Nearly 10 Years of Victory over Sin – Purity 1592
Purity 1592 02/26/2025 Purity 1592 Audio Podcast
Purity 1592 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the silhouette of a palm tree and the setting sun peaking around the corner of a hotel comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene while on vacation in Deerfield Beach, Florida back on February 25, 2015.
Well, It’s Wednesday and I have been sharing photos from ten years ago lately because I am on the cusp of celebrating 10 years of being clean and sober and I am grateful for what the Lord has done in my life and I am looking back to remember just how faithful God is to help those who call on His name.
Even though I was born again in 2010, I was in bondage to sin of addiction to drugs and alcohol until the Lord brought a Christian Recovery ministry to my local church five years later. It was only then that I was ready to fully surrender my persistent sin to the Lord’s care and control. It was only then that I really began to know what freedom in Christ really meant. Speaking of persistent sins, the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotion addresses that topic today so I am sharing it on the blog to encourage us all with the fact that with God we really can have victory over sin. Dr. Charles Stanley writes:
“Victory Over Sin
We all need Jesus to set us free from the power of sin in our life.
Sin works its way into everyone’s life. And regardless of the form it takes, the goal is always the same: to tempt us to choose our own way over God’s.
The descent into a pattern of disobedience begins in our mind. Once our thinking is involved, the influence extends to our behavior until we are more involved with the sin than we ever imagined. And oftentimes, we deceive ourselves, soothing our conscience by saying, There’s no harm in what I’m doing—after all, other people behave the same way.
Sin’s demands keep increasing, and yet its benefits are short-term. Eventually, we experience emptiness instead of satisfaction, pain in place of comfort, and loss rather than gain. Habitual sin divides the mind and confuses emotions. Our care and concern for others diminish, too. Over time, feelings of guilt can take their toll and lead toward negative results we never anticipated.
Faith in Jesus Christ sets us free from the power of sin in our life. The road to freedom starts with confession, followed by an admission that we cannot stop on our own. Committing to follow God’s direction is next. It’s not always easy, but Scripture promises, “God … gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).” – Charles Stanely
Amen. When I was lost in sin, I chose to not to believe in God at all because if I believed in God and what His word said about the Christian faith, it meant that I was not living like I should and it indicated that I was probably an unbeliever and would go to hell.
I thought it would be easier for me to decide that there was no God than to face the hard truth that I was wrong and was going to hell. I even joked about it but as my life continued the harsh consequences of my sin showed me that I had chosen the wrong path.
My life was a cycle of sin and suffering, and I accepted it as it was because I knew I didn’t have the power to change.
But the Lord changed all that.
He showed me the truth of the gospel and I quickly took advantage of God’s mercy and grace to be forgiven. With gift of forgiveness in hand, I surrendered my life to following Jesus even though I had no confidence in my ability to change.
The Lord was patient and led me to repentance. His Holy Spirit continued to reveal the truth about God and faith and gave me the power to turn my sins.
I confessed my powerlessness, and God gave me His power to overcome the darkness of my past and gave me a new life.
So don’t let your sin convince you to deny God or to influence you to believe that you can’t follow Him, that’s a lie.
Even though you may feel hopeless to change, if you choose to believe God’s truth, He will give you the power to be set free.
Choose every day to believe the God’s truth about you and your view of life will change. Ask God to help you and He will.
He did it for me and I know that if you agree with Him and follow Him, He will do it for you.
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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. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Loving and Serving Others.
1 Peter 4:9–10 (NIV) Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
Today’s verses fall under the third point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Loving and Serving Others.
3. Genuine love is serving others.
Today’s Bible verses encourage us to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace.
The word steward is defined as a “person who looks after the passengers on a ship, aircraft, or train and brings them meals” as a noun and as “to manage or look after (another’s property) as a verb.
So as stewards of God’s grace, we are to look after what God has given us – to be mindful of the very expensive gift that He gave us and to make sure His grace wasn’t wasted on us by reminding ourselves that we have it and by putt it on display for the world to see. Also, if we are stewards of God’s grace, we will look to look after others around us and attempt to distribute it to them – to feed them with what God has given us.
One way we can distribute grace and serve others is through hospitality. The term “gracious host” describes someone who cares for all the needs and wants of their guests. The care we show others reflects the love of God and thus the Apostle Peter encourages us to be hospitable.
Our good works of hospitality and compassion demonstrate that we have received grace, and they give glory to God. So be a good steward of God’s grace, through our care and concern for others.
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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 “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 91
When you walk, they will lead you … – Proverbs 6:22a
The writer is speaking of “your father’s commands” in verse 20. In this case, the father in view is God speaking inerrant truth in the likeness of an earthly father. As a child ought to obey his father’s rules, so ought we to obey our heavenly Father’s. His orders are given for the benefit and safety of His child—just as a good earthly father’s are. Do you view God’s rules as restrictive, confining, and heavy—hard to obey? Actually, they are exactly the opposite. The train is free to run smoothly only when “confined” to the track. You are able to act most freely only when you are “restricted” to God’s track. God’s commands lead, like a Good Shepherd, to quiet waters. That is because they lead into paths of righteousness for His sake. They are safe paths. God’s honor and His children’s good always go together. Obey to please Him and you will also bring blessing to yourself. It could not be otherwise when following the guidance of His commands.[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 99.
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