Victory through Surrender and Trust – Finding Contentment – Purity 1461
Purity 1461 09/26/2024 Purity 1461 Audio Podcast
Purity 1461 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Well, it’s Thursday and I share today’s “pathway photo” as a visual encouragement to get on or to stay on the path of Christian Discipleship because I know that “The Way” of surrendering and following God’s will for your life may not always be easy but it is always good and leads to peace, joy, and contentment.
Last night at Celebrate Freedom, our team was delighted to welcome a couple of new participants to our discipleship/recovery community and we responded with a full court press of encouragement and hope. I explained how our support group emphasized a deep reliance on God’s help and how we encourage living according to what God says is true in His word. By the night’s end, I shared most of my incredible testimony of recovery and how the Lord lead me out of the darkness of my addiction into an abundant life of meaning, purpose, and peace.
In delivering my testimony, I was reminded of my early days of recovery and how I proved I understood the concept of my own “powerlessness” by relapsing after the first two weeks on my road to recovery! I talked about how angry and ashamed I was at myself for having thrown away my sobriety so easily and how I dreaded having to go and confess my failure at the next Celebrate Freedom meeting only to be met with compassion by the other guys in the group. I expected to be shamed or ridiculed and instead, I was given acceptance and encouragement. That’s group acceptance made a big difference in my walk. When I realized that there was grace for my failures, I was able to surrender to the Lord more completely and walked out of that meeting with a new commitment to not stray from the road to recovery that the Lord had led me to. I haven’t relapsed since.
As I remember that post-relapse meeting, I recall that there was a big group of guys there, at least 10, maybe up to 15, in attendance – so I really felt the love – a group that big and no one smirked, you know. But now that I think about it, that group quickly decreased in size as the program progressed. By the time, we started up for round two in the Fall of 2015, most of those men were gone. With the exception of Bill Hamm who remained a faithful follower of Jesus until his death last year, no one walked away from that meeting the way I did. While I don’t know anyone else’s story or where they are today in terms of their faith or recovery, I can tell you that the people at that meeting weren’t attending services when I was released to go to Starpoint Church in 2021.
I don’t know their stories, but they had come for recovery, but they didn’t follow the Lord into the pathway of surrender like I did. Instead, of His way to freedom, peace, and contentment, they seemingly went their own way and possibly still remain in bondage.
In thinking about the significant number of people in that group, I am humbled and thankful that the Lord called me the way that he did and how it lead to an entirely new life where I try to show others that freedom and victory is possible through Christ alone and only requires that you surrender and trust the Lord to help you find your way out of the darkness.
Today’s In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanly Devotion addresses surrender and trusting the Lord to help us to accept and adapt the circumstances of our life and I am sharing it today because it echoes my sentiment that we can find freedom, peace, and contentment with God’s help. Stanley writes:
Finding Contentment
“When we yield what we want and accept what God wills, we move beyond living by feelings to living by faith.
Too often we let our circumstances determine our attitude. If life is going smoothly, then we feel good. But when it gets hard, our mood drops. However, we don’t have to live this way. Like the apostle Paul, we can learn and practice contentment.
The word contentment describes being at peace, no matter how things are—in other words, not wanting anything to be different. It means learning to allow God’s power to come into our weakness so we can accept and adapt to changing circumstances. When we respond to life with that kind of thinking, we move beyond living by feelings to living by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Submission and trust are needed for such a lifestyle. First, we must surrender to God. In every situation, we are to yield what we want and then accept whatever He allows. The second step is to trust God to oversee our specific situation. If we believe He is working out His perfect plan for us, then we’ll experience the joy that comes from fully relying on Him. Contentment will be ours.
Paul submitted his life to God and trusted Him. He faced insults, rejection, and many difficult trials but was still content. When we surrender control to the Lord and believe He has our best interest at heart, we will experience contentment, too.” – Charles Stanley
When we place our trust in the Lord, He blesses us with the ability to accept and adapt to whatever circumstances we face, and we can receive His strength and comfort.
There are only 2 steps to contentment:
- Surrendering to God
- Trusting Him
So put first things first – yield your desires and your old ways of doing things and surrender to God’s ways and His plan. Let “Jesus take the wheel” and ride with Him into a new life with the power of surrender and the decision to trust that leads to contentment.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
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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 the Forgiveness of Sins (God’s Forgiveness).
Micah 7:18-19 (NIV2011)
18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.
19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Today’s verses fall under the thirty-fourth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on the Forgiveness of Sins (God’s Forgiveness).
34. When people repent, and in faith seek the Lord, he graciously forgives their sins, hurls their iniquities, as it were, into the depths of the sea, and remembers them no more.
Today’s Bible verses dismantle the false belief that God is mad at us and just itching to punish us if we should step out of line.
Here the Old Testament prophet Micah is in awe because He has discovered God’s grace and received His forgiveness. While Micah has a true “fear of the Lord” that leads to the knowledge that God hates sin, he can rejoice because he has realized that the wrath of God comes off of us the moment that we repent and seek His love and forgiveness.
Micah has discovered that not only can God’s anger be avoided, but he has also discovered that God is love – that He is delighted to show us mercy and compassion and willing to not hold our sins against us when we put our faith in Him. These are rare insights for Old Testament times, but it was made clear through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Although the gospel is available throughout most of our world, this knowledge is still unknown or rejected by many. So we, like Micah, should rejoice that we know Jesus and stand in awe and wonder over God’s amazing grace, mercy, compassion, and love.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.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. Olford – A Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own private study and to support his work. This resource is available online for less than $10 at many sites.
EVENING READING: JAMES 3
“If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man.”
– James 3:2
The verses that follow describe with great eloquence something of the power and affect of an uncontrolled tongue. James goes on to say that while animals, birds, creeping things, and things in the sea can be tamed, “no man can tame the tongue” (vv. 7-8).
Praise God, Christ can tame the tongue! Moreover, He can control it after it is tamed.
The Lord spoke as no man had spoken. Wonderful words proceeded out of His mouth. People wondered at His gracious words. He is just the same today, and He indwells me! O, to be controlled by Him.
Lord, I submit my tongue to be tamed
and controlled by You. Amen.[1]
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1] Stephen Olford and Heather Olford, According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament, A Collection of Devotional Journals 1940-1941 (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2008).
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