{"id":35231,"date":"2023-04-08T03:30:27","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T10:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=35231"},"modified":"2023-04-06T13:58:51","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T20:58:51","slug":"april-8-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2023\/04\/08\/april-8-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"April 8, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 has-pattern-background has-mask-background fusion-parallax-none nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-background-position:center top;--awb-background-repeat:repeat-y;--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-background-image:url(&quot;https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/April-2023.jpg&quot;);--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_6 1_6 fusion-one-sixth fusion-column-first\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;width:16.666666666667%;width:calc(16.666666666667% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.16666666666667 ) );margin-right: 4%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\"><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-1 fusion_builder_column_3_4 3_4 fusion-three-fourth fusion-column-last\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:40px;--awb-padding-right:10px;--awb-padding-bottom:40px;--awb-padding-left:10px;--awb-bg-size:cover;width:75%;width:calc(75% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.75 ) );\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><h2><strong>You Can\u2019t Face Two Ways At Once<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>\u201cNo servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other&#8230;\u201d <\/em>Luke 16:13<\/p>\n<p>Did you make any resolutions for the new year? Are you still on track with them? How is your resolve holding up? \u201cI hearby resolve to&#8230; lose 20 pounds! Go to the gym every day! Get the rose garden weeded! Call my mother once a week!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The only way to keep a resolution is to first turn away from what you were doing previously, and then continue in the new behavior. This sounds so simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>We can think of all kinds of reasons to stop our old behaviors\u2014this is why we make those resolutions! The hard part is continuing in the new behavior. We are breaking old habits, whether they are physical, mental, or emotional. Something put those behaviors solidly in place in our lives, and that something has to be continually dealt a deathblow in order to make the new behaviors stick.<\/p>\n<p>Pastor, Bible teacher, and author John Piper says, \u201cYou can\u2019t face two ways at once.\u201d* Although he was talking about conversion, let\u2019s think in terms of New Year\u2019s resolutions. We might say that we can\u2019t travel backwards while going forward. We can take a step forward or a step backward, but we can\u2019t do both at the same time. We can\u2019t move toward our new life if we are moving toward our old life.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, we can\u2019t move toward Christ while we are moving away from Him. But God has given us great and precious promises to help us move toward Christ! He has literally <em>\u201copened the door of faith\u201d <\/em>to us (Acts 14:27).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Lord, my resolution is to give You Your rightful place in my life. Let all I do and say bring You glory. I can\u2019t serve two masters; I can\u2019t face two ways at once. I therefore choose to be loyal to You, and thus despise my old life. In Jesus\u2019 Name, Amen. <\/em><\/p>\n<h6>*Piper, James. <i>Desiring God<\/i>. Multinomah Books. 1996.<\/h6>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-9af","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35232,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35231\/revisions\/35232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}