Walking With Jesus

Filtered Faith

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy – full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.” (Matthew 23:25-26 NLT)

The faith for which I long is authentic, pure, unaltered by my efforts to make myself look better than I am. Jesus wasn’t a fraud who sought to portray something He wasn’t. In all His purity, everything He said could be authenticated by the heart from which it flowed. There was no pretense, no fronts, no covers, no efforts on His part to hide anything that might “blow His cover.”

Who you saw was who you got, and I believe that’s the way He desires for us to live as well. There’s no place in the life of a child of God for pretense or phoniness. Comparing ourselves with others is a recipe for disaster. Our only comparison needs to be with our Lord, and when we fail to live up to His exacting standards, ideally, it will increase our dependence upon Him.

Let the beautiful and challenging words of Ray Majoran’s prayer move your heart as they moved mine: “God of Mercy and Unshakable Truth, You don’t ask for appearances; You ask for hearts. You’re not impressed by surface-level sacrifice — You long for mercy (Matthew 9:13). And yet, we so often default to polishing the outside. We say the right things, put on the right masks, and keep things looking together — even when our motives are tangled, and our hearts are cold. You see all of it (Hebrews 4:13). By the work of Your Holy Spirit, please disrupt our desire to perform. Confront the pride we’ve disguised as strength and the indifference we’ve painted as peace.

Where we’ve made our faith about presentation, call us back to transformation. Clean the inside — the places no one else sees — until what overflows is mercy, not personal image. Teach us to value what You value: integrity over approval, obedience over optics, and love over religious routine. Remind us that a clean cup is useless if it’s only clean on the outside. We don’t desire filtered faith — we long for the real thing. And as You do the work within us, let whatever people see on the outside be a natural reflection of what You’ve made right within.” (See Glimpse of Infinity Clean – 04-02-25)

At the end of the day, who are we trying to please? Whose approval are we most seeking? Whose applause? Whose affirmation? What concerns you most? How you’re perceived or how you really are? What motivates you to become better? Another’s perception of you or the smile on your Savior’s face? What drives you? Your heart for God or your desire to please others; to get ahead, whatever that may look like, or to grow in your likeness of Jesus?

I’m so tired of pettiness and fraudulence among believers, aren’t you? I’m sick of my own dependence upon the approval of those whose opinion of me has become so important. I want to be free of the shallowness of social acceptance and long for the purity and power of a heart so focused on Jesus I no longer care what others think.

Isn’t it time we cared less about the façade and focused more on the foundation? Like our father in the faith, Abraham, let us confidently look forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God. (Hebrews 11:10)

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Extravagant Love

“He gave a mighty shout: ‘Babylon is fallen – that great city is fallen! She has become a home for demons. She is a hideout for every foul spirit, a hideout for every foul vulture and every foul and dreadful animal. For all the nations have fallen because of the wine of her passionate immorality. The kings of the world have committed adultery with her. Because of her desires for extravagant luxury, the merchants of the world have grown rich.’” (Revelation 18:2-3 NLT)

Everyone longs for something. When we’re young we long for satisfaction that we perceive will only come through sex, money, popularity, fame, fortune, or achievement on a level that will gain us recognition and acclaim. As we age our longing may be for a nap or a full night’s sleep; a call from a loved one or someone to hold us and let us know our life matters to someone.

Extravagance is relative on some levels. A trip to White Castle was an extravagance for us when my pregnant wife was craving them, though back then you could buy a bag of the small burgers for a dollar. We tend to think of extravagance in terms of dollars and cents, but as Jesus followers we need to shift our thinking to view extravagant ways we can share the love of our Savior.

Nothing compares to the cost our Savior paid on the Cross! He’s the only One who could have done what He did, yet He was willing to lay down His sinless life in our place to offer us a hope we could never have found in any other way. What kind of love offers Himself in the place of another who hasn’t even asked for His sacrifice?

Bob Goff wrote: “Every act of extravagant love is a declaration of faith.” Do you want to know how to make your faith recognizable? Love without reservation! Genuinely care about the needs of others ahead of your own. We do this with our children, why can’t we allow this kind of love to flow beyond the walls of our own homes?

So much wealth is wasted on filth and debauchery, why can’t we spare a few dollars to take someone who is struggling to lunch or take them a meal to their home, even if it means we have to do without? What if we offered to babysit the child of a couple of new parents and gave them money to go out to eat and maybe even to a movie?

Why as God’s children have we become so stingy with our time and money? What makes us believe it is OUR time or OUR money? The Lord gives us everything we have, and we are stewards of 100% of it. We whine about having to give 10% back to Him, but the truth is, if it weren’t for the Lord’s generosity we wouldn’t have a penny.

The Lord gives us joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and the other fruit of the Spirt, but why? So, we can hoard it all to ourselves. Love gives! Love shares! Love lightens loads! Love thinks of the other person first! Love hugs! Love cries on another’s shoulder! Love holds and consoles! Love cares and shows itself!

What is the Lord laying on your heart to do for someone, maybe anonymously, that will demonstrate an extravagant way to celebrate the love the Lord has lavished on you? Do you have a car you no longer need? Give it to someone who needs one? Has the Lord blessed you with some extra funds? Pay someone’s rent or mortgage this month? Maybe take someone to the grocery. There’s no end to the ways we can love extravagantly if we’ll just listen to His voice!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Sleep or Soar?

“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT)

What happens to us when we die? Do we lose any sense of being? Does our soul “sleep” until awakened by the second coming of Christ? Or does our oneness with our Savior continue uninterrupted? In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul speaks at length about the relationship between our earthly bodies and our heavenly bodies.

For example, in verses 6-8 he writes: “So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.”

“A Kingdom Without End” “Used by permission, © Ray Majoran, GlimpseOfInfinity.com”

“At home” has reference to being with the Lord in His dwelling in heaven. Yes, of course, He is omnipresent and is with us and we with Him as long as His Spirit indwells us, but once we leave this body our spirit is free of the shackles of humanity and can be forever united with God’s Spirit in heaven. But doesn’t our spirit “sleep” when we die? Our bodies “sleep” in death, but our spirits are alive and with the Lord. How do I know that?

There are many Scriptures that verify the immortality of our spirits, but a key verse for me is in Romans 8:16 when Paul uses the vitality of the spirit to verify our oneness with the Lord when he writes: “For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.” As long as we are alive in Christ our spirit is alive with Christ, whether in life or in death.

What, then, are we to do with 1 Timothy 6:16, which says that God “alone is immortal”? We see this verse as teaching that God alone is immortal in and of Himself; that is, He alone possesses immortality as an essential part of His nature. Our soul’s immortality, on the other hand—and that of the angels—is derived from God. God is immortal in His being; our souls are immortal as a result of God’s creation. Commentator Albert Barnes put it this way: “God, in his own nature, enjoys a perfect and certain exemption from death. Creatures have immortality only as they derive it from him, and of course are dependent on him for it. He has it by his very nature, and it is in his case underived, and he cannot be deprived of it. It is one of the essential attributes of his being, that he will always exist, and that death cannot reach him” (Notes on the Bible, 1834).

In John 5:26 Jesus says, “The Father has life in himself.” This is another way of saying that God alone is immortal. The immortality of the human soul, that is, its quality of continuing forever, is a reflection of God’s nature in us. God alone is without a beginning or end. All of His creatures, animal, human, and angelic, had a beginning. Our souls came into being at a certain point in history, and there was a time when our souls did not exist, but once created we also became immortal. Only our Creator is truly eternal in the sense of having no beginning and no ending.

While our soul and spirit are not the same, both are immortal in the sense they will live forever. Obviously, this is a snapshot of a whole series of Scriptures that speak of eternal life and death, but a key verse for me is Matthew 25:46 where Jesus says: “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.” The same Greek word is used both in reference to punishment and life. There are only two options when it comes to eternity: separation from God or oneness with Him! Which will you choose?

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Avoidance Isn’t Obedience

“We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NLT)

Our most troubling thoughts, the ones with which we wrestle most, and which cause us the most heartache, aren’t those generated by others, but those that are formulated in our own mind. The conversations we have with ourselves can be the most convincing and, at times, the most destructive.

One powerful way the enemy defeats us is through partial obedience or procrastination. We don’t say “no,” just “not yet!” We wrestle with the implications of what the Lord is asking us to do, but in our reluctance to fully obey, we omit our immediate obedience, which is sin. Too often the “not yet” turns into “no” because we never get around to doing what the Lord asked us to do.

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To avoid or postpone a clear command of God, then later use that command to postpone or avoid something else the Lord has clearly instructed us to do is itself disobedience. To do anything other than what God says to do when He says to do it is disobedience and will bring about discipline from the Lord.

Some of the most heartbreaking words in Scripture are Saul’s words to the Prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:24-26: “Then Saul admitted to Samuel, ‘Yes, I have sinned. I have disobeyed your instructions and the Lord’s command, for I was afraid of the people and did what they demanded. But now, please forgive my sin and come back with me so that I may worship the Lord.”

As is often the case with us, Saul’s words seemed sincere in that moment, but they didn’t reflect an attitude of true repentance other than to avoid the consequences of his actions and to make every effort to put things back as they were before his sin. He was sorry for the results of his sin, not for the sin itself.

How like us when the curtain opens, and the world sees our sin and its resultant shame. We so want to defend ourselves, cast blame, and try with everything within us to turn back the hands of time, not because we regret what we did, but that we got caught. Satan had blinded us, as he blinded Saul to the results of our unwillingness to fully obey God.

We weave a web of deception in our own mind, somehow believing that we’ve done nothing wrong. “We’re going to obey, just not now. Let’s ride it out and see what happens. Maybe I won’t have to do anything.” But nothing turns into something, but it’s never enough. We’ve dug such a hole for ourselves it’s hard to see the light of a new day. It becomes hopeless, thus rendering ourselves helpless.

The reality is, it’s too often no longer simply a spiritual problem we can take to the Lord, seek His forgiveness and move on. It becomes an interconnected web of destruction within our own mind and heart. We believe the lies for so long we can no longer even recognize truth, let alone obey it. We become locked in a cycle of self-defeat that leads to despair, that becomes a vicious spiral of defeat and self-destruction.

It didn’t end well for Saul, but because of Jesus, there’s still hope for you and me. However, we must be done with procrastination and lies, come clean with ourselves and the Lord, and seek His forgiveness and restoration. But because of the heinous nature of this sin, it also demands partnership with someone who has a heart for God and who will hold us accountable. If we’re not up for that, it might be too late.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Easter 2025 – So Much Hurt, So Much Hope

*This devotional by Ron Hutchcraft really spoke to me and I couldn’t help but believe it might be a blessing to you as well. May the Lord use Ron’s words to speak to and encourage you as they did me. Blessings, Ed 😊

My phone’s been blowing up for a week or more. Mostly not good news.

Lots of storms. Lots of sadness.

Severe thunderstorm alerts, tornado and flood watches and warnings. Stacked up in my texts like planes waiting to land at O’Hare. Like much of the country, it’s been a “Groundhog Day” cycle of one stormy day after another. I miss the sun.

But that’s just been the backdrop for days of accumulating grief. I often get “breaking news” on my phone. This week it’s been mostly heartbreaking news.

One of my family members, suddenly crushed by the tragic loss of a third brother. The painful death of a coworker’s dad – and a dark diagnosis for the father of another. A lifetime friend living the final days of his beloved wife’s battle with dementia. Other friends, faced with brutal decisions on behalf of declining parents. And yesterday’s medical emergency for a dear friend who’s expecting a baby – she went from ER to ambulance to surgery.

Yes, it’s been a season of storms and sadness.

But it’s also almost Easter.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Easter 2025 – So Much Hurt, So Much Hope.”

And, oh, what a difference that “Easter” makes! Not the holiday. The Man!

We all have seasons of compounding loss and grief. Storms that won’t stop. Dark clouds that keep obscuring the sun. Times when hope seems swamped by hurt. But the Bible puts an amazing word in front of hope – and that word has the power to change every dark moment we face.

In our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:3-6 – it’s talking about suffering “grief in all kinds of trials.” But then it reveals the divine antidote to despair: “In His great mercy, God has given us a new birth into a” – here’s that word – “living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Not sympathy card hope or “positive thoughts” hope. Not hope, the idea or the wish. This is hope, the Person! The One who, as testified to by six historians, 12 disciples and hundreds of eyewitnesses, literally walked out of His grave on Easter morning!

In short, Jesus is alive! He’s present. Powerful – having conquered the one force that has stopped every other person who has ever lived.

As the sadnesses and grievings mounted these past few days, I felt increasingly powerless to be of much help.

But since the day I put my trust in Jesus’ death for my sins, I have the Living Hope Man to turn to. As I did on that shattering spring day my Karen – my love since I was 19 – was suddenly gone.

On that first Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene had found Jesus’ tomb empty. She was grieving inconsolably in the graveyard garden – when suddenly she heard a familiar voice speaking one life-changing word. “Mary” (John 20:16). And on my darkest day, it was my name He called.

I have asked Jesus to speak to each weeping one on my heart – and speak their name. For Scripture promises that He is “close to brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18). And that He can go deep in the human heart where no one else can go and bring hope and healing no one else can bring.

Our times of greatest loss are the times of our greatest experiences of His love. I have lived it. I can’t carry all the burdens of my wounded loved ones. But if my Jesus has beaten death, surely He can bear their burdens and bring back the sun.

Jesus can simultaneously be holding and hugging each one as if they are the only one. I have felt that hug. I have been carried by Him when I could not take another step.

If you want to have this personal relationship with Jesus, tell Him today, “Jesus, I’m Yours.” Go to our website and see how to be sure you belong to Him. It’s ANewStory.com.

The storms keep coming. But, Jesus, You are our safe room. And hope wins.

Injustice

“I was living quietly until He shattered me. He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces. Then He set me up as His target, and now His archers surround me. His arrows pierce me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood. Again and again He smashes against me, charging at me like a warrior. I wear burlap to show my grief. My pride lies in the dust. My eyes are red with weeping; dark shadows circle my eyes. Yet I have done no wrong, and my prayer is pure.” (Job 15:12-17 NLT)

Does it startle you that God allows these human accusations to appear in His Word. Obviously, Job wasn’t as “together” spiritually as he must have thought, because he completely misunderstood what was going on in his suffering. Many of us do as well.

The only time the term “injustice” is used in the King James Version of the Bible is in Job 16:17 when Job says: “Not for any injustice in my hands: also my prayer is pure.” The New Living Translation (above) translates that phrase: “Yet I have done no wrong…” Hmmm! Is that right? Yes, according to Job 1 he certainly had some impressive credentials, but God doesn’t allow temptation and testing for no reason.

Of course, God knew exactly the man Job was, but, apparently, Job had some lessons to learn about himself. Do you think there might be some things you and I need to learn that, unfortunately, we can learn in no other way than through testing?

Have you ever felt like God was punishing you for no good reason? Like He had you under His thumb and you weren’t getting up. It’s not an uncommon thought by many humans. There’s only one problem. No injustice is ever overlooked in the court of heaven. God doesn’t make mistakes, and He doesn’t allow things to enter our lives except He intends it for our good and His glory. Yet, He doesn’t force us to change.

Do bad things happen to good people? Absolutely! Injustices are being perpetrated all over the world, some, shamefully, in the name of God. But is God to blame for all of it? Any of it? God is the ONLY ONE who can see things clearly from ALL perspectives. He alone has the insight demanded to make an inerrant decision regarding anything on any subject.

The truth is sin isn’t always the issue. There was no apparent sin in Job’s life. God said in Job 1:8: “Have you noticed My servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless – a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”

Yes, of course, no one is sinless, but the longer we live in intimacy with Jesus, the less hold sin should have on us. Sometimes the purpose of our testing isn’t to cause us to turn from sin, but to turn to a greater level of intimacy with the Lord, as it was with Job. See Job’s response in chapter 40. Jesus promised us in John 16:33: “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in Me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

My purpose today is to simply put our mind at ease in the sense we never have to fear injustice in our relationship with the Lord. Will the Lord allow us to suffer from injustice? Absolutely! We’ll not escape injustice as a citizen of the human race, but He will always work in and through whatever we suffer to bring good to us and glory to Himself through us, which is our goal in life as a Jesus follower.

Food for thought.

Blessing, Ed 😊

How God Works

“Because we belong to the day, we must live decent lives for all to see. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And don’t let yourself think about ways to indulge your evil desires.” (Romans 13:13-14 NLT)

Do you find it strange that we’re so often tolerant about our unfaithfulness to God and so intolerant of others, some of whom are doing the same things that we do? We get a juicy morsel of information about someone in the church, but though we may not have the whole context, we may not even personally know them, but that doesn’t stop us from sending out a “prayer request” for our poor brother or sister who was caught in this grievous sin.

Yet, when we’re the “victim,” when we’re the one who has been caught in an indiscretion, then we can’t believe the ugly “lies” that are circulating about us. Why does the Lord allow those kinds of things? Could it be because far too often God is the One who is the subject of our wrong thinking, but we’re too blind to realize it.

Ironically, when we’re walking close to the Lord, He enables us to weather our storms with grace, kindness, and love, because that’s how He wants us to treat each other. We too quickly forget the Lord is the Ruler of everything; that He engineers circumstances to fit His plan and schedule, not ours. He allows things to touch our lives, not to make us bitter, but to make us better.

Jonas Clarke wrote: “However dark and mysterious the ways of providence may appear; yet nothing shall overwhelm the mind, or destroy the trust and hope of those, that realize the government of Heaven…that an all wise God is seated on the throne and that all things are well appointed…for them that fear Him.”

David Jeremiah wrote: “On the first anniversary of the Battle of Lexington—the beginning of the American Revolution—local pastor Jonas Clarke preached a sermon. He spoke eloquently about God’s overruling providence. He said, ‘Next to the acknowledgement of the existence of a Deity, there is no one principle of greater importance…than…belief of the divine government and…providence…. That God is Governor among the nations, that his government is wise and just, and that all our times and changes are in his hands.’” (See Turning Point Divine Government – 04-04-25)

We unnecessarily cause ourselves trauma, worry, anxiety, and torment of soul and spirit when we fret about things that are out of our control. (Newsflash: EVERYTHING is out of our control!) But, fortunately for those of us who know Him, God is NEVER out of control. Nothing ever touches our life except it passes through the filter of His permission; however, that doesn’t mean we’re going to agree with it or like it.

I hated that I had to go through a divorce, but the things the Lord is continuing to teach me because of it is making it worthwhile. There are those of you who have lost children, grandchildren, and other loved ones, the loss of whom bears no logical explanation. It seems the only reasonable question is WHY? But that’s the wrong question.

Understanding and trusting that God is in control and knows everything from beginning to end and that He has allowed this tragedy for reasons we may not ever fully understand until we get to the other side might not give us an explanation, but I do know this: if we’ll be open and submissive to His authority in our lives, He will give Himself to us in ways we would have never experienced Him had we not gone through the pain and heartache we endured. That may not ease the pain, but it can sure make it more tolerable.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

We Can’t Help Ourselves

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves His children, too. We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey His commandments.” (1 John 5:1-2 NLT)

When we believe, in the sense that John uses that word in the verse above, Scripture will come to life with meaning, guiding us into Truth we never knew existed. Many questions we have are answered, not because we get smarter or even gain better understanding, but because the closer we get to Jesus the more clarity He gives us in regard to a lot of things, including ourselves.

Belief in Jesus opens a level of commitment that being a child of God deepens, not only our understanding of, but our application of our love for God, ourselves and others, including our brothers and sisters in Christ. Why is that so vital? First, because a desire to love isn’t innate, it’s a gift of God. And notice John’s line of reasoning in the verse above.

It seems reasonable to me to think if I love and obey God, then He would give me assurance and confidence that I then loved His children, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and that’s exactly what John is saying. The evidence that we know, that we have intimacy, closeness, commitment to our brothers and sisters in Christ, is the level of growing intimacy we have with the Father.

If we don’t love and obey the Lord, how could we ever hope to have love for His children? But when our heart overflows with love for God it’s our instinct to then, in turn, love who and what He loves. I believe Christine Caine must have had something similar in mind when she wrote: “When we love God and receive His love, we won’t be able to help but love those around us.”

Paul addresses this idea in 1 Corinthians 13:11-12 NLT: “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

As long as we’re in this flesh we’ll struggle, yet, by God’s grace and with His help and guidance we can take strides in the right direction by simply staying close to Him. The greater our level of intimacy with the Lord the greater our desire to want nothing but what He wants for us, including, but not limited to, a greater capacity to love like He loves.

Love is the earmark of a believer in Jesus. As I’ve traveled to other countries, I didn’t have to muster up some artificial feeling for my brothers and sisters in Christ that I would meet; nor did I have to be concerned that they wouldn’t love me. There’s a level of loving acceptance among those whose hearts belong to Jesus that immediately gives us an openness and genuine affection for one another. We literally can’t help ourselves from loving one another.

How about you? Do you find it hard to love others? Does the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you see “that” person coming into church? Hate to break it to you, but that’s not their problem, it’s yours. Get over yourself, submit to Christ’s Lordship in and over your life and let Him love others through you. It sure makes life a lot easier.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Unhealthy Habits (Part 3)

“Since we have been united with Him in His death, we will also be raised to life as He was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we also live with Him.” (Romans 6:5-8 NLT)

Using Paul’s powerful words above, let’s formulate a simple gameplan to free you from the shackles of sin that may still have you bound. First, if you’re born again of the Spirit of God you are free from the penalty of your sin. You have accepted the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross as your payment in full for your sin debt to God; however, you are still accountable for the sins you continue to commit.

What does that mean? It means sin has a cost. Sin separates us from God, not in an eternal sense once we’ve been born again, but each time we choose sin over submission to His will, we push ourselves further from Him, in the sense it makes it more difficult to “hear” His voice and to follow His directives.

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As a child of God my goal is to listen to the Lord intently, follow His directives completely, worship and adore Him with every fiber of my being, trust Him without reservation, and to submit to His Lordship over my life without question. It’s taken me many years to understand that and to seek to practice it in my life 24/7. But it started with some simple understanding.

First, Satan doesn’t own me, Jesus does. What does that mean? It means I obey Jesus, not Satan. I have to make a choice. When Satan is drawing me to lustful pleasures in whatever form they may come, just like Jesus when He was being tempted, I say an emphatic “NO!” Then I turn from whatever it is, whether that means turning off a device or literally walking away.

What if I don’t have the strength to do that? You do! He’s the Holy Spirit who lives in you as God’s child. You have the strength, courage, whatever you need, you just need to let yourself believe you can. But how can I recognize His presence? His voice? Initially, the easiest way is to partner with a believing friend. Put their phone number on speed dial and the second you get tempted and are starting to squirm with conviction, call them!

Explain the situation and spend time in prayer, seeking the Lord’s forgiveness for letting your mind wander so far, then confirm your determination to walk obediently with the Lord. You can use the same process whatever spiritual habit you’re seeking to form. It’s much easier to partner with someone who is a little further down the road to maturity than you are, but who will be patient with you and understand when you fail.

Spiritual habits MUST ultimately replace your unhealthy habits. Nature abhors a vacuum, so if you make room by stopping something that’s been hurting you in some way, if you don’t replace it with something good, it will revert back to something unhealthy. Get on a healthy schedule of personal worship – reading, studying Scripture, praying, and spending time with other godly people who will hold you accountable and help keep you on track.

It’s also healthy to know that every second of your day is your “God Time,” in the sense, He’s always with you and wants you to consult Him about every decision you make, and everything you do, whether working, eating a meal or working out at the gym. Every second is an opportunity to either draw closer to the Lord or move further away. It’s up to us whether we let Jesus or Satan win in the decisions we make.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Unhealthy Habits (Part 2)

“You have died with Christ, and He has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, ‘Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!’? Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.” (Colossians 2:20-23 NLT)

While there are some similarities, there are significant differences between physical and spiritual disciplines. For example, In a similar way as increasing weight and reps in weight lifting can increase physical strength, increasing time and focus when reading Scripture and praying can increase spiritual fervor.

However, while the strength gained lifting weights can make some tasks easier, may increase self-confidence, and even make us feel physically more attractive, all those things essentially center on us, how they make me feel about myself. On the other hand, while spiritual disciplines may, and hopefully will, increase our self-confidence in terms of our usefulness to the Lord, the central purpose of reading and studying the Bible, devoting time to prayer, corporate worship, investment of time and resources in the Body of Christ, the Church, making time for growing together with other like-minded men and women in a small group, fasting, spiritual retreats, and other means of spiritual growth are in their essence more others focused.

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In an effort to maintain a strong and healthy body, it demands a balance of effort on many fronts. It’s not enough just to eat right, I must also exercise, get enough rest, stimulate my heart and mind, as well as have times of relaxation and enjoyment. And, as with spiritual disciplines, it’s better and just more fun to do them with others. Yes, of course, devote specific time to being alone with God, but also allow time with likeminded brothers and sisters to grow your faith.

Similarly, when it comes to defeating the unhealthy spiritual habits we have, there are steps to a successful transition. First, we must have a vision or goal. I’ve found it helpful to focus on the positive rather than the negative. How so? If I’m wasting too much time viewing my phone, iPad, computer, TV, magazines, gaming, whatever, to focus on THEM is to defeat the purpose. Focus on what you want to transition into.

For example, let’s say the Lord has let you know you must make spending time in the Bible a priority. If you have a day-planner, whether on your phone or otherwise, block out however much time you decide and make that time sacred. My experience has been you should start small. It’s a lofty goal to set aside an hour, but when you’re first starting out it’s too much.

Now 3-4 hours pass like 10 minutes, but when it’s fresh 10 minutes can seem like an hour. Set a goal of 10-15 minutes, which is about the time it will take you to read 1 or 2 chapters in the Bible if you read slowly and pay attention to what you’re reading. Start in the Gospel of John in the New Testament and when you finish John, go back to Matthew and read straight through the New Testament. The Old Testament is great and needed but stay in the New Testament until your new habit is formed.

Celebrate your victories. After you reach one week of reading every day, reward yourself. An ice cream cone or a steak at your favorite restaurant. Whatever will be a treat for you. Incrementally, increase your time so that after a month or so it’s fifteen to twenty minutes and so forth until you’re finding it disappointing if you have to miss.

There’s a lot more here. Let’s continue this tomorrow.

Blessings, Ed 😊