Healing, Commitment, and Grace in Recovery – Purity 1170

 

Healing, Commitment, and Grace in Recovery – Purity 1170

Purity 1170 10/12/2023 Purity 1170 Podcast

Purity 1170 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the sun shining in an ethereal blue
sky over what we believe to be Heart Lake in the Adirondacks comes to us from
Lisa Warner who shared this scene on social media on Monday.  

Well, It’s Thursday, and while I didn’t share a pathway
photo as I normally do on Thursdays as a visual reminder and encouragement to my
friends to get on stay or stay on the path of Christian Discipleship, I can
assure you that Lisa had to take a path to get to the destination in today’s
photo, as Lisa’s post confessed that while the Hike to Heart Lake was a short
one, it proved to be personally challenging for her as she has recovered from “RA & a knee replacement”
surgery. It was a physical and mental challenge as she pondered whether or not
she should “go back or press on”? Lisa decided to press on and “got ‘er done”
and we celebrate her achievement today by sharing her photo. 

Lisa and I were “more than friends”
in college but were veritable strangers following graduation but reconnected
via FB and became friends again. After I became a Christian and went into
recovery, I apologized and made amends for the way I treated her in college and
that bit of repentance resulted in healing and inspired both of us to pursue
physical, mental, and spiritual wellness.  And I am filled with joy when I see Lisa
sharing photos of another hike.

Anyway speaking of recovery, last
night the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group met at Starpoint Church again to
encourage one another and to review Celebrate Recovery’s Gratitude Lesson –
which instructs us to practice gratitude for: God, for others, for our
recovery, and for our church indicating that living with an attitude of
gratitude is a great defense against relapse. If we are focusing on the Lord,
the positive people in our lives, our spiritual home (y’all need a church), and
our recovery (the fact that things have changed) our inclination to go back to
our old hurts, habits, and hang-ups will be greatly diminished because we will
be focusing on the here and now and moving forward into the life that we always
wanted to live but never thought we could.  

The topic of relapse came up as
some in the group confessed to giving into temptation, but they attended the
meeting last night to get support and to show that while they may have fallen,
they were choosing to rise up and get back on the road to recovery, freedom,
and victory by being honest and committing themselves to try again.    

With my recent deviations from my
food plan, I could relate to relapse and how it can be very disappointing when
we lose focus and choose to do the things we wanted to stop.  However, relapse can actually fuel our fire
from freedom and provide us with a lesson in humility.   For those in Christian recovery, I remind
people that it is because of Christ that we were saved, and likewise, it will
be through our relationship with and reliance on Jesus that we will be able to
be more than a “dry drunk” and live out the transformed life we received when
we put our faith in Him.  

I told the men in our small group
discussion that I “sell the whole package” of a surrendered life of Chrisitan
discipleship that would seek obedience to God’s word in all the areas of our
lives because that’s what Jesus instructed his disciples to do and I have discovered
that progressively surrendering to the Lord’s will for my life has led to
victories and freedom and an empowered purpose for living that has given me
peace, love, joy and the other fruit of the Spirit in increasing measure.

Matthew
16:24-25 (NKJV)  tells us
²⁴  Then Jesus said to His
disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
²⁵  For
whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for
My sake will find it.

I’ve answered the call to be an “authentic Christian”, to
follow the Lord with the way I live, increasingly with the Lord’s help and
guidance and I have “found my life” because I decided to “lose my life” for
Christ’s sake.  I decided to stop living
how I did in the past and start following Jesus and it has led to an abundant
life of peace and joy.  

I used to decide what I would obey and what I wouldn’t obey in
God’s word, and I still do in many respects – I don’t obey everything perfectly
just yet – and you’ll have to be patient as I have discovered that the Lord is
gracious enough to allow me to attack and defeat one stronghold at a time.   But I know I could be more obedient to God’s
word and will get there when I get there. 
While I don’t do everything I could or should, I no longer say “I won’t
or can’t” when it comes to the prospect of being obedient to principles of
morality and behavior that are outlined in God’s word.  I know God’s way is the right way and hope to
continually be transformed into the image of Christ with the way I live.

My sponsor and mentor, Pastor Bob
Costello used to tell us about “but Christians” and “therefore Christians” in regard
to Christians who seemed to like to “pick and choose” what they would believe, and
do, about God’s word.  

“But Christians” would say: “I know
that the word of God says “this” BUT I’m going to do things my way. I’m
not doing THAT!”

“Therefore Christians” on the other
hand would say: “God’s word says “this” so THEREFORE, I will do what it
says. I will do my best to do THAT!”

So we try to be therefore Christians,
but the realities of relapse can cause a major problem in our walk of faith on
the road to recovery and freedom.   If we
relapse, NOT WHEN we relapse as if it’s a foregone conclusion that will are destined
to relapse, (although we very well may- as I have in the past – but let’s try
not to do that), we have to avoid the extremes of “quitting recovery” – it’s
not about perfection it’s about progress, okay – and of “beating ourselves up” –
condemning ourselves.  

I offer Romans 8:1-2 & 1 John 1:9
– as the remedy for those who fall into temptation. 

Romans 8:1-2 (NKJV)
¹  There is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according
to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
²  For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1-2 tells us not to condemn
ourselves, encourages us to walk in the Spirit, and reminds us that we have
been made free from “the law of sin”.  If
we are in Christ, our old sins don’t have authority over us anymore – we can
say no – but we have to walk in the Spirit – aka pick up our cross and follow Jesus
– to experience our freedom. Don’t stop following Jesus.

And

1
John 1:9 (NKJV) tells us
⁹  If we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.

So when we slip up and relapse – don’t
keep it a secret. BE HONEST and confess it to your accountability team, and ask
for the Lord in prayer, continuously to help you to be “cleansed from all
unrighteousness”.  

So if we relapse, we give ourselves
“grace” – God has already accepted us when we put our faith in Christ – our recovery
is not about being accepted by God – we are already accepted.  Our recovery is about our love for God. We
love Him and we want to be obedient to His instruction for the way we live our
lives.  We also want to experience the
peace and joy that comes from being in a harmonious relationship with God that
is increased when we obediently follow God’s word with the way we live our
lives.   

While we give ourselves grace and don’t
beat ourselves up if we relapse,  we also
should take our relapse seriously. We should try to learn from our mistakes and
recommit ourselves to living a righteous life by making “total freedom in Christ”
our goal and to endeavor to make relapse a “non-negotiable”.

Just like a “But Christian” can say
“I’m not DOING THAT” to the instructions in God’s word that seem difficult, we
can say “I’m not DOING THAT, anymore, ever again – because it’s not who I am
anymore. I don’t DO THAT anymore because of who I am in Christ! I am a new creation
in Christ, and I am choosing every day to live like it!”  

Recovery will lead you to healing
and freedom, IF you abide with Christ and walk in the Spirit – and have a
“This is who I am in Christ now” mentality” that simultaneously gives us “grace”
when we are less than perfect and drives us to make a continuous commitment to
make sin a “non-negotiable” for our lives.  

We take it easy on ourselves if we
make mistakes, but we don’t take it easy on the sin and compromise that would
lead us away from God’s ways for living.  

So go easy and keep walking and
talking with God. It gets better the further you get down the road, but you
have to keep following Jesus to experience 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 verses come from the section on Assurance of Salvation.

1 John 3:1-3 (NASB)
¹  See how great a love the
Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such
we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know
Him.
²  Beloved, now we are
children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that
when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
³  And everyone who has this
hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

Today’s
verses fall under the sixth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Assurance
of Salvation.

 6.  Now
we are the children of God, and we shall be like him.

Today’s verse reminds us
that we are in the family of God now.  
The moment we put our faith in Jesus – we are “in”! We become adopted by
God the Father and we become co-heirs with Christ.  And because we belong to God’s family, the
Holy Spirit indwells us and will lead us to become holy as God is holy.   We fix ourselves on Jesus and purify ourselves
just as He is pure.  

So represent the family of
God by following the Lord with the way you live your life.

——————————————————————–

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

29 –The Spirit Confirming

More
about “Earnest”

An “earnest” remains the irrevocable possession of its recipient until the bargain is
consummated, and even then it is not taken from him. Therein an “earnest”
differs from a “pledge,” for when a pledged article is returned, the pledge is
taken back again. So, too, the “earnest” which Christians receive is
irrevocable and inalienable: “For the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance” (Rom. 11:29). As the Lord Jesus declared, “I will pray the Father,
and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever” (John 14:16). How blessedly and
how positively this intimates the eternal security of God’s elect! Jehovah has
made with them “an Everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure” (2 Sam. 23:5). Even now they
have received “the firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23), and that is the
Divine certification of the glorious harvest, the plentitude of God’s favor yet
to follow. Like Mary, the believer today, by yielding to the Lordship of
Christ, has “chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away” (Luke 10:42).

“Now He which
stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also
sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. 1:21,
22). It is to be duly noted that both the sealing and the earnest are for our
“stablishing.” As one hymn-writer put it, “What more can He say than to you He
hath said, to you who to Jesus for refuge hath fled?” And what more can He do, we may ask, than what He has done to
assure His people of the glorious inheritance awaiting them? We have the Lord
Jesus Christ in Heaven with our nature,
to show that our nature shall yet come there: “Whither the Forerunner is for us
entered, even Jesus” (Heb. 6:20). Nor is that all: we have the Holy Spirit sent
down into our hearts as proof that we
are not only children, but also the heirs of God: Romans 8:14–17.

“Now He that hath
wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the
earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:5). That “selfsame thing” is not to be restricted unto a resurrected
body: it is the “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” of 2
Corinthians 4:17, the “things which are not seen” of 4:18. Having spoken of the
everlasting bliss awaiting the saints on High, for which they now groan and
earnestly long (5:4), the Apostle mentions two of the principal grounds on
which such a hope rests. First, God has “wrought us for” the same, that is He
has regenerated us, giving us a holy and heavenly nature which fully
capacitates us to be with Himself. Second, He has given us “the earnest of the
Spirit” as a guaranty of this glorious estate. Thus are we fitted for, and thus
are we assured of the infinitely better life awaiting us.

“After that ye
believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest
of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the
praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:13, 14). In this passage (1:3–14) the Apostle
describes those wondrous and numerous blessings with which the saints are blest
in Christ. Eternal election (v. 4), membership in God’s family (v. 5),
acceptance in the Beloved (v. 6), the forgiveness of sins (v. 7), and
understanding of Divine mysteries (vv. 8, 9), predestined unto an inheritance
(v. 11), sealed with the Holy Spirit (v. 13), and now the Spirit given to us as
“the earnest of our inheritance”—a part-payment in promise and pledge of the
whole. The dwelling of the Spirit in the believer’s heart is the guaranty of
his yet taking his place in that holy and joyous scene where all is according
to the nature of God and where Christ is the grand Center.

According to the
literal meaning of the figure, an “earnest” signifies the clinching of a
bargain, that it is a sample of what has been agreed upon, that it confirms and
ensures the consummation of the contract. And that is what the operations and
presence of the Spirit in the believer connote. First, they supply proof that
God has made a covenant with him “ordered in all things and sure.” Second, the
present work of the Spirit in him is a real foretaste and first fruit of the
coming harvest. Is there not something of the
glorified eye in that faith which the Spirit has implanted? Do the pure in
heart see God face to face in Heaven? Well, even now, faith enables us to
endure “as seeing Him who is
invisible” (Heb. 11:27). Is there not now something of that glorified joy wherein they in Heaven
delight themselves in God: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me Thy
comforts delight my soul” (Ps.
94:19). And is there not now a real though faint adumbration of that glorified transformation of soul into
the image of Christ? Compare 2 Corinthians 3:18 with 1 John 3:2!

The “earnest” ensures
the consummation of that contract. It is so here. The first operation of the
Spirit in the elect is the guaranty of the successful completion of the same:
“being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in
you will perform it until the day of
Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Thus, God has given us something in hand that we may
confidently anticipate the promised inheritance. And this, so that both our
desire and our diligence may be stimulated. We are not asked to mortify sin,
deny self, forsake the world, for nothing. If the “Earnest” be so blessed, what
shall the Inheritance itself be! O what lively expectations of it should be cherished
in our hearts! O what earnest efforts should be made in “reaching forth unto
those things which are before” (Phil. 3:13)!

And what is the Inheritance of which the
Spirit is the “Earnest” unto the believer? It is nothing less than God Himself!
The blessed God, in the trinity of His Persons, is the everlasting portion of
the saints. Is it not written, “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and
joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17)? And what is Christ’s “inheritance?” “The
LORD is the portion of Mine inheritance” (Ps. 16:5), He declared. The future
bliss of believers will consist in the fullness of the Spirit capacitating them
to enjoy God to the full! And has not the believer already “tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1
Pet. 2:3)? Yes, by the Spirit. The Spirit is the utmost proof to us of God’s
love, the first fruit of glory: “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts” (Gal. 4:6).

God, then, grants His
people a taste in this world of what He has prepared for them in the world to
come. The gifts and graces of the Spirit in the elect affirm the certainty of the glory awaiting
them: as surely as an “earnest” guarantees the whole sum, so do the
“firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23) the coming harvest of bliss. The nature of the Christian’s “earnest”
intimates both the character and the greatness of what is in store for him:
even now He bestows a measure of life, light, love, liberty—but what shall
these be in their fullness! One ounce of real grace is esteemed by its
possessor more highly than a ton of gold: what, then, will it be like to bathe
in the ocean of God’s favor? If now there are times when we experience that
peace which “passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7) and are made to “rejoice
with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8), how incapable we are of
estimating the full value of our Inheritance, for an “earnest” is but a tiny
installment of that which is promised. O that the realization of this, faint
though it be, may move us to look and long for the heavenly glory with greater
vehemence.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship