The Practice and Habit of Turning Mountains into Mole Hills – Purity 1157

The Practice and Habit of Turning Mountains into Mole
Hills – Purity 1157

Purity 1157 09/27/2023 Purity 1157 Podcast

Purity 1157 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a bird’s eye view of the sun and
clouds over a mountainous island surrounded by water comes to us from Chriss
Osswald who shared this scene from his visit to Crater Lake National Park in
Oregon back on September 15^th.  

Well, It is Wednesday, and I thought that the
collapsed remnant of what was Mount Mazama in Oregon was an adequate way to
visually represent our arrival at another midweek summit – and to represent how
a change in perspective, and our continued efforts at repentance, can make big
problems smaller.   

Tonight the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group meets at
Starpoint Church and when we “check in” I will be happy to announce that this
week will mark 6 weeks of victory over my food addiction as 39 days ago I was
convicted in my heart to turn my struggle into a battle and to start fighting
it in earnest.  So, I enlisted the help of
Scott Salvadore to be my accountability partner, started logging all my food
intake into the My Fitness Pal App, and became more conscious of what my
various food choices “cost me”.  

I am a child of the 80’s which witnessed the
resurgence and expansion of “G.I. Joe” into the cartoon realm. One of the
segments in the G.I. Joe cartoon was to give kids practical advice on how to be
aware of the consequences of their actions and to “make good choices” by
presenting little life lessons that always ended with the proclamation that “knowing
was half the battle”.    

In the last 39 days, I have been made aware of the “caloric,
carb, and fat” costs of the foods I eat and now “know” what foods “cost too
much” and should be avoided to keep me within the “budget” of my food
plan. 

But knowing that really was only half the battle! Previously,
I “knew” what foods to avoid but I wasn’t intentional about monitoring my food
intake and staying within the limits that would result in my drawing nearer to a
healthy lifestyle outside of the obesity zone. If I wanted success, I needed to
be consistent in my efforts and log my performance and progress.  So I had to “get serious” and stay the course
without “cheat days, nights, or weekends”. 
 

Another problem with my “general desire to be
healthy” 40 days ago was that I was more or less “going it alone” as the only
people I was accountable to was “me, myself, and I.” and I had a bad habit of
giving myself “grace” to compromise my convictions and fail at my food plan
with my changing emotions or with periodic indulgences.  I was a master of self-sabotage and didn’t even
really “know it” or didn’t let that continuous self-betrayal “sting” and cause
me to see that I was my own worst enemy.  

I saw a gif this morning reminding Christians that “everything
isn’t Satan” and that some of our defeat is because of “us” and that we should
practice a little less “rebuking” and a little more “repentance”.  It turns out that not everything is the “enemy”
and that the “man in the mirror” is often “our own worst enemy”.  

However, with a heartfelt experiential knowledge of
the truth, the conviction to lean on God’s power to change, and enlisting the
help of the body of Christ and the available technology of the day, we can
overcome “the flesh” and make the “mountain” of our problems into “mole hills”
that we can trample on and “get over”!

The word of God encourages us that we can do all
things through Christ who strengthens us and when we surrender to fight our
battles with zeal as part of an overall campaign of war to become the people God
created us to be – we can see our problems become smaller as our victory will
be a foregone conclusion that we approach a little more each day.  

The experts tell us that it takes 6 weeks of a
continued action to form a habit and I am right there with my efforts to
conquer my food addiction but as I have said in the past, when we decide to get
freedom and victory over something we have to make to decision that “this will
be forever”. So now that my monitoring and healthy eating, and reporting to my
accountability is forming into a habit, and I’m making progress, I have to
continue to make the daily decision to keep going in the direction I have been
walking and not compromise or turn back to the way things were before. 

Victory and Freedom over any hurt, habit, or hang up
is possible – but we have to believe it is possible and then demonstrate our
belief with continued consistent actions to achieve and maintain it.     

The word tells us the truth when it says that God
has given the Christian all we need for life and godliness. We just have to “know
it” and show it – because although knowing we have victory in Christ is half
the battle, we still have to walk by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit  and do “what is right” to achieve it.

——————————————————————————————–

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 Anger, Hot Temper.

Proverbs 25:28 (ESV)
²⁸  A man without self-control
is like a city broken into and left without walls.

Today’s
verse falls under the ninth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Anger,
Hot Temper

 9. Control Yourself

Today’s verse is the first
of three verses of scripture that our resource provides to encourage us to
control ourselves. And rather than presenting them all at once, we are doing
them “one at a time, one day at a time. 

Today’s verse is a pithy
analogy for the disaster our lives can become when we fail to practice
self-control.  In ancient times, cities
were protected by outer walls and gates that were guarded to keep out those who
didn’t agree with the policies of the city and who sought to kill, steal, and destroy
the communities within.  While some marauding
invaders would trample cities through elaborate sieges or through the aggressive
actions of “storming the gates”, often the easiest way to penetrate the city
walls was by bribing the “gatekeepers”. Rather than starving out a city or
expending energy battering the city defenses, devious men found that causing
one person to compromise their allegiance to the city was an effective means to
achieve victory.  

And this analogy of a city
broken into and with walls toppled, is used by the word of God to describe the
state of a man when he fails to practice self-control.  When we “betray ourselves” by compromising
our convictions and giving into temptations – by releasing the reins on self-control
– we end up standing in the ruins of our best laid plans because we relented
and became our own worst enemies.  

So, even though it is
known as “self-control” and there will be times when we will have to “go it
alone” – let’s enlist allies in our battles by drawing close into an accountability
community with others in the body of Christ, where we can report any suspicious
activity and fend off any breaches along our “walls” to keep compromise at
bay.    With a keen intention, relying on the Holy
Spirit for strength and wisdom, and with the help of faithful brothers and
sisters in Christ, we can watch the fruit of “self-control” grow and flourish
in a life that is lived “walking in the Spirit”.

——————————————————————–

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

27 – The Spirit Transforming

2 Corinthians 3:18

Just as there are certain verses in the Old Testament and the
Gospels which give us a miniature of the redemptive work of Christ for God’s
people—such, for example, as Isaiah 53:5 and John 3:16—so in the Epistles there
are some condensed doctrinal declarations which express in a few words the
entire work of the Spirit in reforming, conforming, and transforming believers.
2 Corinthians 3:18 is a case in point: “But we all, with open face beholding as
in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” This important passage supplies a
brief but blessed summary of the progressive work of grace which is wrought in
the Christian by the indwelling Spirit. It focuses to a single point the
different rays which are emitted by the various graces which He communicates to
them, namely, that wherein the saint is slowly but surely conformed unto and
transfigured into the very image of the Lord.

There are many parts
in and aspects of the Spirit’s work in reforming, conforming and transforming
the believer, but they are here epitomized in one brief but most comprehensive
statement, which we now propose to examine and expound. As an aid to this, let
us proceed to ask our verse a number of questions. First, exactly what is meant
by “the glory of the Lord,” into “the same image” of which all believers “are
changed?”—are—not, “shall be.” Second, what is “the glass” in which we are
beholding this glory? Third, what is denoted in the we are “changed into the
same image from glory to glory.” Fourth, what is the force of “we all with open
face” are beholding this glory? Finally, how does the Spirit of the Lord effect
this great change in believers? Are they entirely passive therein, or is there
an active co-operation on their part?

Perhaps it will help
the reader most if we first give brief answers to these questions and then
supply amplifications of the same in what follows. The “glory of the Lord” here
signifies His moral perfections, the excellencies of His character. The “glass”
in which His glory is revealed and in which those with anointed eyes may behold
it, is the Holy Scripture. Our being “changed into the same image” has
reference to our sanctification, viewed from the experimental side; that it is
here said to be “from glory to glory” intimates it is a gradual and progressive
work. Our beholding that glory with “open face” means that the veil of
darkness, of prejudice, of “enmity,” which was over our depraved hearts by
nature, has been removed, so that in God’s light we now see light. The Spirit
effects this great change both immediately and mediately, that is, by His
direct actions upon the soul and also by blessing to us our use of the
appointed means of grace.

“The glory of the
Lord.” This we have defined as His moral perfections, the excellencies of His
character. The best theologians have classified God’s attributes under two
heads: incommunicable and communicable. There are certain perfections of the
Divine Being which are peculiar to Himself, which in their very nature cannot
be transmitted to the creature: these are His eternity, His immutability, His
omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnipresence. There are other perfections of
the Divine Being which He is pleased
to communicate, in measure, to the unfallen angels and to the redeemed from
among men: these are His goodness, His grace, His mercy, His holiness, His
righteousness, His wisdom. Now, obviously, it is the latter which the Apostle
has before him in 2 Corinthians 3:18, for believers are not, will not, and
cannot be changed into the “same image” of the Lord’s omniscience, etc. Compare
“we beheld the glory … full of grace and
truth” (John 1:14)—His moral
perfections.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

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Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
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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