Not Doing What You “Know” You Should – Statements of Truth – 9 – Purity 1133

Not Doing What You “Know” You Should – Statements of
Truth – 9  – Purity 1133

Purity 1133 08/29/2023 

Purity 1133 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of “the last sunset of the cruise”
comes to us from Rebekah Habinowski who shared this scene from her family vacation
cruise, on social media back on August 19^th along with the sentiment
to “go big or go home”. Although in the same post, Rebekah also admitted that while
their 14-day European vacation to Italy, Greece, and Turkey, was a wonderful
way to close the summer, her family was also very ready to be back home with
Cooper, the family dog.  So even though
we can explore and see all kinds of wonders in this world in many ways there is
no place like home for finding peace.

Well, It’s Tuesday and while I have not made my way
to experience a Mediterranean cruise yet, you can put it on the bucket list I suppose
but before that my wife and I have agreed in principle to join our church’s
planned tour of the Holy Land in February of 2025.  I’m not sure what the details are as of yet,
but Jerusalem is only an hour’s drive to the Mediterranean and I would imagine
that we just might get there.  

Anyway that’s over a year away from now, but that
reminds me of the importance of making long-term plans.  I have often said that you never do what you
never plan and while wishing and hoping and imagining can fill our minds with
delight, it’s better to actually do what you want to do rather than just talk
about it.  

As I will be facilitating the Celebrate Freedom (Recovery/
Joyful Discipleship) Growth Group meeting tomorrow night, I know that our
emphasis can be on doing things “one day at a time” but I also know that it’s
not a bad idea to anticipate good things in the future.  Last week, I made a bold prediction and made
the commitment publicly to have victory over my food addiction for 1 year on
August 18, 2024. While I am less than 2 weeks into that plan, I can report that
I have been successful at logging my food intake and staying within my food
plan’s limits and am celebrating that fact this morning by just “feeling good”.  While I wrestled with this particular issue
for all my life, I decided that since I was leading a recovery group I would
get serious about having victory over it once and for all.  So I am taking things one day at a time and
keeping my eye on the prize and can’t wait to see what things will look like in
2024 when I stay the course.   

Last week, others in the group announced their
intentions to take on challenges they haven’t taken seriously as well, and it
is encouraging to be a part of a community that is committed to growth and
supporting one another in our efforts to be free of our particular hurts,
habits, and hang-ups.  

One person at our group however is at the “willingness
stage” I think, maybe.  They marveled
over how they knew what habit  they had
to quit but how “for some reason” they just didn’t do it.  I encouraged them to go to the Lord in prayer
and ask God to help them make that decision and to give them the strength to
follow through by doing what they said they “knew” they should do.  

I’m familiar with that sentiment of course. I “knew”
I should have quit drinking years before I did but mental knowledge and a heart’s
conviction are two different things. To know the “truth” intellectually and
experientially is the difference between denial and remaining in bondage and
acceptance and pursuing freedom.  So I
pray the Lord helps them to “get there” because while I can’t make someone
pursue their freedom, I know the Lord would be faithful to help them if they
ask Him to help. 

Saying we know what we have to do and choosing
not to do it is really lying to ourselves. 
When we say we know what we have to do and don’t do it really means we don’t
want to do it and while our capacity and ability to accomplish the task before
us, when we don’t even try, it reveals we don’t want to.   

As for bad habits and negative mind states like
anxiety or depression, God doesn’t want you living there. That’s the truth and
He will help those who ask Him for it and decide to follow Him to experience
the truth of His power that can be experienced right now.   God will show us the truth that will set us free,
but we have to seek Him and follow Him to “know” it.   

And that brings us to our current series –
Statements of Truth – that springs from the last portion of Step # 2, Deception
Vs. Truth, of the Steps to Freedom in Christ by Dr. Neil Anderson            

That step deals with Deception, and because we have
completed the process of examining, confessing, and renouncing all of the ways
we have been deceived. the good doctor prescribes a healthy dose of truth for us:

Anderson introduces the Statements of Truth by
stating: 

“For two thousand years Christians have known the
importance of verbally and publicly declaring truth. Read aloud the following
statements of truth, and carefully consider what you are professing. You may
find it helpful to read them aloud every day for at least six weeks, which will
help you renew your mind to the truth.”

So for our current series, we are presenting each of
the remaining 3 Statements of Truth from Step 2 of the Steps to Freedom in
Christ, one at a time, We are declaring them verbally and publicly, because we,
like the Christians who have gone before us over the last two thousand years.
know the importance of doing so. 

We are also sharing the statement’s associated Bible
verses and sharing our thoughts about what each Statement of Truth is telling
us, why they are important, and how they apply to our lives as Christians.  

So today’s Statement of Truth is:

9.    By faith, I choose to be filled with the Spirit so
that I can be guided into all truth. I choose to walk by the Spirit so that I
will not carry out the desires of the flesh.

And the Bible verses listed with this statement
are: 

John 16:13 (NKJV)
¹³  However,
when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for
He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will
speak; and He will tell you things to come.

Galatians 5:16 (NKJV)
¹⁶  I say then: Walk in the
Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Ephesians 5:18 (NKJV)
¹⁸  And do not be drunk with
wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,

Today’s statement of truth tells us that
we have to “choose to be filled with the Holy Spirit” so that we can be guided
into all truth. That’s a spiritual journey that involves prayer, seeking God’s
presence, meditating on God’s word, and following Him to where He leads.  However, this also involves making the
constant and continuous decision to  not
carry out the desires of the flesh. 
Spirit living and fleshly living are at odds with one another, and we
simply cannot expect to be filled with the Spirit if we are still slaves to the
flesh.  

I just saw a meme this morning that
declared that “those who walk in the flesh have pleasure, those that walk in
the Spirit have power.” And that is the truth. 
For those who have experienced the manifest power and infilling of the
Holy Spirit in their lives, a common “step” that led to that encounter is
repentance – turning from the world and its pleasures – renouncing sin and
turning to God.  

In my case, it was only after I went
into recovery that I had a life-changing experience with the Holy Spirit that
erased any and all doubts of the Lord’s existence, the truth of Christianity,
and the depth of God’s love for me.  Talk
about a game-changer! There is nothing like experiencing the Holy Spirit’s
manifest presence to lead you to follow the Lord all the days of your
life.  

So choose to be filled with the Holy Spirit
and do not carry out the desires of the flesh and wait and see how the Lord will
lead you into all truth by showing you that He is with you and where He is
there is peace, love, and power!

——————————————————————————————–

Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.

(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick
google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late
author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This
morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Alcohol & Drug Abuse

Proverbs 23:29-35 (ESV)
²⁹  Who has woe? Who has
sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who
has redness of eyes?
³⁰  Those who tarry long over
wine; those who go to try mixed wine.
³¹  Do not look at wine when
it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.
³²  In the end it bites like a
serpent and stings like an adder.
³³  Your eyes will see strange
things, and your heart utter perverse things.
³⁴  You will be like one who
lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast.
³⁵  “They struck me,” you will
say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I
awake? I must have another drink.”

Today’s
verses fall under the fourth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Alcohol
& Drug Abuse.

 5. Heavy drinking brings misery.

Today’s verses are a
picture of the life of a drunk and it’s not a pretty picture. The alcohol
industry sells its wares by showing parties with smiling faces of beautiful people,
but it rarely indicates the pain of the morning after and all the negative
consequences that come from abusing alcohol. The broken families, the
depression, sexual sin, loneliness, the anger, and the fear that plague
alcoholics will never be highlighted by a multi-billion dollar industry that profits
from addiction.  And not forget the lost
lives from accidents cause by drunkenness….

Anyway, the Bible tells it
like it is and for those who are trapped in the vicious cycle of alcoholism, you
already know you should quit, and I encourage you to avoid heavy drinking and
to go to the Lord and to a recovery program to stop the pain of alcoholism and
to find your freedom in Christ

——————————————————————–

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  The Holy Spirit By A.W. Pink.

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available online
for $0.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Arthur-Pink-Collection-ebook/dp/B008CM5292/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AHKAQOM39CTN&keywords=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit&qid=1684376225&sprefix=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit+%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-3) 

A.W. Pink’s The Holy Spirit

22 – The Spirit Assuring

“Not
Received the Spirit of Bondage”

Now, in verse 15, the Apostle both amplifies
and confirms what he had said in verse 14: there he shows the reality of that
relationship with God which our regeneration makes manifest—obedient subjection
to Him as dear children. Here he brings before us further proof of our Divine
sonship—deliverance from a servile fear, the exercise of a filial confidence.
Let us consider the negative first: “For ye have not received the spirit of
bondage again to fear.” By nature we were in “bondage” to sin, to Satan, to the
world; yet they did not work in us a spirit of “fear,” so they cannot be (as
some have supposed) what the Apostle had reference to; rather is it what the
Spirit’s convicting us of sin wrought in us. When He applies the Law to the
conscience our complacency is shattered, our false peace is destroyed, and we
are terrified at the thought of God’s righteous wrath and the prospect of
eternal punishment.

When a soul has
received life and light from the Spirit of God, so that he perceives the
infinite enormity and filthiness of sin, and the total depravity and corruption
of every faculty of his soul and body, that spirit of legality which is in all men by nature, is at once stirred up and
alarmed, so that the mind is possessed with secret doubts and suspicions of
God’s mercy in Christ to save. Thereby the soul is brought into a state of
legal bondage and fear. When a soul is first awakened by the Holy Spirit, it is
subject to a variety of fears; yet it does not follow from thence that He works those fears or is the Author of
them: rather are they to be ascribed unto our own unbelief. When the Spirit is
pleased to convict of sin and gives the conscience to feel the guilt of it, it
is to show him his need of Christ,
and not to drive unto despair.

No doubt there is
also a dispensational allusion in the passage we are now considering. During
the Mosaic economy, believing Israelites were to a considerable extent under
the spirit of legal bondage because the sacrifices and ablutions of the
Levitical institutions could not take away sins. The precepts of the ceremonial
law were so numerous, so various, so burdensome, that the Jews were kept in
perpetual bondage. Hence, we find Peter referring to the same as “a yoke which
neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” (Acts 15:10). Much under the Old
Testament dispensation tended to a legal spirit. But believers, under the
Gospel, are favored with a clearer, fuller, and more glorious display and
revelation of God’s grace in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Evangel making known the design and sufficiency of His finished work, so that
full provision is now made to deliver them from all servile fear.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

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These teachings are also available on the
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Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
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My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ),  her
Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

For those who require the assistance of a Deeper
Walk International Prayer Minister to experience healing or your freedom in
Christ, I highly recommend Christy Edge’s Life on the Edge Freedom Prayer
Ministry. You can schedule a session by going to : https://cedge216.wixsite.com/life-on-the-edge     

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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship