True Beauty: God and Man
Purity 462 07/05/2021 Purity 462 Podcast
Good morning
Today’s photo of purple fireworks decorating the heavens above Lake
George comes to us from our friends at SK Photography & Design as they captured
this sight at last night’s Independence Day celebration. Our friend captured and shared a few photos
from last night’s light show but I share this more distant perspective to
demonstrate that even though firework displays can seem larger than life when
you are being amazed by their beauty and shocked by their percussion, they only
last for fleeting moments and only fill a small portion of the canvas of God’s
creation.
I share this distant perspective also to highlight the beauty of the
combined effect of the man’s efforts, with the fireworks and the electric
lights that illuminate the shores of Lake George, and the backdrop of God’s creation,
with the waters of Lake George, the rocks on the beach, and the darkened clouds
contrasted against the fading blue sky of twilight.
This image is a wonderful metaphor of the beauty that can be experienced
when man comes into harmony with the Lord.
Our relationship with God is supposed to be a cooperative effort. Although we realize that our lives here on
earth are fleeting and only fill a small part of God’s canvas for a time, the
Lord beckons us to be a living expression of all the good that He has put in us
and welcomes us to come into relationship with Him, through faith in Jesus Christ,
and to experience a life of abundant joy that will go on into eternity where we
will not only be able to enjoy our eternal lives, but we will be able to share it
with others who He has called, and we will dwell with God Himself.
Man can create and do a lot of things on earth in his own strength but
unless we want to fade away from God’s love into darkness like the last wisps
of smoke from a holiday fireworks display, we must recognize the artist who
created the setting in which we live, and we have to seek to know Him and to be
at peace with Him.
Our relationship with God is a personal and dynamic experience and it
begins when we humble ourselves and accept His mercy and grace. God loves us and cares for us and is calling
for all to come to eternal life through faith in His Son.
If this world’s suffering has hardened your heart and caused you to only
rely on yourself, I encourage you to start a conversation with the Lord.
Ask Him what is true. Ask Him what is good. Ask Him what happens next. And
Ask Him to reveal Himself to you.
When you come close to God, God comes close to you. If you seek Him, you will find Him.
For those of us already in relationship with God through our faith in
Jesus Christ, I would encourage you to keep walking and talking with God. If there are difficulties in your life, you
need to draw close to the Father to receive His comfort, guidance, strength,
and love.
You may have stepped off the path of Christian Discipleship and wandered
into the old haunts of “ME-Ville”, but the Lord is patient and kind and is
calling you to the peace that comes from rediscovering the harmony of living according
to God’s ways.
Our relationship with God is a cooperative effort where He provides all
we need to live a beautiful life that will give us joy, impact those around us
for good, and give God glory.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
1 Thessalonians 1:8 (NKJV)
8 For from you the word of the Lord
has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place.
Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything.
Today’s verse encourages us to share the word of God and to
live an authentic Christian life.
The Apostle Paul is greeting the Thessalonians in today’s
verse and praising them for their faithful witness of the word of God and
indicates that their faith was evident through their lives. The saints at Thessalonica were apparently
on fire for the Lord as they were proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in “every
place”.
Their faith had gone out in word and deed to the extent that
even the Apostle Paul, who can be rather verbose at times, felt no need to
speak more about their faithfulness.
As Christians, we have been entrusted with the keys to the
kingdom. We know the answers to life and death. The mercy and grace heaped upon
us should transform our lives and cause us to boldly proclaim the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Our Christian faith
should be so evident to others that we are known for it and that no one needs
to say anything about it as proof.
The joy of our salvation should be continually experienced
as our lives of faith become a never-ending testimony of the goodness of God as
we move through this life imparting the living hope of Jesus Christ to
others.
So remember
the life you suffered through and remember the joy of knowing that God has sent
His Son to rescue you. Surrender the ways of the world for the ways of God and
experience the increasing peace that comes under His direction and when you
give Him your heart,
When fall
in love with God, witnessing to others about your faith becomes easy because your
testimony becomes an expression of gratitude and wonder at the new life you
have and the love that will never depart from you.
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with
their walk.
Today we continue with Dr. Neil Anderson’s Victory
Over the Darkness, continuing in Chapter 6.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase Dr. Anderson’s books for your own private study
and to support his work. If you need this title you can find it online at several
sites for less than $15.00:
Distortions
of Faith
Faith without action is one distortion, but the New Age
and Positive Confession movements offer two other distortions of what it means
to biblically believe. The New Age belief says, "If you believe hard
enough, it will become true." Christianity says, "It is true;
therefore we believe it." Believing something doesn't make it true and not
believing something doesn't make it false. Not believing in hell doesn't lower
the temperature down there one degree.
The Positive Confession movement has
another interpretation of faith that is partially true. Consider the words of
Jesus in Matthew
17:20: "Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to
you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'move
from here to there,' and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to
you."
The Positive Confession movement
correctly points out that the mountain doesn't move until you say it. In other
words, even the smallest faith doesn't work until it is acted upon, which is
the emphasis of the passage in Matthew 17. But the
Positive Confession teaching becomes distorted when one thinks the mountain has
to move simply because one says it. Taking the Positive Confession idea too far
borders on New Age thinking, which says we can create reality with our minds.
To do that, we would have to be gods, and that is exactly what the New Agers
are teaching.
There is only one Creator and only one
who can speak anything into existence. "With God all things are
possible" (Matthew
19:26) and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, but we
have never been given the privilege to determine for ourselves what we want to
believe. The New Agers want us to believe we are God, and the "name and
claim it" proponents want us to act as though we are God. God wants His
children to believe Him and live accordingly.
Those distortions often arise when the
church is not living up to its potential. Consequently, many people think the
church is an infirmary where sick people go. We limp along in unbelief, hoping
the rapture will come soon and take us out of this miserable defeat. The church
is not an infirmary; it is a military outpost under orders to storm the gates
of hell. Every believer is on active duty, called to take part in fulfilling
the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19, 20).
Thankfully, the church has an
infirmary that ministers to the weak and the wounded, but the infirmary exists
only for the purpose of the military outpost. Our real calling is to be change
agents in the world, taking a stand, living by faith and fulfilling our purpose
for being here.
I think it was J. C. Penney who said,
"Whether you think you can or whether you think you cannot, either way you
are right." The world understands the problem of unbelief. It stresses the
power of positive thinking, which is illustrated in the following poem:
Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ.
---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------
God bless
you all!
Join our “Victory
over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” series of Discipleship Classes via
the mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is
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Email me
at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be
encouraged.
Encouragement for the Path of Christian
Discipleship
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