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Monday, January 31, 2022

The Simplicity of Finding Purpose and Peace – Purity 642


The Simplicity of Finding Purpose and Peace –  Purity 642

Purity 642 01/31/2022 Purity 642 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of  multi-colored sunset over an unknown body of water that I suspect to be near the Catskill or Adirondack Mountains in upstate NY comes to us from a FB friend’s post from back in November 2020. Recently I was hung up over whether or not I should share some of these photos that I had grabbed from the recent past because I was no longer sure of their point of origin and whether or not I was still technically “friends” with the amateur FB photographers that I had “sampled” these photos from.  

My intention in using these photos has never been to “take the credit” of these photos for myself or to “steal the credit” from those who had the good fortune to be positioned to capture them but has always been intended to give God the glory for the magnificent beauty of His creation and to congratulate my friends for seeing it, and sometimes will share a few anonymous details about their travels or stories to give them thanks for what they saw or some credit for what they have walked through or accomplished in their lives.       

So if this photo from November of 2020 is yours, I want to thank you for it and pray that you are still keeping your eyes open for the goodness of God here on earth.     

As an encourager for Freedom in Christ ministries, a Christian Counselor, and a teacher of Christian Discipleship and Spiritual Warfare, my purpose is to encourage people to find the meaning and purpose of their lives through their relationship with God, that is reconciled through faith in Jesus Christ, and to experience their freedom in Christ that results from walking in the Spirit, a.k.a. living according to God’s wisdom and ways.   

I have been blessed with personal victories and triumphs through living out my faith and encourage other people to experience the abundant life they can have from living out their Christian faith, and the thing I love about our lives in Christ is that it doesn’t have to be complicated.     

In the latest chapter of my faith walk, I find myself in the fellowship of the saints at Starpoint Church in Clifton Park NY which is led by Pastor Roscoe Lilly.  The church’s  current teaching series that just concluded yesterday was “3 Big Questions that Change Everything.”   You can view that series of messages on the church’s website to check it out (https://starpoint.church/)  but yesterday’s question was “What is my purpose?”  

Pastor Roscoe pointed out that instead of drawing our purpose from a job, that we as Christians should be bringing meaning and purpose to our jobs by establishing and fostering the relationships at our jobs and by representing the kingdom of God through loving the people God has put in front of us,  by leaning into spiritual conversations, and by possibly opening our homes and lives to others in a spirit of hospitality.   His message pointed toward a simple life of faith and loving those around us as the purpose for our lives in Christ.

Pastor Roscoe, in the distribution of communion, also reminded the church that it was Jesus that unites us.  It wasn’t a political party, our opinions on masks or vaccines, or our favorite sports teams or other interests that drew us together for worship, it was Jesus who makes us untied as God’s children.     

Some could criticize Starpoint church for being “too seeker friendly”  but I have found that the messages from Starpoint’s leadership lines up with the word of God and brings a positive message of hope that naturally flows out of the living according to God’s word.  

So if you are suffering from a “case of the Mondays”, don’t like how the weekend went, or  are still struggling to find peace in the midst of a difficult season of life: let me encourage you that finding peace isn’t the result of a complicated process. Finding peace doesn’t come from having everything figured out.  Finding peace simply comes from our relationship with God through our faith in Jesus.   Jesus gives us peace with God and the assurance of an everlasting life in His presence. He sets us free from the fear of death and the bondage of sin and He does it all from the motivation of love.   

Christ died and was raised to life again because He loves us, and He doesn’t want us to suffer anymore.  He invites us to a life of peace, and we just have to say yes to Him as Lord and Savior and agree to follow where He leads and to walk in the love that He has for us.   

When we know the love of God, we naturally pass it on to other people in our lives by telling them how good God is and how much He cares about us.   So if you forgot that only Jesus makes us right with God, or if you have lost the joy of your salvation, remind yourself about the simple fact that you are loved by God and that He will never leave you or forsake you. 

No matter what you face in this life, God can be with you and help you through it. And as for your purpose in this life? God just wants you to walk in the peace and love that He has for you and to share it with those around you. 

So keep walking and talking with God to know His peace, His strength, and His love for you. When you know you are accepted, significant, and secure in Christ, you can experience the fruit of the Spirit in your life and share the love you have received with others around you.    

  

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 73:26 (NLT2)
26  My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.

Today’s verse speaks of the fact that God is the strength of our lives and that our relationship with Him is eternal and is not subject to our health or spiritual strength.  

Sometimes when we suffer we feel that God has abandoned us.  If we get sick, we may feel that God is cursing us.  If we are weak, we may feel that we have failed God.  

But today’s verse refutes that kind of thinking and speaks of the fact of our eternal relationship with God that is not subject to circumstances of our health or upon our ability to perform. 

As we age and become less able to do the things we did in our youth, we may begin to feel that we are letting the Lord down in some way. Unfortunately, I know of some saints who served the Lord for years in ministry by leading churches or doing missionary work for God’s kingdom but who in their latter years were oppressed by depression because they felt they had lost their purpose in the body of Christ because they were no longer “the pastor” or “the missionary”.   After their passing, their lives were celebrated for their faithful service to the kingdom of God but there was also a testimony of how they had struggled with depression after their “active service” came to an end.  

In one case, a departing saint’s family donated their departed loved one’s Christian library to my local church. The library was so extensive that our church didn’t have adequate space to accept all of the books, so our leadership offered this vast library of media to the congregation at large for their personal study and equipping.  

Being a lover of Christian books, especially free ones, I was blessed to inherit several books from this departed saint’s estate. As I have read some of these books over the years I have been thankful for the lessons I learned from their contents, but I also contemplated the previous owner’s condition of the heart.    

Many of these books were never read. As an owner of many books, I can understand how that can happen, but I reflected on this departed saint’s struggles with depression and thought that it was somewhat tragic because I had the conviction that if they had read the books that they had in their possession and had utilized a heart understanding of the material that they contained to their souls, depression could possibly have been avoided. 

Their library spoke of the goodness of God and His eternal presence in our lives and as today’s verse points out, that relationship is not based on our health or the strength of our spirits, but it does require us to remind ourselves that the strength of our heart comes from the Lord and knowing that He is ours forever.  

So don’t forget, the Lord is with you and even though you might be down physically or spiritually, He can strengthen your heart regardless of your circumstances when you focus on your eternal and loving relationship with Him.

 

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. 

Today we continue to share from Dr. Neil Anderson’s . “Restored: Experience Life with Jesus”. Today, we conclude sharing from Chapter 6.   

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

HEALING FOLLOWS HUMILITY

The following letter was received from a pastor who was caught in a sexual addiction and powerfully illustrates that God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble:

Realizing that I needed to be accountable to someone and to bring these urges to light, so as to break their power over me, I shared these feelings with my wife and the men in my Bible study group, so they could pray for me and hold me accountable.

They were all very supportive, though a little shaken that someone in ministry would share such a personal matter with them. I expressed that I am only a brother in Christ and not superior to them in any way, and that if we were ever to be of one mind and one accord, we would need to be open with one another.

I must admit that it was easy to be open, because I know who I am in Christ. I believe that this temptation will soon be a thing of the past. My past no longer has a hold on me. I am accountable to others, and I have prayer partners. Victory is mine!

CHAPTER SIX: OVERCOMING PRIDE


118. Isaiah 14:13-15

119. Mark 6:48

120. 2 Chronicles 26:3

121. 1 Corinthians 10:12 (NKJV)

122. Colossians 2:18

123. Romans 12:3

124. 1 Corinthians 15:10

125. Philippians 3:3

126. John 15:8

127. Matthew 5:16

128. John 15:5

129. Ephesians 3:12

130. 2 Peter 2:10

131. 1 John 2:16

132. Luke 22:31, 32

133. Ephesians 1:3-14

134. Ephesians 1:18

135. James 4:6


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

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

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My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

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