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Thursday, June 2, 2022

Why Does It Do That? The Science of Walking in the Spirit – Purity 747


 Why Does It Do That? The Science of Walking in the Spirit – Purity 747

Purity 747 06/02/2022  Purity 747 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a tree in the middle of the pathway on the Redwood Sky Walk  comes to us from a friend who visited the Sequoia Park Zoo in Eureka California back on April 15th as part of a full day that included hiking along the California coastline at Patrick’s Point that is accessible at Sue-Meg State Park. My friend’s original post showed several scenes from the last full day of their family vacation and I love their adventurous spirit that sought to see as much as they could see with the time they had.  

Well, it’s Thursday again, and after taking a week off, I am happy to report that I will once again be facilitating the Freedom in Christ Discipleship Course Men’s Group on Zoom tonight where the participant’s have made the decision to see all they could see with the time they have by seeking to grow in their relationship with God by experiencing or maintaining their freedom in Christ.     

Full disclosure and a humble confession, although I facilitate this online course and have experienced my freedom in Christ, I am not a perfect person! Just yesterday, I made the mistake of sharing the same section of text from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”, that I am sharing bit by bit on the blog, that I shared the previous day.  Whoops.  Instead of rewriting history and editing yesterday’s post,  I am going to “let it be”. 

Perhaps there was something in that particular excerpt that needed to be shared two days in a row or perhaps my faux pas (and yes spell check saved me from another mistake on the use of that phrase!) was intended to be another reminder on my fallibility.   

No, I am not perfect and the reminders to that fact come very regularly.  My mistakes help me to learn as I go and also serve to remind me that it is in Christ Alone that I trust to save me because there is simply no way that I, or anyone else, could earn their salvation.  Our sinful condition is something we can’t pay back and leads us to seek a Savior in Jesus.  

But Christ does call us to pick up our cross and to follow Him.  By the way, picking up our cross does not bearing burdens.  Like “Oh my _________, that’s my cross to bear”. No, no, no, Christ didn’t walk around with His cross complaining about its weight, nor does He have to bear it as He walks through eternity.  

No, Christ died on His cross.  So when He is directing us to “pick up our cross and follow Him”, He is in effect telling us to die! When we put our faith in Christ, scripture tells us that we are crucified, die, and are raised to life with Him.  

So when Christ tells us to pick up our cross and follow Him, He is telling us to die to our old life and to live our new life by following His example, because in reality we are new creations, we are given a new and eternal life when we make Jesus our Lord and Savior.   

The process of turning from our old worldly ways and deciding to live according to God’s wisdom and ways that are reveal to us in the Bible is the process of repentance and sanctification that is described as “walking in the Spirit”.  I refer to making the decision and living according to Biblical principles “walking on the path of Christian discipleship” because we are disciples, students, of Jesus and we are seeking to not only know Christ taught but we are “practicing” our faith by trying to apply the Word of God’s wisdom to all the areas of our lives, or to at least to as many areas as we are made aware of.   

I subtitled today’s encouragement the “science of walking in the Spirit”, to encourage people to get on the path of Christian discipleship, to become the subject in your personal experiment of faith.

Oh by the way this is a case study, not just a trial run, although there will be trials.  When we honestly sincerely place our faith in Christ, we are in this thing for life, as in forever, because in Christ our lives extend beyond this mortal coil into eternity. So we might as well, see what this new life in Christ is all about and see if it is true that if we walk in the Spirit, we can experience the growth of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. 

The question “why does it do that?” Is one I employ, or wonder about, in all the problem solving areas of my life.  As a field technician and as a troubleshooter of life in general, I have learned the perplexing anomaly that although we can discover solutions by isolating variables and by testing what remains to develop processes that “work” to “fix stuff”, sometimes we can discover situations where we fail or succeed and are left positively confused over why something work or something does it.  

The practice of medicine is considered a field of science but the truth that no one really advertises is that the practice of medicine is based on making hypotheses and by isolating variables and testing solutions.   Sounds pretty good huh? What’s wrong with that? 

Well, as scientific as it sounds, the truth of ignorance and mystery lies in the first link of the chain of the scientific method: the hypothesis.  A hypothesis is basically an “educated” guess.  That’s why they are tested.  Researchers “predict” – or guess- that certain outcomes will happen when variables are brought together but they don’t know if they will happen like they think they will. But they keep plugging along until they discover what works, at least for the most part. Because they have not discovered “medicinal laws” yet.  Some treatments work for many people but they don’t work for all people all the time.  Thus the practice of medicine.   

So what about our faith walk? What about the science of walking in the Spirit?  

Well, God invites you to put His word to the test. Christ invites you to die to the old ways of doing things and to follow Him.  

The variables of Bible study, prayer, and other principles drawn from the word of God are available to us to apply to our lives and to test.   Developing a walk of faith that leads to the manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives will come from our testing and practicing our faith.  

Whoever says that Christianity is boring has never attempted to apply the wisdom of God’s word to their life. 

In our walk, we can discover the benefits of Christian spiritual practices to our experience but we can only do that by actually practicing them.  

So, keep walking and talking with God.  Put on your lab coat and put God’s word and your faith to the test by knowing what it says and by doing it, by agreeing with God’s wisdom and by eliminating the worldly variables in our lives that don’t line up with it.  If you do this, you may experience trial and error as you try to figure out “Why it Does that!?” but if you persevere in your experiment of Christian living, one day you will scream “Eureka!” and probably “Hallelujah”, when you discover that God’s word is completely true and trustworthy because you will see the positive results of peace, love, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, self- control, and joy grow out of your decision to test and practice what the Bible has contained all along.  

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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:

Matthew 5:6 (NLT2)
6  God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

Today’s Bible verse assures us that if we hunger and thirst for justice we will be satisfied.  

I love the NLT but its translation of Matthew 5:6 makes me think of various action movies where the hero protagonists goes on a mission to seek justice, usually by taking it in their own hands in the form of revenge,   But that is not what the Bible would direct us to. 

When we consider that it is a Bible verse we are reading, we have to remember that the concepts are in relation to God.   So when today’s us that God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, we have to consider what justice would mean to God.  

We understand that God is just and will pour out His wrath on those who sin.  So justice for the sinner, would be hell! I am not sure if I would be in a hurry to rush after that justice?  To hunger and thirst for that justice, doesn’t sound like it would bless us!

So what is the justice of God that would bless us?   

Luckily, God is not only just but is also merciful and loving.  God knew that sinful man was incapable of being holy on his own. So as John 3:16 tells us, because of His love for us God sent Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sins so we can be saved and not perish.  Jesus’s death on the cross satisfies justice. He pays for our sins. Justice is done.     

So those who hunger and thirst for “this justice” are the ones who would be blessed.  Those who hunger and seek for the justice that Jesus provides, are blessed with eternal life, and that more than satisfies.   

So Matthew 5:6, is Christ’s promise to man, that if they seek God’s redemptive plan of justice, by seeking Christ, they will be satisfied. 

Instead of picturing someone who is “out for justice”, like Steven Segal. We should envision someone seeking to be right with God, pursuing God’s justice, pursuing God’s righteousness: which just so happens to be the One who is speaking this verse: Jesus Christ. 

In a way this verse is parallel to

Jeremiah 29:13 (NKJV)
13  And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Christ is standing there telling the people, and us, that they will be blessed and satisfied if they seek Him.  

So hunger and thirst for justice, or righteousness, as most other Bible translations put it, through Jesus Christ and be assured that you will be satisfied.

 

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.

The Inadequacy of the Batboy’s Perspective

Someone might say, “But isn’t the Gospel about finding forgiveness of my sins and getting the hope of eternal life and being filled with the Spirit of holiness and being changed into the image of Jesus so that I am a better mom or dad or son or daughter or friend or employer or citizen?” The answer, of course, is yes. But if that is all we focus on in our walk with God, we miss the big picture. We miss the bigger point of it all. We are like batboys at Yankee Stadium who think the great point of the World Series is to hand the players a bat.

So I urge you in the name of Jesus to wake up, and enlarge your heart, and stretch your mind, and spread your wings. Mount up above your limited life—yes, a very important life, which God does not diminish—and see the great and thrilling big picture of God’s global purposes for the history of the world that cannot fail. “My counsel shall stand,” says the Lord, “and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10). “At the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11). “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

Don’t Take Offense—Join the Joyful Partnership

And as God gives you wings to rise up and see the world the way he sees it, many of you, I pray, will be loosened from your present situation—job, neighborhood, state, nation, plan—and be called to a direct engagement in this great historic, global purpose of God as a goer and not only a sender. Let no one who is devoted to local ministry or to crucial secular engagement take offense at this plea. Rather rejoice. You are free to stay or free to go. Many of you must stay. Your staying is crucial for God’s purposes where you are, and it is crucial for his purposes where you are not, but where others may go. There is no need for guilt or resentment. There is great need for joyful partnership.

Those of you who stay—the senders—should keep this remarkable fact in mind: Foreign missions is a validation of all ministries of mercy at home because it exports them abroad. Planting the church in an unreached people means planting the base of operations for all the mercy Jesus commanded for the poor. If we don’t let our light shine before the people at home “so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16), what kind of obedience will we export to the nations? The Great Commission includes the words, “teaching them to observe all that I [Jesus] have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). And what did he command? He told the story of the desperate wounded man and the good Samaritan who “showed him mercy,” and then said to all of us, “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

Mercy at Home Makes Missions Credible

The people who stay in the homeland are surrounded by need. We only need eyes to see and hearts that can’t walk by on the other side. This challenge is not separate from the challenge of missions. Showing practical mercy to the poor displays the beauty of Christ at home and makes the exportation of the Christian faith credible. We are hypocrites to pretend enthusiasm for overseas ministry while neglecting the miseries at home. There was something wrong with the priest and the Levite in the story of the good Samaritan, who had their distant religious aims but were not moved by suffering close at hand where they would have to get their own hands dirty. Ministries of mercy close at hand validate the authenticity of our distant concerns.

Foreign missions and hometown mercy are linked in the very nature of the Gospel that we are to send to the nations. The heart of the Gospel is this: “Though [Christ] was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). The salvation we savor for ourselves and send to others is a ministry of God’s mercy to the poor, which includes all of us. We owe our lives to God’s commitment to missions and mercy. He came a long way to help us, and his help includes every kind of help we need. And he got dirty doing it. In fact he got killed. This merciful suffering is the purchase and the path of our salvation. “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Missions and mercy are inextricable because the very Gospel we take to the nations models and mandates mercy to the poor at home.

Warfield’s Devastating Comparison

I have never read a better statement of this connection than the following quote from B. B. Warfield, a teacher at Princeton Seminary who died in 1921. He answers some of the niggling questions about ministry to the poor by comparing it to Christ’s ministry to us.

Now dear Christians, some of you pray night and day to be branches of the true Vine; you pray to be made all over in the image of Christ. If so, you must be like him in giving … “though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor” … Objection 1. “My money is my own.” Answer: Christ might have said, “My blood is my own, my life is my own” … then where should we have been? Objection 2. “The poor are undeserving.” Answer: Christ might have said, “They are wicked rebels … shall I lay down my life for these? I will give to the good angels.” But no, he left the ninety-nine, and came after the lost. He gave his blood for the undeserving. Objection 3. “The poor may abuse it.” Answer: Christ might have said the same; yea, with far greater truth. Christ knew that thousands would trample his blood under their feet; that most would despise it; that many would make it an excuse for sinning more; yet he gave his own blood. Oh, my dear Christians! If you would be like Christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and the undeserving. Christ is glorious and happy and so will you be. It is not your money I want, but your happiness. Remember his own word, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Just as there is a partnership between the Gospel itself and mercy to the nearby poor, so there is a wonderful partnership between Christians being the merciful church at home and Christians planting the merciful church abroad. Neither is a wasted life. Indeed the authenticity of each depends much on the authenticity of the other. It is inauthentic to presume to send what we don’t have. And it is inauthentic to have a treasure and not send it.[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), 163–166.

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