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Friday, May 20, 2022

His Truth and Presence: The Way through Grief – Purity 736


His Truth and Presence: The Way through Grief – Purity 736

Purity 736 05/19/2022  Purity 736 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a golden retriever apparently navigating his own boat in the setting sun comes to us from a brother and a friend who shared this photo among many others on social media yesterday to remember and honor his faithful canine companion who was called into eternity after suffering from cancer for last 12 months.  But in my friend’s post, he didn’t focus on the pain and suffering but instead gave a heartwarming testimony of the adventures in life that he and his canine friend had through the years.   

Similarly, and not to equate or compare the two losses, I was saddened to see that a friend’s mother had also died yesterday after years of suffering from the devastating affects of Alzheimer’s disease.  I had a small idea of my friend’s pain from dealing with his mother’s condition and of course this was in midst of other losses as his wife’s mother passed away last year. 

Sometimes our cup of suffering seems to be full and the thing we dreaded the most, death, comes as a relief as our loved one’s pain is ended. My friend acknowledged the truth of the suffering his mother had gone through in the announcement of her passing but also focused on the love that she had given to her family as a mother and grandmother. Her love, presence, and support for her family was displayed throughout her life and this is what my friend is focusing on.    

So, obviously it is not going to necessarily be a banner weekend for a pair of my friends as the loss of their loved ones is fresh but that is okay, the best way to process the grief of losing a loved one is to acknowledge the pain of the loss, remember the great value of the relationship that has changed forever, and to say goodbye to the way things used to be.  

We all grieve in our own way and in our own timing, but the word of God indicates that we are to always give thanks, always pray, always rejoice, and keep moving forward into the upward call of Christ.   

In our grief, a relationship with God and a knowledge of the truth of reality as it is revealed to us in Scripture can give us peace and strength to endure any suffering and all loss.  

The Bible is straightforward in delivering the truth of life and death and in times of loss we are reminded of the extreme importance of faith in Jesus Christ and a biblically based world view of eternity.   The Lord wanted us to know the truth and He inspired the Apostle Paul to share it in

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (NLT2) which says:
1  For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
2  We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
3  For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.
4  While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.
5  God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
6  So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.
7  For we live by believing and not by seeing.
8  Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.
9  So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him.
10  For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.

For the believer, our faith in Christ results in a state of grace. We are forgiven for all of our sins and are given the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our eternal life in God’s kingdom the moment we make Jesus our Lord and Savior.  The judgement the believer faces from Christ  is to determine their rewards for their faithfulness.  There is nothing to fear from death. To be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord.

This life on earth is not the end. Jesus said in:

John 11:25-26 (NKJV)
25   "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.
26  And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?"

Jesus speaks the truth of spiritual reality. You can believe this. And if you haven’t already, you should say a prayer to make Jesus your Lord and Savior and then endeavor to be His disciple and follow Him in how you live your life.

The strength of our faith comes from God. It comes from knowing Him and from knowing the truth that He reveals to us in His word, and from applying its wisdom to every situation of our lives, especially in times of pain and loss.   

So yeah, bad things will happen, suffering will come, and death will take the lives of our family, friends, and pets.  But God is on the other side of this life and if there is one thing you can be sure of, it is this: God will do what is right.

I don’t know if “all dogs go to heaven” but I know that God will do what is right.  

As for men, God’s justice is served by Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus is the Truth, the Way and the Life. And He said that no one comes to the Father except through Him.  This is the truth and God will do what’s right based on this. We all need the assurance of a good ending and the Lord offers it freely to all who put their faith in His Son.

No matter what losses we face in life, we can be assured God is good because He sent Jesus to tell us the truth and to rescue us from sin and death. Death loses its sting through Jesus Christ alone.

So thank God it is Friday.  And thank God for all the love we have known in our lives, whether it is active and current or came from those who are no longer with us, we can rejoice even in our pain, knowing that we gave and received love from our dearly departed loved ones.  

So no matter what you are facing as we go into this weekend, draw close to the Lord and He will draw close to you. He will tell you the truth and give you strength and comfort when you walk with Him.  He will never leave you or forsake you and He be there when your body gives out and He calls you home.  

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

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Proverbs 2:9 (NLT2)
9  Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go.

Today’s Bible verse reminds us of the results of seeking God’s wisdom: that we will have understanding of what is right, just, and fair and we will find the right way to go.   

In any sincere search for the truth about the meaning of life, the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ must be considered.  To say we care about truth, wisdom, and what happens to us when we die and to dismiss or ignore the Bible and Jesus is not only foolish but should reveal that fact that we are willfully choosing to reject the truth that has changed the course of human history.

Look at the calendar and tell me year it is and tell me why it is that year.  And don’t tell me about C.E. Common Era.  That’s a modern invention to deny, the truth of who Christ is.  AD is an abbreviation of the Latin: anno domini, literally the 'year of the Lord' and it just so happens to coincide with the advent of Jesus Christ into the world.

When you tell me the year is 2022, you unwittingly give glory to Jesus Christ.

So if you are curious about the Man, whose life was so significant that we number our days based on Him, or if you were to consider the vast multitudes who would point you to the word of God to find wisdom, you would read the Bible.  

The Bible tells the story of God and His plan for mankind: which is Jesus Christ.  It also reveals what is right morally according to the Lord.   

So as today’s verse indicates when we seek the Lord’s wisdom, that is revealed to us in Scripture, we will understand what is right, just, and fair.  And we will also find the right way to go. The last parts of the Bible, the New Testament, reveals Jesus as the Way.   Putting our faith in Him and living according to God’s wisdom is the way to go.  

So seek the Truth and you will find it.  Your investigation for truth may not begin with God but as you see the common revelation of creation that testifies of the existence of a Creator and consider the historical evidence that points to the significance of the Bible as a source of wisdom, you investigation for truth will lead you to the author of all Truth and maker of all things: God. And His word, the Holy Bible, will show you what is just, right and fair and will show the right way to go.  

 

 

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 sharing from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.  

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $5.00.

Consumed with Clothes

Or think about clothes. What a tragedy to see so many young people obsessed with what they wear and how they look. Even Christian youth seem powerless to ask greater questions than “What’s wrong with it?” Like: Will these clothes help me magnify Christ? Will they point people to him as the manifest Treasure of my life? Will they highlight my personhood, created in the image of God to serve, or will they highlight my sexuality? Or my laziness? Trust me, I’m not hung up on clothes. There are some pretty radical, Christ-exalting reasons to dress down. My plea is that you be more like a dolphin and less like a jellyfish in the sea of fashion—and of contra-fashion (which is just as tyrannizing).

Go beyond one teenager who wrote to the Minneapolis Star Tribune in response to a letter to the editor:

As a teenager, what you wear is unfortunately becoming more important. Honestly even I find some of the clothes that I wear offensive. The letter spoke of girls being able to dress fashionably and sensibly. Show me how that’s possible, and I’ll do it.

Most of my friends often are not comfortable with what is popular, but we wear it anyway. Standing out is just not always worth the struggle. Society tells us to be different, yet mainstream.

How do you dress to please yourself, your parents and your peers? You can’t. Teens end up compromising their values to fit in. If we intend to make it through high school, or even junior high, without being tormented then we must dress to please our peers.

We are the up-and-coming leaders of this nation, and we must see what we have become and change.

Where Are the Young Radicals for Christ?

When I stand, as it were, on the shores of Iwo Jima and let myself reenact those hours of courage and sacrifice, and remember that they were young, I cannot make peace with the petty preoccupations of most American life. One of them was really young. I read his story and wanted to speak to every youth group in America and say, Do you want to see what cool is? Do you want to see something a thousand times more impressive than a triple double? Well, listen up about Jacklyn Lucas.

He’d fast-talked his way into the Marines at fourteen, fooling the recruits with his muscled physique.… Assigned to drive a truck in Hawaii, he had grown frustrated; he wanted to fight. He stowed away on a transport out of Honolulu, surviving on food passed along to him by sympathetic leathernecks on board.

He landed on D-Day [at Iwo Jima] without a rifle. He grabbed one lying on the beach and fought his way inland.

Now, on D+1, Jack and three comrades were crawling through a trench when eight Japanese sprang in front of them. Jack shot one of them through the head. Then his rifle jammed. As he struggled with it a grenade landed at his feet. He yelled a warning to the others and rammed the grenade into the soft ash. Immediately, another rolled in. Jack Lucas, seventeen, fell on both grenades. “Luke, you’re gonna die,” he remembered thinking.…

Aboard the hospital ship Samaritan the doctors could scarcely believe it. “Maybe he was too damned young and too damned tough to die,” one said. He endured twenty-one reconstructive operations and became the nation’s youngest Medal of Honor winner—and the only high school freshman to receive it.

As I read that, I thought of all the things that high school kids think is cool. I sat on the porch where I was reading and thought, O God, who will get in their face and give them something to live for? They waste their days in a trance of insignificance, trying to look cool or talk cool or walk cool. They don’t have a clue what cool is.

One more story to clarify what is cool. It’s about Ray Dollins, a fighter pilot at Iwo Jima.

The first wave of amtracs headed for shore. The Marine fighter planes were finishing up their low strafing runs. And as the last pilot began to pull his Corsair aloft, Japanese sprang to their guns and riddled the plane with flak. The pilot, Major Ray Dollins, tried to gain altitude as he headed out over the ocean so as to avoid a deadly crash into the Marines headed for the beach, but his plane was too badly damaged. Lieutenant Keith Wells watched it from the amtrac.… “We could see him in the cockpit,” Wells said, “and he was trying everything. He was heading straight down for a group of approaching ’tracs filled with Marines. At the last second he flipped the plane over on its back and aimed it into the water between two waves of tanks. We watched the water exploding into the air.”

Military personnel listening to the flight radio network from the ships could not only see Dollins go down; they could hear his last words into his microphone. They were a defiant parody.

Oh, what a beautiful morning,

Oh, what a beautiful day,

I’ve got a terrible feeling

Everything’s coming my way.

Of course, we do not use the word cool to describe true greatness. It is a small word. That’s the point. It’s cheap. And it’s what millions of young people live for. Who confronts them with urgency and tears? Who pleads with them not to waste their lives? Who takes them by the collar, so to speak, and loves them enough to show them a life so radical and so real and so costly and Christ-saturated that they feel the emptiness and triviality of their CD collection and their pointless conversations about passing celebrities? Who will waken what lies latent in their souls, untapped—a longing not to waste their lives?

My Heart’s Plea

Oh, that young and old would turn off the television, take a long walk, and dream about feats of courage for a cause ten thousand times more important than American democracy—as precious as that is. If we would dream and if we would pray, would not God answer? Would he withhold from us a life of joyful love and mercy and sacrifice that magnifies Christ and makes people glad in God? I plead with you, as I pray for myself, set your face like flint to join Jesus on the Calvary road. “Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:13–14). When they see our sacrificial love—radiant with joy—will they not say, “Christ is great”?[1]

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

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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 125–131.


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