DAY 1 COMMENTARY: BEGIN AGAIN
Hi, my name is Pat and I am a grateful believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I welcome you to Ninety Days: Encouragement for the Christian Overeater.
This is a commentary on Day 1: Begin Again.
The verse: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:13-14
Forgetting what is behind: God calls me to live in this present time. He calls me to take His Power, right in this very instant, and run the race before me in the power of the Spirit.
Hebrews 10:39 reminds me: we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.
Straining toward what is ahead: Doing the will of God will take work. This is not always an easy road to travel. Nevertheless, God is ready to provide all the power necessary to get through any testing.
1 Corinthinans 10:13 reminds me: No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
I press on toward the goal: The devil will do all he can to divert me from keeping my eyes on Jesus. When I take my eyes off of Jesus, I lose sight of who I am in Jesus. I am no longer among the unsaved and the lost. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17-18
God has called me: Because I belong to Jesus, my life has been spoken for. I have a new purpose. I have been called to bring the Good News to the lost and to encourage the saved. I now have “beautiful feet.”
Romans 10:14-15 says : And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
My overeating made it very hard for me to forget what was behind. When I was overeating I was often seized with self hate. I was overweight. I hated seeing my body mishapened by the fat. I was ashamed of how I obsessed about food and eating all the time. The indigestion was often unbearable. Moreover, the guilt of breaking promises to myself filled me with remorse and shame.
When I became abstinent in 1987, I had no idea that it would be the beginning of 22 plus years of back-to-back abstinent. I did not know, personally the God who loved me so much that he cared about my overeating. But He knew me. He loved me so much that He healed me and I want to sing His praises forever.
Perhaps as you listen today, you have lost sight of this loving God. Perhaps you have never known Him. It is my hope that this message will help you to see that the Lord cares deeply about your abstinence. He wants you clean and powerful. He wants you following in His footsteps to help the hopeless find hope.
Let the Lord clean up your act with the food so that you can be of maximum service as a follower of Jesus. Call out to Him. Asked for a filling of the Holy Spirit each time that it seems that life if too much and you need something to eat. Remember, if you have to eat about anything then you are making it bigger than God. Nothing is impossible with Him. You can get done what He calls you to do AND you don’t have to eat about it either.
Father, thank you for all that You have given to us. Thank you for all that You have planned for our lives. Help us not to be afraid. Give us faith to trust that You love us and You want us to succeed. Give us strength to follow Your call to our hearst. We want abstinence today and everyday. We can not do this without You, and we cry out to You for the willingness and strength to press on and claim our victory. Jesus is Lord and we have our victory in Him! We pray in His name. Amen.