to ask for his grace, and that requires us to be humble, to ask him for help. And that's what I'm doing today.

I'm sort of sick and tired of being sick and tired of myself, you know, so What you do is you stop the insanity and turn back to God.

And you know, when you get in that addictive tendency, it becomes hard to get free because you get in a cycle of just giving in. And that's what I've discovered. And it wasn't major, it's just like, you know, choosing foods that I normally don't eat, which just happened to destroy any, you know, my metabolism. And I know this, you know, that the scale starts to go in the wrong direction.

Instead of staying steady or decreasing, it increases. So, you know, I don't want to go back to where I was.

I want to go back to where I— well, I want to go back to where I was before all of the indulgences, and I certainly don't want to go back to where I was last year where I was much heavier. So we want to, we want to be healthy and be good stewards of our body. And so it's not about perfection, it's just about health and trying to honor God with what he's given me, which is this body. And I only get one of them for a lifetime, so until it's glorified, I'm gonna have to, you know, work, work on it. So But the way you work on it is not by yourself. Granted, it is me exercising and me doing the work of, you know, controlling what goes in and out of my mouth, but God can help me with that when I ask him to help me. And so I'm gonna ask, "Lord, help me today." And there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, so I'm not gonna beat myself up about it, but We gotta move forward.

In fact, I was gonna write about the fact that, you know, our confession sometimes can be, you know, the thing that holds us back. You know, "Oh, I keep messing up, Lord. I keep messing up. I keep messing up. Please forgive me." And somewhere along the lines, you know, we stay in that cycle, we're really not accepting His forgiveness. We're just choosing to roll around in it.

And they ask me how I know. You know, I've been there, I've done that, and sort of did that in June.

So today's a new month.

We're gonna try to start over because I really think, you know, not only do we suffer personally when we go off the path, but it also kills our witness. You know, when we join other people and their compromises, we're not doing them a favor either.

You know, "Oh good, he is only human." Yeah, great.

We can all roll around in the mud together. Yikes. Instead, we should all be healthy together, encourage one another in the way we should go.

Rather than going, "Yep, yep, just like the rest of us.

Yep, yep." You know, that's worldly wisdom, and that's sort of, you know, like group hopelessness, you know, that no one's trying. So you got a house full of obese people, one person that tries fails, and then everyone's happy because they fail. You know, this is the demonic world that we live in, that we would, we would celebrate someone's failure rather than being, you know, rather than being convicted of it and moving towards freedom together. We'd rather pull somebody back into the dirt. Yikes. Anyway, that's human nature though. We don't want anyone better than ourselves. So we'd rather drag people down than, uh, all of us moving up.

But the Lord's got a different way, and that's why he calls us out.

We're the called-out ones, as we talked about yesterday in our Bible study. The church is called out. Called out of what?

Called out of the darkness of the world, the ways of the world.

Um, you know, just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean it's right. And so We're going to follow the Lord and, uh, you know, do that not just in our words but with our actions and with our minds, hearts, souls, and bodies. Our bodies are to be living sacrifices. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to demonstrate that we understand what we've been given and that we appreciate it.

So that's where I am today.

Um, repentance is a new day, so we start new and fresh, and, uh, there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. So we let go of the past and move toward the future by living one day at a time, here today and forevermore.

All right, well, that's it. I do have a day job. It was a short weekend because I had to work Saturday, and, uh, so we're going back into it. And of course, the madness will continue on Wednesday, Wednesday evening we move into Thursday's holiday, so there could be more time to celebrate there.

And so we got to be careful when we struggle with food addiction, you know. Not every day is a holiday, holiday, but we can make it one if we choose to. We could also choose to make it a holy day by following the Lord, so we're going to choose that. And, you know, resist, go against the tide of indulgence, and instead live in the freedom that the Lord wants for us. So I'm going to pray about that right now.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in the— in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for the wake-up call. We want to stay awake, we want to stay in the light, we don't want to go back into darkness, and we need your help.

And so we're going to rely on you. We're going to turn from, you know, the ways of the world that would so easily move us into sin. Um, so help us God, we accept your forgiveness and we move forward in truth and in the spirit. We need your help with this, so we're, we're asking for your help. Please help us stay self-aware and to stay on task, do what we need to do to day and nothing more. Um, so help us God.

Lord, we also pray for, uh, anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests, their walk of faith, because we all need the help on this thing, Lord.

Um, so we're asking for it. So please go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, help us to do the things we need to do today, and and, uh, lead us in your everlasting way instead of the ways of the flesh.

Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.