Wherever You Go – Exposing the Enemy Along for the Ride – Purity 637

Purity
637 01/25/2022   Purity 637 Podcast

Good
morning,

Today’s photo of the escaping
wake of a boat speeding away from an illuminated bridge and the fading light of
daylight comes to us from a friend’s 12 day Florida holiday get away where they
left 2021 behind as they visited Dunedin, Clearwater, St. Pete Beach, Treasure
Island, St. Petersburg, and Tampa all for the first time. 

As I prepare myself for a short Florida vacation
less than a month away I look forward to seeing sights like this one but am
reminded of the old adage of “wherever you go, there you are.” 

Ironically, as “Zen” or “New Age” spiritual as
that saying may seem to be, my limited research this morning indicates that one
source of this saying has a Christian origin. “A non-humorous precursor
appeared in the devotional book “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas à Kempis
published in Latin in the 1400s. An 1881 translation into English by Reverend
W. H. Hutchings contained the following passage about human suffering:[2]

“No one is so touched with a heartfelt
sense of the Passion of Christ, as the man whose lot it has been to suffer like
things. The cross, then, is always at hand, and everywhere awaits you.

You cannot escape it, run where you will;
for wherever you go, you take yourself with you, and you will always find
yourself.”   (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/11/22/where-you-go/#:~:text=Wherever%20you%20go%2C%20there%20you,you%20will%20always%20find%20yourself.)

This reminds me of the verse I shared from Psalm
139 yesterday where David mused about God’s omnipresence which said:

Psalm 139:8 (NKJV) ₈ If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If
I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

The Lord is everywhere and as far as our
perspective is concerning ourselves, so are we. 
We cannot escape from the Lord’s presence or knowledge and even though
we can “take it on the road” and see new sites, wherever we go we will find
ourselves there with the question of “who we are?” left to answer.    

I have just finished a 21 day fast and was
thrilled with the results of weight loss and the exercise of self-control that
I was able to exhibit for those few weeks but since I began eating again I
realize that I didn’t escape from “my dark passenger”, to borrow a euphemism
from the Showtime Series “Dexter”.  

The “food addict” with his compulsive eating
habits, secretive ways, and rebellious, self-deceiving, and sabotaging modus
operandi is still there waiting to bust loose. 
On the first day after fasting I overindulged in some holiday peanuts
that had survived untouched and yesterday I ate a sleeve of girl scout cookies “that
just needed” to be gotten rid of.   

These treats are not the end of the world, but
they are antithetical to my intention to avoid high sugar and high carbohydrate
foods but what I really didn’t like was the semi-mindless way I consumed them
and the fact that I knowingly ate them in secret which echoes behavior patterns
that go back as far as early childhood when I first started to sneak food.

I don’t want to be that scared child sneaking
food for comfort and pleasure and I don’t want to be a person that has secrets that
I feel I must hide to be acceptable to others. 
I also don’t want to be someone who sabotages my own intentions for
healthy living.     

In the 90’s remake of Cape Fear, the villain played
by Robert DeNiro, chains himself to the underside of  Nick Nolte’s family’s automobile and although
they believe they are traveling to safety to the family houseboat, they are
unwittingly taking their own worst enemy along for the ride.  This analogy shows us that we have to be diligent
in making sure we are not dragging our old tendencies and patterns of behavior
into new situations.  

So, before writing this, I ratted myself out to
my wife, confessing my snacking indiscretions and my intentions to live
honestly with her with the hopes that my confessions and the trust we build in
our relationship will help me to expose this “dark passenger” and leave him
with no where left to hide.  

If I shine the light of truth on his presence and
use it to expose the lies that he likes to perpetuate, I believe that God will
help me to leave “him” and his dysfunctional patterns of behavior in the past.   

Through our faith in Christ, we become members of
the kingdom of light and truth and when we walk into the new person of who we
are in Christ, we can have freedom and victory over even the most persistent
patterns of dysfunctional behaviors. Luckily our walk isn’t about perfection,
its about progress and every time we confess our failures we give the enemy
less room to operate.    

So, keep walking and talking with God. When you
see yourself starting to act in ways that go against what you want to do, rat
yourself out and restate your intention to follow the Lord into the person you
want to be.  

While it is true that wherever we go, there we
are, if we keep walking with God we will be amazed to discover that the “you” we
will find at our next destination is not the one that we left behind and that “dark
passenger” is no longer along for the ride. 
  

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book
for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 138:3 (NLT2)
³  As soon as I pray, you
answer me; you encourage me by giving me strength.

Today’s verse speaks
of the immediate strength we can receive from the Lord when we reach out to Him
in prayer.  

The best
illustration of the truth of this Bible verse for me was the testimony of a man
that I heard at the one and only meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous that I ever attended.  

If you are
unfamiliar, I attended and eventually led a Christian Recovery Program that
used John Baker’s Celebrate Recovery lessons for most of the teaching material.
Baker’s program is unapologetically Christian and names God the Father, Christ
the Son, and The Holy Spirit – the Triune God, as the One and only Higher
Power.  

AA on the other
hand is far less specific and demanding on making that claim and allows its
participants to choose whatever “higher power” they wish, which can range from
the traditional triune God of Christianity to the absurdness of anything from
the pop star, Tina Turner,  to the flying
Spaghetti Monster.  

As open as AA
tries to be, the Christian roots of the movement are somewhat inescapable and
the AA meeting’s forms and traditions are akin to a liturgical church service.     If Celebrate Recovery meetings are akin to
a Bible believing – Spirit Filled encounter, the AA meeting is analogous to a
Catholic mass or other liturgical service.     

But regardless
to the “liturgical” forms that are apparent at the AA meeting, the one I
attended had some hostile elements who openly wished to silence any talk of
faith and instead stood on the merits of community and “the program”.    

However, at that
one meeting I attended in spite the opposition, one man gave a testimony for
what he believed to be the reason for his years of successful sobriety: prayer.
 

He openly
confessed that He didn’t know much about the Bible or church history but stated
that in the early days of his struggles to be sober his sponsor advised him to
go to the Lord in prayer every time he felt the need to drink to ask for God’s
help and strength to overcome.  

This man testified
that every time He prayed to God for strength, he received it and he had
repeated that simple formula and was enjoying over 20 years of sobriety because
of the strength he received from the Lord.  

Although, this
man didn’t claim to know God, his continual testimony at AA speaks of the truth
of God’s love and power to help those who ask.    

So if you need
strength, go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him for it.  The Lord loves us, and He wants to help us.

God the Father sent
Jesus to save us and to lead us into a new life. So make Jesus your Lord and
Savior to make sure you will be in His kingdom when He returns or when you are
called into eternity, and in the meantime receive the strength that only God
can give by going to Him in prayer.   

 

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 to share from Dr. Neil Anderson’s
. “Restored: Experience Life with Jesus”. Today, we conclude sharing from
Chapter 5.   

As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase Dr. Neil Anderson’s books for your own private
study and to support his work.

STEP FOUR: DEALING WITH REBELLION

The Apostle James wrote, “Submit
therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”₁₁₇ Submitting
to God enables us to resist the devil. The prayer that begins this Step is a
commitment to forsake rebellion and choose a submissive spirit, as follows:

Dear Heavenly Father,

You have said in the Bible that
rebellion is the same thing as witchcraft and as bad as idolatry (see 1 Samuel
15:23). I know I have not always been submissive, but instead I have rebelled
in my heart against You and against those You have placed in authority over me.
I pray that You would show me all the ways I have been rebellious. I choose to
adopt a submissive spirit and a servant’s heart. In Jesus’ precious name I
pray. Amen.

AREAS OF REBELLION

As the Lord leads you, prayerfully
consider the ways you have been rebellious toward the following lines of
authority:

·      
Civil government
including traffic laws, tax laws, attitude toward government officials (See
Romans 13:1-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-17.)

·      
Parents, stepparents,
or legal guardians (See Ephesians 6:1-3.)

·      
Teachers, coaches,
school officials (See Romans 13:1-4.)

·      
Employers (past and
present) (See 1 Peter 2:18-23.)

·      
Husband (See 1 Peter
3:1-4.) or Wife (See Ephesians 5:21; 1 Peter 3:7.) {Note to husbands: Take a
moment and ask the Lord if your lack of love for your wife could be fostering a
rebellious spirit within her. If so, confess that now as a violation of
Ephesians 5:22, 23.}

·      
Church leaders (See
Hebrews 13:17.)

·      
God (See Daniel 9:5,
9.)

 

The following prayer is an opportunity
for you to confess your rebellion:

Lord Jesus, I confess that I have been
rebellious toward _____________ (name or position), by (specially confess what
you did or did not do). Thank You for Your forgiveness. I choose to be
submissive and obedient to Your Word. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE:

OVERCOMING REBELLION

88. Matthew 6:24

89. Genesis 3:5

90. Galatians 5:23

91. 1 Samuel 15:23

92. Romans 13:1, 2

93. Acts 5:29

94. Daniel 1:9

95. Matthew 6:9-13

96. Hebrews 13:17

97. Numbers 14:11-19

98. 1 Timothy 2:1, 2  

99. 1 Peter 2:18-20

100. Matthew 6:11

101. Matthew 6:12

102. Acts 8:23

103. Matthew 6:13

104. 1 Peter 2:14

105. Daniel 6:7

106. James 1:27

107. Ephesians 5:21

108. Ephesians 5:21-24; 1 Peter 3:1-6