1#....No amount of travel or reading or clever sages can tell you what you want to know. Instead, it is you who must find the answer in your actions, in living the good life—
by embodying the self-evident principles of justice, self-control, courage, freedom, and abstaining from evil.
2#...October 20 Patience is a bitter plant, but it has sweet fruit. German proverb Waiting is one of the worst things to ask of a compulsive overeater. If I don’t see results immediately, I get discouraged. In the days when I fought one obsession with another, I dieted compulsively and jumped on the scale compulsively. I could put up with any discomfort, any deprivation—for varying lengths of time—as long as I did not have to suffer a “plateau”; to diet and lose no weight was intolerable. Clearly, when something is intolerable, it is abandoned—and so went every reducing scheme I ever tried. Thank God I am not here to diet and lose weight. For today: I am in OA to turn my life around—and I’m willing to wait.
3#...How to Surrender
Day 20
As humans, our flesh craves control. We want to hold everything so tightly, strategically plan each move or decision, and believe we can control all outcomes in our lives. No matter how many times this theory fails us, we tend to believe we can just fight harder for control and the world will eventually bend to our will. But there is something so beautiful in God's eyes in that moment, when we finally release the tight grip on our lives, and surrender our control to Him.
Read the following words that Jesus himself spoke. These are the words He is speaking to you, in hopes you will trust him with the many burdens ED places on you.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest...for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:28-29)
Surrender is meant to expand your faith, trust, and dependence on God beyond what you ever imagined it could be. And yet, while surrender is meant to be gloriously freeing, it's also commonly misunderstood. You may recall a time when you laid it all at the feet of Jesus, only to find yourself more frustrated because once you surrendered your circumstances didn't change, That's okay!
Simply sharing your mess with God can lift the weight from your shoulders tremendously, and it's certainly what He desires from you. But that is just the beginning; your role in the matter doesn't end there.
"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you...for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6:6-8)
This scripture displays our Father's deep desire for us to not only trust Him, but to have a relationship with Him. Before we ever speak a word to Him, He already knows our every need and desire, and yet He still asks us to seek Him in prayer. This is why surrender isn't a one and done deal. Each time you find your hands reaching out to take control back, choose to surrender all your anxieties right back to God. It is in this faithfulness that He will meet you and fill your heart in the way that only He can.
Today's Scriptures
Matthew 11:28-29 Matthew 6:6-8
4#...October 20
Read: Jeremiah 8-9; Romans 8
Romans 8:30 "Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."
Our big heads cause us to try to understand and develop doctrines about predestination and being called and so on. Could it be, be- lievers are trying to read more out of this verse than God intended? To bring this to simple understand- ing, God is telling us that He did it all.
5#...
Is God’s Will My Will? “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” 1 Thessalonians 4:3
Sanctification is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me—is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me everything that has been made possible through the atonement of the Cross of Christ? Am I willing to let Jesus become sanctification to me, and to let His life be exhibited in my human flesh? (See 1 Corinthians 1:30.) Beware of saying, “Oh, I am longing to be sanctified.” No, you are not. Recognize your need, but stop longing and make it a matter of action. Receive Jesus Christ to become sanctification for you by absolute, unquestioning faith, and the great miracle of the atonement of Jesus will become real in you. All that Jesus made possible becomes mine through the free and loving gift of God on the basis of what Christ accomplished on the cross. And my attitude as a saved and sanctified soul is that of profound, humble holiness (there is no such thing as proud holiness). It is a holiness based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing about Him (see Romans 5:8). He completed everything for my salvation and sanctification. No wonder Paul said that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). Sanctification makes me one with Jesus Christ, and in Him one with God, and it is accomplished only through the magnificent atonement of Christ. Never confuse the effect with the cause. The effect in me is obedience, service, and prayer, and is the outcome of inexpressible thanks and adoration for the miraculous sanctification that has been brought about in me because of the atonement through the Cross of Christ.
