Bonus Day
Want to revisit Day 10’s Challenge? Empathy
You made it – but there’s more!
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I hope you have been encouraged through this process.
I pray you have been challenged to move outside of your comfort zone.
My own testimony is that through gazing on Him, rather than dissecting my porn-habits and lust-filled lifestyle, producing a transformation of my heart and mind through a deep, deep renewal. Something died making a way for something new to be born.
I want to encourage you to read this article confronting our tendency to “keep time” as we run this race. Because 10 days is only the beginning of a journey.
After you read that, I wrote this about a life lived by the Spirit – which, according to scripture, allows us to ‘put to death the misdeeds of our flesh.’ (Galatians 5)
If you haven’t heard my story, you can catch it here (below) and be encouraged to know that there is indeed the promise an end to the struggle for those who will allow Christ to be their victory and their peace. If you have not found lasting fruit of freedom from man-made-bestsellers, I can assure you the Bible says the solution is not found looking backward – but rather by looking to the cross. Keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus!
While your past may explain your present situation and mindsets, it doesn’t excuse you staying where you are. Many men I have met have been seeking freedom from countless hours in private-sessions with someone with 22 professional degrees on the wall – but be careful you aren’t looking for man’s wisdom above the foolishness of God. Don’t get stuck sifting your way through complex genealogies and past experiences, when the Bible calls us to “forget what is behind and press on towards the prize in Christ Jesus.”
If you have felt stuck in this “roots” phase – and are trying to dig up the “magic root” that will explain everything and set you free – it’s not there! Search the scriptures yourself and you will see; the fruit comes from ‘abiding in Him’. It’s an ‘abiding issue’ that solves any “root issues” according to John 15. It’s in fixing your eyes on Jesus – not on your past. It’s not untangling a net, but rather accepting a new one. It’s not scrubbing your clothes clean of yesterday’s stains, but daily putting on new ones.
Press on! There is more! This is not a magic 10 Day Program, but a constant pursuit with a promised outcome.
It’s not a matter of ‘getting something’ but rather ‘becoming someone’. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation – old things have passed away! (2 Cor 5:17)
Did you catch it? Old things passing away happens when you become a new person. New things don’t lead to a new person – but a new person guarantees a hunger and a thirst for new things.
Oh my brother! How my heart longs for you to know the all-surpassing greatness of the Love of Christ that you would be so overwhelmed by His love that your appetite for lesser loves, fast-food-christianity, and shortcut-versions would melt away.
It’s an ‘abiding issue’ that solves any “root issues”.
Schedule another 10:10 day into your schedule in the coming weeks and keep pressing on – towards that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you: FREEDOM! It was for FREEDOM He set you free! (Gal 5:1)
Philippians 3:13-14
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.