Purity 274: Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

Purity 274 11/25/2020                

 Good morning!

Today’s photo was taken by a friend back in September. The location and the friend are now a mystery to me, but I think this might be a scene near Lake George NY or in the Adirondacks region of upstate NY.  

I share it because of its beauty and symmetry as the lake perfectly reflects the distant peak and the clouds and blue sky. I also share it as it is Wednesday and the peak reminds us that we are at midweek with the Thanksgiving holiday, tomorrow? could it be? Really?  Wow… time flies.  

Anyway, this Wednesday is traditionally a day of reunions as family and friends travel to be with one another for (tomorrow?) the Thanksgiving holiday. Normally the roads would be packed with traffic later this afternoon and evening as loved ones return home to celebrate. 

In my past, this evening was also one of the biggest party nights of the year as friends and familiar faces from school would return home and be looking to blow off some steam before being locked in to the wholesome drudgery and constrained politeness that Thanksgiving with the family could be.

The difficulties of family dynamics are a universal experience, I believe, as we all face the dichotomy of loving our family and equally wanting to be separate and independent from their peculiar foibles and troubled family histories.   As much as we love them and relate to them, we each seek to establish our own identities and may cringe at the suggestion that we are “just like” our family members.   

However, I do recognize that many derive their identities from their family and their familial roles where family is everything. These people accept their family as just a part of who they are and operate as a representative of their family more than as an individual.  

But this year will be different because of Covid-19.  All of us, whether you are a black sheep, the most highly favored son, or the backbone that holds your family together will experience a Thanksgiving that’s different no matter what we choose.  The bars close at 10pm tonight, I guess. That’s different. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is not really happening although the producers of NBC will do their best to throw together something to watch.  The NFL games will be on but will have mostly empty stands.  And of course, many of us are choosing not to get together as we normally would, myself included.

So, at times like this, it is best to remember the One who never changes: God. He will be here for us to turn to no matter what the circumstances may be in the world.  And whether you love your family to the point of codependency or if you feel alone in the midst of the ones who should know you best, God knows you and He invites you to be a part of His family for all of eternity. 

Be sure to share your love for your family and friends over the next couple of days and let them know you are thankful for their presence in your life. But be sure to thank the God who created our world and all that is beautiful in it, including those friends and family members that can drive you crazy sometimes. 

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This morning’s meditation verse was:

Psalm 28:7 (NLT): The Lord is my strength and my shield. I trust Him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.

It appears the “random draw” of Bible verses isn’t so random as for the second time this week words directing us to give thanks have “just happen” to come up! 

My God is sovereign and makes His heart known through His word. So, make Him your strength and your shield. When you draw close to Him, He will guide and protect you in ways that are difficult to understand or adequately express to others. The “shield” is His presence in our lives. The key is trusting Him “with all my heart”. If you do, He will help you and your heart will be filled with joy to the point that you will want to sing!  Pray and talk to Him. He is right there with you, but you have to trust, you have to ask, and you have to seek Him.   

In regard to my comments about family above, as fate would have it, my Bible reading this morning in Matthew 12 (46-50) touched on the importance of being in God’s family. Jesus is out teaching, and His mother and brothers show up.

Shockingly, He doesn’t drop everything to make room for His mom and His brothers but instead points to the disciples who are listening to His teaching and following Him and proclaims that they, those who do His Father’s will, are truly His brothers, sisters, and mother.  

Back in Christ’s day family was absolutely everything. It was your identity. It was your protection. It was your survival.  But Jesus goes against convention and highlights the ultimate spiritual reality that God is supreme and being a part of His family is the only thing of value. 

No matter how close a tight knit bunch you and your family are, without a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ,  you will be eternally separated from one another and from God in a place described as darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, hell. 

So, if you are one to proclaim, “family first!”, you better make sure that you are part of God’s family because Jesus taught that God’s kingdom takes priority over anything on this earth. 

If you know Christ, let your family and friends know that you love them and share the good news. If you are outside of His family, just ask Jesus to be your Lord and Savior and you will be translated into His kingdom forever where you can experience the fullness of a new life with Him.      

Today we continue to share from Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope Again, where the authors discuss cognitive therapy and our renegade thoughts. 

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Anderson’s books for your own private study and to support his work:

Cognitive Therapy

Recall from the last chapter that physical pain is necessary for our self-preservation. In a similar fashion, the presence of emotional pain stimulates the process of renewing our minds and the development of our character. Let's look at what the Bible calls the "inner man" to gain a better understanding of how our thinking affects our emotions.

We mentioned earlier that we have very little direct control of our emotions. But we can have indirect control over them by changing how we think, and we can choose what we believe. Many secular therapists such as Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck have been saying much the same thing for years in their work as "cognitive therapists." They maintain that our emotions are essentially a product of our thoughts. They believe that the primary source of depression is the way people perceive themselves, their circumstances and the future—which is often referred to as "the depression triad." Several Christian counselors, such as William Backus who wrote Telling Yourself the Truth, and David Stoop who wrote Self Talk, say essentially the same thing.

The basic procedure of cognitive therapy is probably the most accepted approach in Christian counseling at the present time. According to this approach, helping others or yourself to maintain or regain mental health would follow this sequence:

1.    People are taught to recognize and monitor their negative thoughts or distortion of reality. Thoughts or beliefs are identified as ineffective or dysfunctional, leading to improper responses to life.

2.    Then they are helped to see the connection between these negative thoughts, the emotions they create and the subsequent behavior that follows.

3.    Next they must examine the evidence for and against such distorted thinking or perceptions of reality. This is decision time. Are they going to continue thinking what they are thinking, believing what they are believing, and therefore doing what they are doing, or are they going to change?

4.    If they have concluded that what they have believed is not true, and their perception of reality wasn't right, then they must substitute old ways of thinking and respond with new ways.

5.    Finally they are helped to identify and change the inappropriate assumptions that predisposed them to distort their experiences.

All this is about as close to the concept of Christian repentance as you can get. We would add one crucial element to this list. If you have distorted, false and negative beliefs about God, yourself and the world, you disagree with what God said about Himself, yourself and the world you live in. This "disagreement" is missing the mark—which is sin. "Whatever is not from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23).

Christians confess sin and repent of it when they become aware of it. Confession is agreeing with God that what they have believed is not true. The word "repentance" in the original Greek language of the New Testament literally means a change of mind. That must happen for all of us if we are going to live a liberated Christian life. Repentance is turning from false beliefs and destructive behaviors. True repentance involves substituting Christian beliefs based on God's Word for the old false beliefs that were based on what the world says is true.

Renegade Thoughts

Returning to the story of Jim at the beginning of this chapter: He was depressed because he believed a renegade thought—a lie about himself and his financial condition. The thought he entertained in his mind was, You're going down! He chose to believe that lie and continued to believe that he was going down even though it wasn't true. Then he started to think he was a failure. Of course, that was another lie. The failed financial investment and the possible loss of money did not cause Jim's depression. His perception of the experience, and the lies he believed about himself, caused the depression.

Renegade thoughts are wandering, fugitive patterns of thinking that are defiant, independent and in opposition to the nature, character and Word of God. To entertain renegade thoughts leads only to confusion, mental anguish and despair.

Perhaps you have renegade thoughts such as, You're no good; God doesn't love you; You're going to fail; You're a failure; You're stupid (or ugly, unlovable, arrogant, sinful, going to lose, going down, ad nauseam). If the negative messages we receive from this world aren't enough, add to them the devil's attacks because he relentlessly accuses the brethren day and night (see Rev. 12:10).

As I sat and listened to Jim's story, it didn't make sense to me that he was feeling depressed because of his financial situation. It was far better than mine at the time. I was probably thinking, Get real! You are far better off than I am, and there is no good reason for you to be depressed.

Of course, telling people they shouldn't feel a certain way is not only less than helpful, but it is also condemning. It is better and more accurate to suggest that they may not be interpreting the data correctly or seeing the situation from the right perspective. If what people believe does not conform to truth, then what they feel does not conform to reality. The vast majority of people around the world would have far more reason to be depressed about their finances than Jim did. But he couldn't change how he felt until he revised his beliefs. To make things worse, the VA hospital had medicated him to the point of numbness; but they never made the connection between his inaccurate (renegade) thoughts and what he was feeling.

We are continually making evaluations and judgments that affect our actions and our feelings, based on past experiences. We think, The mail carrier should have been here by now: I'll go and get the mail. The thought about the mail carrier is a judgment call based on previous behavior and the reliability of the mail carrier.

When such a thought pops into your mind, you make a decision to go get the mail or wait until later. If you believe the mail carrier has not come, you are less likely to go check the mail. If you are anxiously waiting for an important piece of mail, you may get angry if he shows up late. But the fact that he was late didn't make you angry. You became angry because you believed he should have been there sooner, and the plans you made based on his timely arrival were dashed when he came late. You wouldn't have become angry if you had told yourself, "I have no right to expect him to arrive at a time that is convenient for me, therefore I will patiently (a fruit of the Spirit) wait until he comes."

Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression.

------------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

God bless you all!