The Weakness of Man and The Greatness of God – Purity 1931
Purity 1931 04/07/2026 Purity 1931 Audio Podcast
Purity 1931 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the dirt and gravel farmland expressway affectionately known as “Freedom Road” leading to the oak that I think of as the “Tree of Life” comes to us from yours truly as I capture this peaceful scene this past Saturday morning.
Well, it’s Tuesday and after struggling to put down the flesh over the weekend, and yesterday – oooff – I look forward to “beginning again” as I seek to draw from God’s grace and strength to help me move forward into the life I want – a life that is free of the guilt and shame of food addiction, a life where I am as free physically as I feel spiritually.
The weekend before last, I entertained my wife’s suggestion that I grow a beard. Other than a short-lived goatee in my twenties, I have been clean-shaven for all of my adult life, so I thought I should give it a try. After a week of not shaving, I was surprised by how full my facial hair promised to be. However, last night I indulged in binge eating, and I forgot that I had a coaching appointment with a client. Whether or not growing the beard was related to these two failures or not, I drew the association that growing the beard was not healthy for my mental health.
I associated it with a lack of discipline, cleanliness, and letting myself go. I didn’t like the way it looked, and I didn’t like the way it made me feel – like I wasn’t myself. After the missed meeting, the binge eating, and the mild depression that resulted, I decided that I needed to “clean up my act”. So, what was of a beard is gone now. I repent. I have shaved and feel like I needed to. There were just too many negative associations I made with it, and even though I suppose it didn’t look too bad, I didn’t like it, and the last thing I need is something that is going to erode my confidence.
When we are trying to make positive changes in our lives, we want to do so from a position of strength, and even though I know I am weak and I get my strength from the Lord, I feel more in line with my identity in Christ with a disciplined, clean-shaven look. When the Levites took on the vow to become priests, part of the sanctification process involved shaving – and even though the priest later grew and kept beards – I consider myself to still be in repentance mode and when I minister to other people, I need to be as righteous and clean as I can be. I have gotten in the habit of shaving every day I “minister”, and I find it significant that the only time I missed an appointment to serve the body of Christ was on a day I didn’t shave. So, I repent and will be making myself “clean” (shaven anyway) whenever I serve, and I want to move forward in holiness. These are my feelings about my ministry and myself, and should not be taken as a commandment or to spark a beard vs shaving debate. It’s about good mental health, and I know that we would all be wise to promote ourselves in our lives.
Speaking of good mental health, the one thing that always gives me peace is knowing that I can trust the Lord and the fact that He will never leave me or forsake me. God is great because of who He is and what He does, and to remind ourselves of some of the things that make God great, I am sharing the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotion for today because it highlights a few attributes that are unique to God. Dr. Charles Stanley writes:
“The Greatness of God
God is infinite, eternal, and unchanging—you can trust Him.
Psalms 139:7-12
God is infinite. It’s hard for us, with our limited human minds, to imagine exactly what that means, but pondering God’s greatness is important. His love is immeasurable. And He is boundless in righteousness, mercy, and justice. Time and space cannot contain Him. There’s nowhere we can go that is out of His reach.
As believers, we are forever connected to the Father because He is eternal. He calls Himself the Alpha and Omega, which means the beginning and the end. When time and space began, He was the one who created it. And when it ends, He will still be there. He is the one “who is and who was and who is to come” (Revelation 1:8). This was a revolutionary concept for the crowd of Jews to whom Christ announced, “Before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:58). They understood that Jesus, in saying He was one with Yahweh (the name of God, which means “I Am”), claimed to be eternal—and they attempted to kill Him for saying something they considered blasphemous (John 8:59).
Not only is God infinite and eternal, but He is also unchanging (James 1:17). So much of what we believe is based upon this characteristic of God. We can trust in His promises because they never change and, in His love, because it never ends.” – Charles Stanley
Amen. Our world is in constant flux – so much so that some religions and philosophies have made “everything changes, nothing stays the same” as a mantra of profound truth. However, those who proclaim this don’t know the Lord and tend to see life in dreary terms or unwittingly believe in “doctrines of demons” – ideas that contradict reality and the truth of God’s word.
As important as it is to understand the concept of impermanence to accept the different seasons of life and our own mortality, it is more important to understand and know God – to know the One who defies what we understand about life because He is life.
God has always been (self-existent) and always will be (eternal). He is also love – and He doesn’t change.
That means that we can trust Him, count on Him, and rest in the fact that His love will be with us and endure, literally, forever. He will never leave us or forsake us.
In this life of constant change, we can find our peace in God.
****************************
The MT4Christ247 audio podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartradio, Podbean, Audible, and many more podcast platforms!
Subscribe to The MT4Christ247 Channel on YouTube!
Email me at m.t.clark@mt4christ.com with any questions, comments, or to inquire about our Christian Life Coaching or Prayer Ministry Services.
“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
Support MT 4 Christ Community Freedom Ministry!
To Give via PayPal, go to the MT4Christ Donations Page
Or Give Via Venmo or the Cash App by scanning the QR Code below:
Leave a Reply