Free to Leave - Purity 804
Purity 804 08/08/2022 Purity 804 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the public beach at Schroon Lake comes to
us from yours truly as I spontaneously found myself further north than I would
have ever dreamed Saturday and decided to make the most of it.
Shortly after reporting Saturday that I didn’t have any “have
to’s” to take care of on Saturday, I received word that the Word of Life Inn & Conference Center
in Schroon Lake was sold and the organization were giving away furniture and “other
things” away to the public. Imagining Christian resources, books!, wall
hangings, and usable furniture for the taking, my curiosity, and the lack of
any other plans got the best of me and launched me into action and on a
spontaneous journey an hour north of my already northern countryside home.
There was quite a bit of traffic going into and coming out
of the Lodge by the time I got there so the pickings were slim but in the spirit
of the frenzy I was influenced to “grab something” and ended up grabbing a blue
armchair that I will imagined I could use in my bedroom to read, relax or watch
t.v. in.
I tested it out yesterday afternoon and although it takes
up more space that I would like, it will meet it’s imagined purpose and it could
give my wife a place to sit in my room other than my bed, as I only had a
single office chair in the room before.
Although I got the chair, I was disappointed because there
was nothing else like I imagined. The only books they were giving away were Bibles
that had been in each room in the inn, and I have plenty of Bibles already. Yeah my imagination of Christian resources
was a false expectation as I discovered that the Lodge was more a less a hotel
and the offerings would be what you would expect from any hotel giving away its
old furniture: beds, night stands, lamps, arm chairs, low height dressers, but
I didn’t know that when I left at a moments notice and went barreling up I-87
to get there.
So now that I realized that I was at Schroon Lake with
nothing else to do, I decided to make the most of my hour and fifteen minute
long drive and googled public swimming. I carry a bag in my car with a towel,
swim trunks, and other clothes to be prepared for spontaneous fun or unexpected
trips or overnight stays so I was ready for some spontaneous swimming fun and
discover the public beach would be opening at 11 and was only a short drive a
way.
So I got there at about a quarter of 10 and figured I would
read or something until the beach officially opened but shortly after I parked
I saw other people setting up their beach chairs and then go into the water! So
even though there were no lifeguards and the beach wasn’t officially opened, I
headed down the grassy embankment that encloses the small beach and set up shop
on the grassy plateau that over looks the beach. I’m not crazy about sand and my
elevated position on the grassy plateau gave me a little privacy and distance
from the beach below and gave me a nice view of the whole scene. After I set up
my camp chair that I also keep in my car at all times for spontaneous fun, I was soon loving my decision to make the most
out of my impromptu trip as I immediately “broke the rules” and was enjoying
the cool but not cold waters of Schroon Lake.
I had never been there before and I would definitely recommend it to my
friends, but I would encourage you to follow my example and go early because
the beach is small and it filled up pretty quickly aftre 11 AM.
I would also recommend being careful if you decide to
follow my example and decide to stay on the grassy hill that surrounds the
beach. There is a reason why not many
people joined me on the perfectly level grassy plateau.
After my maiden swim and an hour of reading and enjoying
the sun, I got thirsty so I made the trek back up to my car to get some water I
had left behind. There was a sun bather
nearby so I decided to take a different route up the hill and was shocked to
discover what appeared to be cat or small dog poop all over the grassy hill
side! I was disgusted and wondered what kind of people would be so thoughtless
to let their pets relieve themselves in a public park to such an extent that
the grassy hillside was a veritable mine field of poop!
So although I did go back to my spot and went swimming a
few more times and stayed another hour, the growing crowd, suddenly appearing flying
insects, and the fact that I now knew that the entire hill was covered in
animal feces all combined to cause me to leave.
After telling my wife of my misadventures at Schroon Lake,
she shared her knowledge of living up north and shared that what I took for pet
droppings left by irresponsible owners or strays, was in actuality goose poop!
Apparently, unlike most birds that I am familiar with, geese poop is much larger.
Anyway, I guess I
share all of that to encourage my friends to be spontaneous in life, to make
the most of your opportunities to experience something new, but to also be aware
of their surroundings! Apparently there
is always something new to learn and sometimes the lessons we get aren’t always
pleasant!
And another thing that I would point out from my experience
is that we can have good experiences in less than ideal circumstances, but when
we discover the unpleasant truth about the place we are in, it doesn’t mean we
necessarily have to stay there!
As the circumstances surrounding my “beach day”, started
to go south, I had a decision to make, I could “get over myself” and stay and
decide to just “focus on the good” or I could leave! And I did leave!
For me maintaining the peace and joy of my life wasn’t “beach
centered”, it’s God centered and the great thing about God is that He goes
where I go. The beach had given what I needed to experience and I decided to go
when the going was good.
As someone who encourages others to experience their
freedom in Christ, one of the lesson I teach is that we are free to leave
negative circumstances, places, and people behind as we follow the Lord. When we decide to follow Christ, not
everyone will be walking with us and the Lord may call us to “go” rather than
to endure.
Yes, a good deal of living as a disciple of Christ involves
being good, kind, faithful, gentle, and patient as we endure through bad situations
and deal with difficult people but make no mistake, who the Son set free is
free indeed and as we walk with Him we will discover that the Lord calls us to
leave situations, people, and places behind to answer another call or to
maintain our life in the Spirit.
From the beginning, Abraham was called to leave His family
and all he knew to follow the Lord,
Moses lead the nation Israel our of Egypt, and Christ told his disciples
to shake of the dust of a town that did not receive His word. So listen to what the Holy Spirit is calling
you to do, but it’s “time to go”, go.
So as we enter into a new work week, fight the good fight
of faith and try to live peacefully where the Lord has brought you as you
answer His call on your life to be the best “worker, parent, manager or
whatever” that the Lord made you to be.
But if you discover that the circumstances have gotten to
be untenable, remember that the Lord has also given you the freedom to leave. And if we decide to leave, we necessarily
have to scream from the roof tops just how unpleasant things were on the way
out the door.
As much as I may have been tempted to scream “Hey, that
hill is covered in poop!”
I didn’t because:
I didn’t want to point out the negative
I didn’t want to take away someone else’s joy
And just like when we share the gospel, often people don’t
hear or understand what we say, or don’t listen to us anyway, and somethings we
have to experience for ourselves.
So keep walking and talking with God, and keep pursuing the meaning and purpose He has for your life, that may call you to stay or may call you to exercise your freedom to go.
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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:
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT2)
17 This means that anyone who
belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has
begun!
Today’s verse testifies to the spiritual reality of a brand new life that comes to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
The biggest stumbling block to experiencing our new life in Christ is our failure to pursue the life we have been given. Instead of being transformed by the renewing our minds with the word of God as the Bible directs us, we continue to stay where we are and do the things we have always done.
If you are perplexed about why you don’t “feel like a new creation”, it is probably because you have misunderstood the gospel that tells us that there is “nothing to do” but put your faith in Christ to be a child of God and decided that there was “nothing to do” with your new life in Christ and thus have remained doing what you have always done.
When we are saved, we are saved from God’s wrath.
But what are we saved “to”? We are made children of God to represent His kingdom and to give Him glory.
What exactly in your life before Christ was doing that? Probably not much.
So if you saw the need for a Savior for your salvation, why would you assume that the way you were living before you came to Christ was “just fine”?
The call from Christ is the call to everlasting life but it is also the call to repentance. We are made new the moment we make Christ our Lord but that doesn’t mean that nothing needs to change. A Christian life is a transformed life.
So if you don’t feel like you have been transformed, you need to believe that you are and make the transformation a reality in your life by changing the way you think and live to be in line with God’s word.
So rejoice over your new life in Christ, and seek His wisdom and ways to see it manifest more and more as you make the daily decision to follow Him.
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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 Clinton E. Arnold’s
“Powers of Darkness”
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Clinton Arnold’s books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $20.00.
Spiritual Warfare As Resistance
Four
times in the passage Paul used the word stand/withstand
(same root in the Greek: Eph 6:11, 13, 14). In the larger context of Ephesians
it is clear Paul did not want believers to “give a place to the devil” with
excessive anger, lying, stealing or succumbing to any other temptation to moral
impurity (Eph 4:27). Paul described the devil and his powers as working in
concert with the flesh and the world (Eph 2:2–3—see above) to promote sin among
Christians and hinder the progress of the gospel. For this reason the Christian
needs to appropriate God’s enabling power in order to live with moral
integrity.
Spiritual warfare is
therefore resistance. It is a defensive posture. It involves recognizing the
supernatural nature of temptation and being prepared to face it. It also
implies appropriating God’s power to progress in eradicating moral vices that
already have a place in one’s life.
The first two
spiritual weapons Paul named are “truth” and “righteousness.” There appears to
be two sides to these weapons. On the one hand, they need to be understood as
divine endowments for the task of spiritual warfare. On the other hand, they
are to be regarded as virtues that need to be cultivated in the lives of
believers. This understanding is quite natural in that the gospel brings with
it implications for Christian conduct. Paul saw the gospel as “truth” (Eph
1:13) and as the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16). In contrast, the devil
is the archadversary who uses many schemes designed to misrepresent, deceive
and trick. Believers need to be convinced and assured of the gospel’s truth and
what it affirms about them as God’s children. By implication, believers need to
conduct their lives in a manner consistent with the truth of the gospel. Lying
and deceit can have no place in a believer’s life; they are an affront to the
God of truth. Consequently, in Ephesians, Paul told each Christian that he or
she “must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor” (Eph 4:25;
see also 5:9).
One of the most
remarkable parts of the salvation that God provides is the gift of
“righteousness.” After informing the Romans that “there is no one righteous,
not even one” (Rom 3:10), Paul elaborated on the wonderful news that “this
righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe”
(Rom 3:22). This righteousness means that those who believe in Jesus have been
acquitted of all guilt before God. They are completely forgiven and reconciled
to him as friends, better yet, as sons and daughters. The devil and his
malicious powers would certainly like Christians to believe otherwise. The
powers strive to convince people that God could not possibly forgive them for
some of the horrible things they have done in the past. Such a notion could not
be further from the truth. Christians have indeed been pardoned through
Christ’s blood, and as such, can live boldly and confidently, not with guilt,
fear and timidity.
Possessing God’s righteousness,
however, brings responsibility. The apostle admonished his readers to strip off
the old self and put on the new self, which is “created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24). The development of personal holiness
and integrity is part of the preparation for engaging in victorious spiritual
warfare. Conversely, a lack of integrity and personal holiness will certainly
hinder a believer’s ability to resist the onslaught of Satan’s minions
successfully.
Another very
important aspect of a believer’s resistance is “salvation,” which is linked to
the helmet as the fifth piece of armor (Eph 6:17). Salvation needs to be
understood as Paul explained it in the larger context of the letter. In
Ephesians 2:5–10, Paul twice reaffirmed to his readers that “by grace you have
been saved,” eloquently describing the concept of salvation. These two
occurrences are the only occasions in all of Paul’s letters where he used the
Greek perfect tense to refer to salvation. The perfect tense stresses the
results of a decisive action in the past Paul wanted his readers to be very
secure in their identity in Christ. They are people who are saved and enjoy the
benefits of being saved.
Paul clarified what
he meant by salvation in that same context with three powerful thoughts: (1)
believers have been made alive with Christ, (2) they have been raised up with
Christ, and (3) they have been seated with him in the heavenly realms (Eph
2:4–6). For Paul it is vitally important that believers know who they are in
Christ in order to resist the influence of Satan and his forces on their lives.
Only through their salvation and union with Christ will they be able to resist
Finally, the believer
is given a “sword” to fend off the attacks of the evil one. The sword is linked
with the Spirit and the Word of God. Just as Jesus used Scripture to resist
Satan’s temptations while he was in the wilderness (Mt 4:1–11), Paul called on
believers to use God’s Word to resist the devil in their own situations. This
is not to be understood as a semimagical use of Scripture, quoting it out loud
as a means of thwarting the devil. It involves gaining a thorough familiarity
with Scripture and an accurate understanding of its relevance for any given
situation. When Jesus was tempted, the devil applied Scripture inappropriately
and out of context; Jesus responded to the devil by applying Scripture
appropriately and according to its proper intent in conveying the mind of God
on specific matters. The thorough, systematic study of Scripture on a regular
basis is vital for all believers. It is an integral part of engaging in
effective spiritual warfare.[1]
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tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
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at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple
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and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness:
Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove,
IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 1992), 154–156.
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