ACTS 29 TODAY

coming to the knowledge of the TRUTH

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THE PARABLE OF SISTER DIET

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You may be able to better understand the difference

between willpower and mortification through my little

parable about Sister Diet. For Sister Diet, every January

starts the same thing all over again: “I’m going to lose

thirty pounds of this unsightly heaviness. No more

MacDonald’s. No more pies and cakes. I’m just going to

eat salads, and I’m going to start a big exercise

program!”

Sister Diet stirs up her emotions and gets her willpower

kicked in. Then on January 1, she starts her diet. She

holds on for two months, stretching her willpower like

a tight guitar string. By the third month, it’s “Oh, God!

Another salad!

”Then one day, the pastor receives a call from the local

pie factory. “Pastor, we have a woman down here who

claims to be one of your parishioners, and she just

raided our pie factory. She says her name is Sister Diet.

Do you know her?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, she’s babbling out of her mind — something

about her will breaking.”

“What happened to her?”“I don’t know. Have you ever

seen those Bugs Bunny cartoons where the Tasmanian

Devil whirls through like a tornado, eating up trees and

anything else in his way? Well, Sister Diet just chewed

her way through the door and the pie case and ate half

of everything in the pie case. Then she chewed her way

through the steel door of the freezer — and she’s still in

there!We have her in two straitjackets. Can you come

and get her?”

So the pastor comes to retrieve Sister Diet. As he half

carries her out of the pie factory, she continues to

mumble incoherently, “My will broke. My will broke.”

The parable of Sister Diet is a little extreme, but you get

the point. Will worship can only take you so far in your

battle to overcome the deeds of the flesh. The only true

way to put those fleshly works to death once and for all

is through the Spirit.

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Willpower Can’t Change a Marriage

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I’ll give you another example of how flesh can take

back its ground when change is attempted through

willpower alone. When a husband and wife are having

marital problems, family counseling can be a real help.

The counselor teaches both the husband and the wife

how they are supposed to fulfill their roles in the

marriage. He tells them, “If you’ll do these things, it will

change your marriage.”

It’s easy to tell people what they need to do to change

their marriage. But if the counselor doesn’t teach the

husband and wife how to find the root of the problem

— how to allow the Holy Spirit to purge them of the

weaknesses that caused the problems in the first place

— then all he has done is to give the couple some great

but ineffective speeches.

So the husband and wife leave the counselor’s office all

stirred up in their emotions and determined to change

their marriage. The first thing the wife does is to buy

the recommended book Do Yourself a Favor and Love

Your Spouse and read it.

The husband comes home from a hard day at the office.

The wife is scantily dressed, candles flicker on the

table, and the aroma of pheasant under glass fills the

air.

He asks, “Where are the kids?”

“Never mind, Sweetie,” she says.

He thinks, My Lord, I have a new wife!

Later the wife conveniently leaves the book Do Yourself

a Favor and Love Your Spouse lying on a table in plain

sight. The husband finds it and reads it. Later he comes

home holding a red rose and greets her with “Hello, my

dearest.” He begins to go out of his way to do all those

tender, loving little things that mean so much.

On Saturday morning, the wife wakes up to a kiss. The

husband sets a breakfast tray on her lap with a red rose

lying next to the food. “I have myself a new husband!”

she exclaims.

Both husband and wife are in seventh heaven for a

while. But about three months later,the will to keep up

the effort of being a loving spouse is stretching thin.

It’s Saturday morning again, and the wife wakes up to a

kiss and another breakfast tray with a red rose lying

next to the food. She says grumpily, “Oh, don’t they

have anything down at that flower place but red roses?”

The husband snaps back, “I’m going to slap you clear

out of bed, woman!” And the battle of the sexes is

resumed full force!

Whether it’s smoking, eating too much, arguing with

your spouse, or any other deed of the flesh, the

principle is the same: Relying on sheer willpower to

change your fleshly weakness-es will take you only so

far. It is only through the Spirit that you mortify the

deeds of the body.

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God’s Word Is the Standard

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Jesus told us in John 15:2 that as branches connected to

the true Vine, we will be purged in order to bear more

fruit. Then in the next verse, Jesus said, Now ye are

clean through the word which I have spoken unto

you(v. 3). In other words, it is the Word of God that sets

the standard for our purging. Without the Word, where

would we obtain the information we need to discern

between good and evil or truth and lies?

Only one foundation of truth exists in the entire

universe, and that is the Word of God. Some religions

will tell you, “Our system of religion is truth.” But they

are not. They are in deception, and they don’t know it.

Other religions will also try to convince you that they

have the truth and their tenets contain sound wisdom

for living, but they do not have eternal truth.

Only the Word can be trusted as the standard for truth.

It didn’t come from this world. It came from God

Himself.

The second Person of the Godhead is called the mighty

Logos, or the Word, who came to earth incarnate as the

man Jesus Christ. The mighty Logos was chosen by the

Godhead to cross and close the gap between humanity

and God. One way He closed that gap was by providing

information about the Godhead. He said, “If you have

seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9).

The ancient philosophers sought something to bridge

the gap between God and man.Socrates, Plato, and

other famous philosophers tried to plunge their minds

into infinity, asking, “What is out there? Who is the

original Thinker? Who is the unmoved Mover?” But

they had no answers. They only knew something had to

be out there.

Then John brought the revelation those Greek

philosophers sought all those years. He said,“Do you

want to know who in this universe is the unmoved

Mover? I’ll tell you.

“Before anything had a beginning, there was the Logos.

The Logos was with God. The Logos was God. And the

Logos stood face to face, coequal with God. All things

were made by the Logos. Nothing in creation was made

without Him [John 1:1-3]. Sure, I can tell you who the

unmoved Mover is. He is the mighty Logos, the Word.

He is the One who has closed the gap between man and

God.”

So if you are trying to be purged by any other standard

than the Logos, you are wasting your time. One of the

most deceptive things you can get involved with is a

religion peddling a bill of goods that isn’t a mandate

from God’s Word. You can spend years trying to follow a

set of man-made rules that do nothing to change you

from the inside out. There is only one true purging

process, and Jesus spelled it out: Now ye are clean

THROUGH THE WORD which I have spoken unto you

(John 15:3).

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UNTIL NEXT TIME

LARRY