To Him Who Is Able

"When we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons...So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God...But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" from Gal 4

Why do we turn back to sin and the fleeting pleasures of sin, whose slaves we once were and who we want to be again? Why is it so hard to flee from sin and to run to Christ, the one who brought us to know Him and delivered us from a life of slavery?

I am so encouraged by Paul's letter to the Galatians and the Spirit's power to overcome our flesh's desires. We have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. And the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. Having begun by the Spirit, we are not being perfected by the flesh, but by the Spirit who gives us life in Christ.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Rom 8)

God has given us the authority to say NO to sin by the power of His Spirit at work within us. Though we still struggle in this earthly tent, we have been crucified with Christ. All our sin was nailed into Jesus hands and feet on the cross. He bore all of God's righteous wrath against our sin. And, there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus! Praise the Lord!

Take comfort in that God uses our sin to remind us of our constant need for dependence on Him in prayer and our absolute inability to make ourselves right with God. But, praise God, we have ALREADY been made right before God, through the blood of Christ the Lamb!

He WILL sustain us to the end, guiltless in the day of Christ Jesus. (from 1 cor 1)

"Now to him WHO IS ABLE to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." from Jude

Glorious Truth from Let the Nations Be Glad

"At the bottom of all our hope, when everything else has given way, we stand on this great reality:
The everlasting, all-sufficient God is infinitely, unwaveringly and eternally committed to the glory of
his great and holy name. For the sake of his fame among the nations he will act. His name will not
be profaned forever. The mission of the church will be victorious. He will vindicate his people and his
cause in all the earth." J. Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad

Encouragement from Scripture

It's been a while since I've posted. This semester has been really hard. So much uncertainty with graduating and job searching. On top of that, I've been trying (and often failing) to get my binging under control.

However, I just want to encourage you with some Scripture and some lyrics that have really helped me believe that Christ is victorious over sin and that we are no longer slaves to sin if we are in Christ.

"Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that who was raised-who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us?" (Rom 8:34). This verse has been so comforting to know that Christ is interceding on my behalf and that any condemning thoughts that come into my head have to be lies from Satan, because Christ is imploring me to repent and turn towards him.

"This Man receives sinners and eats with them." Luke 15:2. This verse reminds me that Christ came to seek and save that which was lost. And He sent his Son into the world NOT to condemn the world, BUT that the world through him might be saved!

"Abide in me and I in you...for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:45). I love this verse because fighting sin is so hard that we can't fight it and live lives devoted to Christ unless we are abiding in Him. But when we are abiding in Him, sin is no match for His redeeming power! Hallelujah!

"But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." (Rom 13:14). I love this verse!! I repeat it over and over in my head when I face temptation and I have found it helpful! So thankful that we can put on the Lord Jesus Christ, or we would be slaves to our flesh!


Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.

Behold the Lamb

Behold the Lamb who bears our sins away,

Slain for us - and we remember

The promise made that all who come in faith

Find forgiveness at the cross.

So we share in this bread of life,

And we drink of His sacrifice

As a sign of our bonds of peace

Around the table of the King.

The body of our Savior Jesus Christ,

Torn for you - eat and remember

The wounds that heal, the death that brings us life

Paid the price to make us one.

So we share in this bread of life,

And we drink of His sacrifice

As a sign of our bonds of love

Around the table of the King.

The blood that cleanses every stain of sin,

Shed for you - drink and remember

He drained death's cup that all may enter in

To receive the life of God.

So we share in this bread of life,

And we drink of His sacrifice

As a sign of our bonds of grace

Around the table of the King.

And so with thankfulness and faith we rise

To respond, - and to remember

Our call to follow in the steps of Christ

As His body here on earth.

As we share in His suffering

We proclaim Christ will come again!

And we’ll join in the feast of heaven

Around the table of the King
- Keith & Kristyn Getty

Praying that we would rejoice in Christ's salvation this weekend, made possible only by the death, burial, and resurrection of God's son. Praying that many will behold the Lamb this Sunday and make Him their Lord and Savior!

You Will Rise Up In The End

This weekend was really hard for me. I broke three commitments that I told myself I must abide by: I binged, I read a fitness magazine (which has become like pornography to me), and I ran on Saturday morning before reading the Word (I never ended up reading the Word that day). I felt consumed by guilt and self-condemnation because I wasn't measuring up, not even closely

I have to remind myself of the Gospel, and be reminded by others: Christ is our perfect substitute. It is by His righteousness that we will enter the kingdom. It is His hold on me that will never be broken. It is His grace that sustains me every day. In Christ, there is no judgment for me, no wrath. All God's wrath was spent on Christ. There is none left for me. But His mercies are new every morning, great is His faithfulness.

A dear friend sent this song to me today, and I found it super encouraging:

You Will Rise Up in the End

“Every stone that makes you stumble
and cuts you when you fall
Every serpent here that strikes your heel
to curse you when you crawl
The king of love one day will crush them all

And every sad seduction and every clever lie
Every word that woos and wounds the pilgrim children of the sky
The king of love will break them by and by

And you will rise up in the end
You will rise up in the end
I know the night is cruel
but the day is coming soon
And you will rise up in the end

If the thief had to come to plunder when the children were alone
If he ravaged every daughter and murdered every son
Would not their father see this? Would not his anger burn?
And would he not repay the tyrant in the day of his return?
Oh, wait. Oh, wait the day of his return

Cause he will rise up in the end
He will rise up in the end
I know you need a Savior
He is patient in his anger
And he will rise up in the end

And when the stars come crashing to the sea
and the high and mighty fall down on their knees
When you see the Son descending in the sky
the chains of death will fall around your feet

You will rise up in the end
you will rise up in the end”

—Ben Shive, “Rise Up”, *The Ill-Tempered

Glorious!

One day you will say, “How did such a light affliction bring me into this kind of glory?” 2 Cor. 4:17

@BobSorge

Battling Unbelief

"Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us" (Romans 8:33-34).

"This means that because of Christ, God has justified us. Past Tense. We are now already counted righteous in Christ. No one can bring a successful charge against us. Christ died for us and lives for us. Thus, we battle unbelief and sin as those who in Christ already have the decisive victory. We already have our standing in heaven by faith in Christ. Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our perfection. We pursue holiness, not because we are not yet accepted by God, but because we are. This is the way Paul put it: 'I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own' (Philippians 3:12)."

- John Piper, Battling Unbelief

This weekend I became really discouraged that I could not perfectly fight my sin. Eat perfectly. Think perfectly. Desire God perfectly. But Christ is my perfection. I was listening to this song when I was running today and it reminded me to think of Christ more than my sin. I just love the part in bold. God is so much more powerful than my sin is over me and I have to remind myself of that every single moment. Here are the lyrics:

"I think we emphasize sin so much that it makes us paralyzed
And glorify struggle so much that it makes us terrified
And deemphasize the fact that we have been sterilized from our own lives and thus
God this aint never wise
We gotta snap out of it
We aint in no straight jacket
We free
When Jesus died in our lives something strange happened
He gave us power
Yeah I know that we sinners but since he rose he's renewing the image of God in us
Now, we gotta start making war
Now we can start saying no
To them fleshly impulses that Jesus Christ is paying for
Now we can start taking allegiance
Just like the dalai lama and start going all out just like a suicide bomber
Whatever the sin is we gotta go harder
By God's grace no time to waste and just like there's no tomorrow
- from "Make War" - Tedashii

Missions Festival 2010

This weekend was Missions Festival at Providence. It was so encouraging to hear how God is working all over the world. And it made me realize how selfish I am. All I ever think about is me. I am priority number 1 in my prayer life it seems so often. But really, God desires all men to know Him and He has given us the task to spread His Gospel all over the globe. And I don't even spread it here where it's comfortable.

David Horner said this, and it really pricked my heart: At the last day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Whether they want to or not. And so many people are without Hope, because they have never been told of the One who came and lived and died to give us an eternal relationship with the Godhead, with everlasting joy and the promise of eternal life with Him in a new creation!

A prayer to the God of My Life

Yesterday was my birthday. Birthdays are filled with fun and expressions of love from friends and family. That I was looking forward to. However, birthdays have always been occasions when I worried about the calories in a piece of cake and what I should eat that wouldn't make the scale mad at me in the morning.

All week I had been dreading my birthday dinner with friends because I was worried I would binge or worse, feel the need to compensate for it later (I think you know what I mean!)

OK. Today is the morning after. No bingeing, no purging, no laxatives. Thus, no tears! It is so freeing to let go of our worldly desires and let Christ desires be our desires.

God desires a relationship where we come to Him to be fed. To be satisfied. To find joy. To see truth and recognize lies.

True satisfaction will NOT come from overeating or from restricting. We have to come to the Living Word of God and let him transform our hearts.

"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food all the day and night, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God?'... Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God: for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God....

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. " -Taken from Psalm 42

Why start a blog? This is me.

A friend suggested I start a blog to record my struggles with food and obsession with my body in an attempt to document how Christ uses this struggle to draw me closer to Himself and to set me free from this bondage to bingeing/restricting.

Over a decade of binge eating have brought me feelings of shame and unholiness. This led me to pursue restricting and at times I would try to eat as little as possible to avoid fainting and lose as much weight as quickly as possible.

If only I were thin, I would be happy. If only I wore a size 2, I would be happy. If I was thin, I would be more attractive and more worthy to be loved. If I were really too thin, people would admire my self-control and envy me, giving me the attention I desire.

These are all lies. Lies from the pit of Hell. Lies that Satan wants girls and women to believe to minimize our joy in Christ.

Being thin, being a size 2 will never fill the emptiness inside. I'm just now starting to trust and believe that God loves me and I am beautiful in his sight because He formed me, he knitted me together in my mother's womb, to be reflection of His glory! That is beautiful!