The truth. It is sometimes hard to discover and even harder to accept. As much as we may like to think that we are smart people who have got life all figured out, we actually get off base in our thinking or our feelings in many ways. As we have already seen (chapter three), we …
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33050 Step 3. Turning Around
The New Testament word for “repent” means to turn around—we turn away from sin and toward God. After adopting a correct view of God and revising false beliefs, step three in the process we are outlining is to repent of your sinful habit. Over the years, I (Henry) have defined a five-part process of repentance that …
33031 Step 1. Knowing God: The Purification Process
The Purification Process The ways in which people have gone wrong in their opinions about their Creator are almost as numerous as the human race itself. The diversity of religious beliefs in the world bears witness to how we can be misled about God. First of all, of course, it is important to believe that …
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33032 Step 1. Knowing God: How God Acts Toward Us
How God Acts Toward Us Learning about the nature and attributes of God, as revealed by the Bible, is far from being a mere academic exercise. We discover in the process a God who cares about us, who is intimately involved in our lives, and who wants to help us heal from our sin problems. …
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33030 Step 1. Knowing God
If we want to stop committing a habitual sin, we should first look at what we are doing and then develop strategies for changing our behavior, right? Wrong. The first step should be to start at the other end—not with ourselves but with God. That is why step one in breaking a sinful habit is …
33022 The Secret to Lasting Health: Fruitful for God
Fruitful for God Many Christians would name Galatians 5:22-23—the passage about the “fruit of the Spirit”—as among their favorite verses in the Bible. But are you aware that Galatians 5 refers not to one kind of fruit but to two? The Spirit produces love, joy, peace, and all the rest, surely enough, but before that …
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33023 The Secret to Lasting Health: Spiritual Breathing
Spiritual Breathing In the process of breathing, our lungs expel carbon dioxide (dangerous to our health) and take in oxygen (needed for proper tissue function). Similarly, spiritual breathing is “exhaling” guilt through confession and “inhaling” grace through filling by the Holy Spirit. Whenever we have sinned, we can “breathe” in this way. The main difference …
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33024 The Secret to Lasting Health: Love The Main Virtue
Love: The Main Virtue Every virtue is important, but none other is so important as love. To Jesus, love for God and love for people represented the sum of all obedience (see Matthew 22:34-40). When Paul talked about taking off the rags of sin and putting on new garments of righteousness, he commented, “The most …
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33021 The Secret to Lasting Health: Dressed for Godliness
Dressed for Godliness The Bible pairs the idea of eliminating sin with the idea of adopting holiness so consistently that we must take it to be an important principle of the Christian life. One of the clearest examples occurs in the letter to the Colossians. Here Paul used the image of taking off the old …
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33013 Dealing with Behavior Problems: The Answer
The Answer Repenting and turning to God for help are first steps toward the freedom from sin that we so desperately desire. But as we have said, that requires facing up to the fact that sin is at the heart of our problem. We have to come to grips with sin. Christians in earlier centuries …
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