This summary can be printed out and reviewed daily as a reminder of the truths taught in this course.
Day 41–Battle Strategies I
Time for battle! Here is what you do: Deal harshly with sin; Be merciless in eradicating it; Annihilate every speck of it from our lives; SEEK GOD'S GRACE TO ACCOMPLISH THIS. The course spelled it out like this - 1) Take the offensive. This is key. Don't try to just dodge each fiery dart. Defensiveness breeds fear of failing. Pursue the enemy instead. Remove the tv or computer, be accountable to your spouse every day, put filtering software on the computer, stay away from the magazine rack in stores, stay involved in other peoples' freedom from sin. In other words, BE ACTIVE ON THE OFFENSIVE! 2) Pursue with aggression. Don't let sin sit in the dark, but tell someone right away when you slip and WHEN YOU ARE TEMPTED. They can pull you away in time. If you stop it at temptation, the slip never comes. 3) Be violent with "pet" sins. They are trying to pull your soul into hell. Expose it, kill it, and crush it or it WILL rise again. 4) Pray for God's grace in all of it. "We make our plans but the Lord directs our steps" () Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing" () Don't be the hero, or fight it alone. God has all you need for victory.
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Day 42–Focus!
"The cure for sin is to focus on Jesus Christ!" Today's lesson focused on that statement. Just as Moses had the people look at the snake on the pole, we need to look up at Jesus on the cross and not down at our lustful sins. The cure happened to those who looked up and the snake, and it happens for us to when we look up at Jesus on that cross for our sins. 1) They admitted their powerlessness, 2) They admitted their ignorance, 3) They focused on God. The snake is our sins...that is you and me and Mike and everyone else up there. Our sins are upon Jesus on the cross. The wounds on His body are ours. There are holes in His hands for the wrongs we've done with our hands. Our feet have taken us to wrong places, and Jesus had holes put in His feet. The crown of thorns, the heart gashed open, the beaten-up man. Snakes represent evil, and we must see our snakes up on the cross DEAD. Just look. "The cure for habitual viewing of pornography, or impurity of any kind, is to have the focus of our lives be on Jesus Christ." He died to kill our sin for us, He offers us strength and salvation, only He can defeat the vast army of sin, He restores us and gives us grace...look at that, apply it to your heart and be cured of habitual sin!
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Day 43 - Romans 6
Today we read through Romans 6 and answered questions on the verses. It talks about our old man, and how it was crucified and buried with Christ, and how we are "a new creation, resurrected with Christ and joined with him by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit" and we are "free from the bondage of sin and its power, and can now live a life of purity and holiness in him". Imputed vs Imparted Righteousness -- "Imputed righteousness is that which Christ gives me as a free gift"; "Imparted righteousness is that righteousness that is progressively changing my heart and life by the power of the Holy Spirit". We were once slaves to sin, but are now slaves to God! Our new master changes us daily through our fight with sin! And we receive eternal salvation in the process...what a deal!
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Day 44 - Dark Night Of The Soul (Romans 7)
Today's lesson is a tough one, especially if you are in the midst of the dark night it talks about. Today we talked about the confusion of sin: knowing what is right but unable to stop sinning. Today you either have your identity as a sinner or as a saint who sins sometimes. Which are you? If you consider yourself a sinner still, you know what you SHOULD be doing and still aren't doing it. No matter how much you know and how much you pray. And it can lead you right to despair. Hang in there! God is at work and must break a man before He remakes him. All of us have to hit this point, and those that walk in victory today walk there only because of the effect of the dark night leading them to Jesus with all their heart. God's grace will make a way for you. Comfort and victory are found in Jesus. See tomorrow's lesson for more details.
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Day 45 – No Condemnation! (Romans 8)
After every dark night comes the morning. Romans 8 is all about the morning, where you find that there is no condemnation over your sinning. THE LAW IS POWERLESS TO FREE YOU. It can command you to not sin, but not enable you. Only God can! And it is ALREADY DONE. It was done when Christ was sent to die as a sin offering. It is done! He breaks the power of canceled sin. Today's lesson said it well: "Again, we see that Jesus' death has done something magnificent. It not only frees us from sin's penalty and sin's power, but it fulfills the law in us." He died because the law said death was required, so now we walk as law-fulfillers! Amen!
Now keep your mind non-hostile and living in accordance with the Spirit and not with the flesh's desires. We have no obligation to gratify the flesh when it cries out to be satisfied. Crucify the flesh and die daily. "THE PAIN IS WORTH THE GAIN!"
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Day 46 - Pornography Can't Hold Water
The verse from chapter 2 of Jeremiah is so key for us. Put your own life into the verse. We forsake God, the "spring of living water", and dig our own cisterns. But they are broken and cannot hold water. As course member Andre wrote, "The only way to find satisfaction again is to repent, to go back to our true cisterns and start drinking of the living water again." Porn will not satisfy. Only Jesus can satisfy. Charles Spurgeon's quote about us really hits home, where he talks of us staggering around exhausted going from cistern to cistern "hoping to find water where not a drop was ever discovered yet". Satisfaction has not yet been found in P and M, so don't fall for its wiles and tricks.
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Day 47 - Brokenness: Key to Victory
Psalm 51 says God breaks us, grants us brokenness. It is not something we do ourselves or find within us after an amount of sorrow. Psalm 51 was written by David after Nathan confronted him about his sin with Bathsheeba. He speaks of true brokenness being "a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart" (). Charles Spurgeon has a few quotes in today's lesson but the key part is how repentance must refer to Christ or it is not repentance. He says we need "one eye upon sin and another upon the cross" if we can't have both eyes on Christ. We need to see how our sin relates to Christ up on the cross and how it put our Lord there. John Bradford was mentioned today as not rising from his knees in prayer each day until he felt something of brokenness of heart. The key thing to take from today's lesson is that you must ask for this repentance. It is a gift from God. How are you handling your repentance? Are you asking for it today?
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Day 48 - Such Were Some Of You
God makes us different people than we used to be. Who we were is not who we are...we are now in Christ! Amen! So now we need to recognize this in our own lives and not act like who we were but who we are. Today's lesson spoke about the churches Paul had to deal with (ex. , ) and how this was his key focus for them. We are no longer sinners trying to be good, but saints who occasionally sin. Thus, our normal pattern is to walk in righteousness. The grace of God makes us both holy and righteous in God's eyes. We are free indeed!
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Day 49 - Walking In The Spirit
At times we acutely feel the fiery darts of our enemy. We feel we will always fight and only win most of the time. We want to give up due to a lack of lasting victory. But to win we are to walk in the Spirit. "So I say, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." () The trick is to walk in the Spirit all the time. Converse about spiritual things, take care of the Spirit more than the body, be led by the Holy Spirit. As Matthew Henry comments, "Make the word of God your rule and the grace of God your principle". Your fruit shows your walk. Do not be deceived, for those who walk in sin will not inherit the kingdom, according to the Galatians verses above. The fight is not with porn and masturbation but in walking in the Spirit! Be in the Word daily, pray continually, look to God for guidance in daily activities.
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Day 50 - Freedom Through Fellowship
"I am the vine; you are the branches." () To walk in the Spirit you must be a branch and feed off the vine. You must have a faith relationship with Christ. Today it was said "If your joy in Jesus is complete, you will not have to look for it anywhere else." When fully on the vine, relying on His nourishment and strength, then you will be fruitful. We can't do it on our own -- we will become a dry, dead branch to be burned up. One good fruit is "self-control". So if we simply remain in Christ we will be given the self-control to overcome pornography, impurity and masturbation!! Peter fell three times in denying Christ because "he followed at a distance" according to . How close are you to your Lord right now?
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