Pinned post
Chapter 2 of 12
"Tomorrow. Let's do it tomorrow."
Rocky's head isn't in the game, and Apollo's eyes light up with a furious rage.
"There is no tomorrow! There is no tomorrow!" he screams back.
I've heard former Navy SEAL David Goggins echo the same sentiment.
"Let's say you're in extreme cold water.
Every time that wave goes over your head, your thought process is, I gotta get out of this water.
And you're hour 1 of 130 hours.
I gotta get out of here, you're in fight or flight.
It's cold, I can't be cold for this long.
And this is where that "one second" decision comes in.
It's about gaining control of your mind, putting things back in proper perspective, and then saying "I really do wanna be here".
And I'm gonna have a bunch of these "1 seconds" through these 130 hours, and I have to learn to control these.
Cause if I fail, one of these "one seconds" I will not be a SEAL, I will not be a doctor, I will not be a lawyerâŚ"
There are many times in life when the tasks before us are so immense and the struggle is so desperate that even a single day seems like an eternity.
Forget trying to make it to the end of the day; sometimes you just have to make it to breakfast and go from there.
In even more intense moments of emotional distress or in the heat of charged emotions, it is worth remembering that in a mere 300 seconds the intensity of that will subside dramatically.
Aside from adrenaline dumps in life threatening situations, the biological processes within our body cannot normally sustain intense emotions for very long, and if you can weather the storm for those 300 seconds, the emotions and pressures you feel will still be present, but will be abated to the point where they begin to become manageable.
Victory in these very moments is why I don't put much weight into counting the days in my purity walk like I'm counting days for being sober or for some other milestone.
When it comes to this battle, it's not a streak to keep track of, it is an ever-present state of mind.
There is no burden of tomorrow.
There is no shame of yesterday, either.
There is only today and the immediate battle of the flesh you face, right here, right now.
Nothing else matters.
The lust demons don't care about your 900 day streak.
If every day is a rung on a ladder, you'll start to feel the fear of being so high up and how long of a way down that mistake will send you, and they'll just use that number against you when you fail to trap you in despair.
When Jesus told his disciples how to pray, he told them to ask for "daily bread."
Those wandering with Moses in the wilderness were instructed to do the same.
"Everyone is to gather as much as they need." they were told regarding the miraculous Manna that fed them, and "no one is to keep any of it until morning."
"However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell." as Exodus chapter 16 records.
Are you starting to get the idea?
One day at a time.
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus tells a crowd later on in Mathew's Gospel.
And you, Christian.
What is God calling you to do, in this season of purity?
âWhoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."
Most people forget that this is a process which the Lord says must occur daily.
We must bear our cross every single day.
First thing in the morning before your feet hit the floor your knees better get there first, because the only way you will succeed in this battle is if you deny yourself, and get up under that cross.
Now I know, many of you get under that cross as I have myself and wonder how you are going to possibly carry such an incredibly heavy burden.
How will you have the strength required to turn from the easy road of sensual gratification, and instead take the narrow road of self denial and selfless service to others.
How do we choose this day the difficult but permanent state of being, and refuse that much easier but temporary respite from the pangs and toils of our daily lives.
The burden of righteousness under that cross is immense, the weight of it is staggering, and you don't know how to take your next step without collapsing, let alone walking out the rest of the day.
It's not enough to get under it, how can we ever carry such a soul crushing burden?
Here's the good news.
You can't.
Listen closely to Jesus words.
âCome to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.â
Do you know what a yoke is?
It is a wooden beam fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to a plow.
More importantly, a yoke allows the two to share a load and pull together.
You don't have to carry the cross by yourself.
My brothers in Christ, he'll carry it with you, and if you're like me most days, he'll carry all of it.
You just have to get under it.
You want to win? Do you want victory, eternal life and life here and now to the fullest?
Get under your cross and ask Jesus to help bear the weight of it with you.
Ask him every morning, and take it one day at a time.
He's right there with you, so lean on His strength for this day, today.
Don't worry about tomorrow, don't think about yesterday.
You only need strength for today.
"Tomorrow. Let's do it tomorrow."
Rocky's head isn't in the game, and Apollo's eyes light up with a furious rage.
"There is no tomorrow! There is no tomorrow!" he screams back.
I've heard former Navy SEAL David Goggins echo the same sentiment.
"Let's say you're in extreme cold water.
Every time that wave goes over your head, your thought process is, I gotta get out of this water.
And you're hour 1 of 130 hours.
I gotta get out of here, you're in fight or flight.
It's cold, I can't be cold for this long.
And this is where that "one second" decision comes in.
It's about gaining control of your mind, putting things back in proper perspective, and then saying "I really do wanna be here".
And I'm gonna have a bunch of these "1 seconds" through these 130 hours, and I have to learn to control these.
Cause if I fail, one of these "one seconds" I will not be a SEAL, I will not be a doctor, I will not be a lawyerâŚ"
There are many times in life when the tasks before us are so immense and the struggle is so desperate that even a single day seems like an eternity.
Forget trying to make it to the end of the day; sometimes you just have to make it to breakfast and go from there.
In even more intense moments of emotional distress or in the heat of charged emotions, it is worth remembering that in a mere 300 seconds the intensity of that will subside dramatically.
Aside from adrenaline dumps in life threatening situations, the biological processes within our body cannot normally sustain intense emotions for very long, and if you can weather the storm for those 300 seconds, the emotions and pressures you feel will still be present, but will be abated to the point where they begin to become manageable.
Victory in these very moments is why I don't put much weight into counting the days in my purity walk like I'm counting days for being sober or for some other milestone.
When it comes to this battle, it's not a streak to keep track of, it is an ever-present state of mind.
There is no burden of tomorrow.
There is no shame of yesterday, either.
There is only today and the immediate battle of the flesh you face, right here, right now.
Nothing else matters.
The lust demons don't care about your 900 day streak.
If every day is a rung on a ladder, you'll start to feel the fear of being so high up and how long of a way down that mistake will send you, and they'll just use that number against you when you fail to trap you in despair.
When Jesus told his disciples how to pray, he told them to ask for "daily bread."
Those wandering with Moses in the wilderness were instructed to do the same.
"Everyone is to gather as much as they need." they were told regarding the miraculous Manna that fed them, and "no one is to keep any of it until morning."
"However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell." as Exodus chapter 16 records.
Are you starting to get the idea?
One day at a time.
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus tells a crowd later on in Mathew's Gospel.
And you, Christian.
What is God calling you to do, in this season of purity?
âWhoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."
Most people forget that this is a process which the Lord says must occur daily.
We must bear our cross every single day.
First thing in the morning before your feet hit the floor your knees better get there first, because the only way you will succeed in this battle is if you deny yourself, and get up under that cross.
Now I know, many of you get under that cross as I have myself and wonder how you are going to possibly carry such an incredibly heavy burden.
How will you have the strength required to turn from the easy road of sensual gratification, and instead take the narrow road of self denial and selfless service to others.
How do we choose this day the difficult but permanent state of being, and refuse that much easier but temporary respite from the pangs and toils of our daily lives.
The burden of righteousness under that cross is immense, the weight of it is staggering, and you don't know how to take your next step without collapsing, let alone walking out the rest of the day.
It's not enough to get under it, how can we ever carry such a soul crushing burden?
Here's the good news.
You can't.
Listen closely to Jesus words.
âCome to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.â
Do you know what a yoke is?
It is a wooden beam fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to a plow.
More importantly, a yoke allows the two to share a load and pull together.
You don't have to carry the cross by yourself.
My brothers in Christ, he'll carry it with you, and if you're like me most days, he'll carry all of it.
You just have to get under it.
You want to win? Do you want victory, eternal life and life here and now to the fullest?
Get under your cross and ask Jesus to help bear the weight of it with you.
Ask him every morning, and take it one day at a time.
He's right there with you, so lean on His strength for this day, today.
Don't worry about tomorrow, don't think about yesterday.
You only need strength for today.
Chapter 1 of 12
Some of you, burdened by the evil that you see being propagated by the state, and the righteousness being suppressed by it, think that you possess the mental fortitude to oppose your own government by either civil disobedience or other means, yet you canât even fight against the lust that resides in your own heart.
Now listen to me when I say this: any shame or guilt you feel about your past failures, I cast that off in the name of Jesus the Christ.
Of course youâve failed and continue to fail despite your best efforts.
Youâve found yourself in the most violent war of the soul known to man, without any of the proper equipment or training to see you through.
âThis is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but he has no strength for the battle. He must fight, but he can never conquer. He is like a man who thrusts himself on the sword of the enemy on purpose to be slain. The law drives him on, and then sin beats him back. Sometimes he thinks he has foiled sin, but he has only raised a dust, so that he cannot see the sin. He stirs up his natural affections of fear, sorrow, and anguish, and this makes him believe that sin is conquered when it is not even touched. He soon must be at the battle again, and the lust which he thought to be slain is seen to be not even wounded.â
- John Owen, Mortification of Sin
Iâm not going to tell you to get an accountability partner, youâll just lie to them.
Iâm not going to tell you to get internet software, youâll just find a way around it.
I certainly wonât tell you to discipline yourself because the same snare that trapped many of the bravest warriors and wisest kings of biblical history will do the same to you.
I only want you to understand one thing.
Your salvation is in the struggle.
In the combat of the soul, in the strife of this war - you are being refined, and that is the purpose of this war that rages on within you.
You are bombarded with hyper-sexuality from every side of culture and media; itâs in your face at the gym, at the mall, on social media and at the tips of your fingers at any moment of the day.
Itâs waiting for you around every corner; ambush set, ready to fire.
And yet the modern pulpit either ignores the issue entirely or is ultimately incapable of giving you proper battle plans for the most important fight of your life.
To have victory in this theatre of war means to have victory in your sexuality, in your marriage or relationship and ultimately in your emotional and psychological well-being.
Defeat means the absolute destruction of all those things and ultimately the destruction of your very soul.
Defeat in this means the failing of your marriage, the broken heart of your spouse and the insecurity and despair of your children enduring the pain of a broken home.
Your wife, your fiancĂŠ, or your girlfriend is depending on you to fight for her.
Your children need you to fight for them.
And that is how you achieve victory.
You have to love what youâre fighting for, more than the temptation.
Read that line over and over again.
You have to love your family, your wife, your kids, your purity and love the Lord your God more than you love the gratification of sinful pleasure.
In your willingness to sacrifice the temporary for the permanent, you begin to understand what youâre truly fighting for.
Yet there is still one more lesson from the scriptures we must learn if we are to fight the good fight and itâs in the despair of Judas and the redemption of Peter.
Both men rejected the Christ.
Though they walked closely with Him for years and all professed at the last supper to never betray Him, both Judas and Peter failed their Lord.
Judas betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver and Peter denied Christ before men, very explicitly on three separate occasions in single one night.
Both men felt immense remorse for what they had done; a seemingly unforgivable sin.
Judas fell into despair and killed himself, but Peter repented.
He humbled himself, repented of his ways and was restored by the Lord.
Now I need you to understand something; you will fail.
You are up against a billion dollar industry and literal demons that are eons old and who saw firsthand the creation of the earth itself.
You will absolutely fail, but here is your final key to victory.
Do not fall into despair.
Always come back home.
Do not fall into despair and become utterly defeated and sink further into your sins, because there is always forgiveness for you.
The price of everything you have done and ever will do has already been paid in full at the cross.
And you, Christian, hear now the words of Moses.
"This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.â
Your salvation is in the struggle.
You have to love what youâre fighting for, more than the temptation.
Do not fall into despair. Always come back home.
âSo he got up and went to his father. âBut while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.ââ (Luke 15:20 NIV)
Prodigal son, your heavenly father is waiting with arms outstretched, running towards you the moment you come back to him.
Now get up, and come back home.View quoted post on X
