Happy New Year! – Exercising Our Faith – Purity 1852
Purity 1852 01/01/2026 Purity 1852 Audio Podcast
Purity 1852 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of my wife, TammyLyn, beginning her descent down a short stairway to the “heaven” of the white sand beaches of St. John Trunk Bay Beach comes to us from your truly as I captured this scene yesterday minutes before taking a beating from the incoming crashing waves.
Well, it’s Thursday and it is the first of the year, Happy 2026!, and as happy as I am to see the new year come, I am perhaps even happier to see the old year go. Day by Day 2025 was fine because I maintained my walk with the Lord but in hindsight, since August I have been run through a real ringer emotions and seismic changes that will forever impact the rest of my life. My accident at work has led to a significant change in my career. Assuming, I will be successful in transitioning to my new position with my company, I will nonetheless have major changes in my career. I won’t be working with the same people anymore and I wont be doing the same things I have done for the past fifteen years. In the midst of dealing with the fall out of these anticipated changes and continuing to do the ministry work that I do , I have been in an emotional battle with anxiety and depression that has been part circumstantial and part demonic.
Bizarre nightmares and recurring thoughts and feelings of condemnation, fear, and depression don’t come from God and they are nothing that we would want to shackle ourselves with. The Bible informs us that the enemy loves to torment us with lies and temptations and actively seeks to kill, steal, and destroy our peace and even though I know all of that I have been greatly affected by sweeping emotional shifts despite my best efforts of fending them off with the truth of who I am in Christ.
Even while on vacation, the enemy has tried to bring me down, but thankfully the Lord helps us by moving us to places where we can find rest. On this vacation, in the midst of condemning thoughts, the Lord has surrounded me with solid Christian teaching from David Jeremiah’s ministry and He also blessed me with Steve Goss’ book “Free to Be Yourself” to help me to climb out of the valley of emotional darkness. Even though I have been down, the Lord though His presence and through these spiritual practices and blessings has given me a lifeline to peace and joy. I can’t stress the importance of our exercising our faith enough.
Speaking of exercising our faith, the Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah devotion for today addresses that topic so I am sharing it on the blog today to encourage all of us to resolve to exercise our faith regularly in the new year. David Jeremiah writes:
RESOLVE TO EXERCISE!
You might think losing weight would be our top New Year’s resolution. But according to a 2024 YouGov survey, “saving more money” topped the list, followed by improving physical health, being happy, exercising more, eating healthier, and in sixth place, losing weight.1 The survey listed 23 top New Year’s resolutions, but one item wasn’t mentioned at all—exercising toward godliness.
It was at the top of Paul’s list, but exactly how do we do it? Well, let’s try increasing the repetitions of lifting our Bibles, flexing our faith muscles, and pressing forward in conditioning our souls to run the race before us with perseverance.
Perhaps the first step is finding a place for your daily time of personal Bible study. A small table or desk in a quiet corner, a workplace by the window, or a chair with a lap tray or swing-away tray. When you have a dedicated place for your quiet time, you can leave your Bible open there all day. That’s a good first step toward exercising yourself in godliness.” – David Jeremiah
Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face-to-face with God. – Oswald Chambers
Amen. Since the day after Christmas, I have been on vacation and have traveled by airplane, car, bus, and ferry to another state and three other countries thus far. In all that activity my regular physical exercise, sleeping, and eating habits have been greatly disrupted and when I get back home I will be glad to be able to get back on track in these areas of my life.
However, as much as things have been turned upside down during my vacation, the one habit that I have managed to maintain is my regular “quiet time” in God’s word and in prayer and quite frankly it has been the only thing that has given me peace and comfort in the crazy time I find myself in.
2025 was a year with more challenges than I had ever anticipated but the Lord was able to give me a regular measure of peace throughout it all because of my commitment to drawing close to Him in prayer and Bible study.
Although it doesn’t make the list of the world’s top New Year’s resolutions, let me encourage you to make or renew your efforts to growing in godliness.
Before you balk and declare yourself a sinner, let me encourage you with the fact that anyone can increase their faith or spiritual maturity.
Faith is merely agreeing with what God says is true and trying to live by it.
To have faith then, requires that we know what God’s word says about life and to apply it to our situations where we can.
Every new thing we learn about God in the Bible or through Christian resources gives us “more faith” and every decision we make to live by God’s ways makes our faith stronger.
Every bit of effort you make in the area of your faith will help you to know God more and to be transformed into the person God made you to be.
So make your “faith exercises” a regular nonnegotiable part of your day. I can testify that doing so will increase your faith, peace, and joy.
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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 verses come from the section on Prayer – Waiting On the Lord.
Psalm 51:1-19 (ESV) Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Today’s verses are the second of six passages of scripture that fall under the nineteenth point of our counseling reference guide resource section on Prayer.
19. Pray for the forgiveness of sins.
Today’s Bible verses are David’s words of sorrowful repentance that encourage us to turn from our sins and to humble ourselves before God to ask for repentance.
Today is New Years Day and the best thing we can do as Christians is to examine our lives and to repent of any known sins and to dedicate ourselves to following the Lord in the next year.
Whether we have major blunders to repent of our if we just want to maintain our current course with the Lord, we can do so with a simple prayer that acknowledges where we are and where we want to be.
Every step we take towards the Lord is a step in the right direction and David’s example guides us in the way we should go. So seek the Lord and follow Him to a cleaner heart and better days in 2026.
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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 351
I announced the need to repent, turn to God and to do practices appropriate.
Acts 26:20
Seldom these days do we hear the preaching of repentance (which, first, is thinking brought into agreement with God’s teaching), turning to God (second, rethinking that leads to a right turn of direction). Works appropriate to turning from sin will then follow if repentance is legitimate. Feeble calls to trust Jesus, without stressing sin as the reason salvation is needed, repentance as a consequence, and the resulting works that show one has, indeed, repented, allow many into the church who are not truly converted. The church is full of people who couldn’t explain the Gospel in simple terms, or what the need for repentance is all about. Can you? Many shallow approaches have taken the place of biblical preaching. Repentance shakes up people’s lives on all fronts. Anything less is questionable. Do you need to rethink the matter as it pertains to yourself?[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 359.
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