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Friday, September 30, 2022

Hurricane Ian – The Storms Reveal What Matters Most - Purity 850


Hurricane Ian – The Storms Reveal What Matters Most - Purity 850

Purity 850 09/29/2022 Purity 850 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a sunset over the Gulf of Mexico somewhere in the Tarpon Springs area on the West Coast of Florida comes to us from a friend who shared various scenes of the Sunshine State while on their family vacation back in June. 

After Hurricane Ian has blown through Florida, our prayers are with our friends and all the residents in Florida who are in the process of cleaning up the devastating damage in the aftermath of the category 4 storm that caused millions of dollars in damage and took the lives of 12 people and may continue to cause more damage as it moves up the coast near South Carolina today.  

In events like this the lives lost show up how fleeting our lives can be. I don’t know the details but I am almost certain that none of the 12 people lost ever thought they would be killed because of a hurricane.  And as devastating as the losses to people’s homes and business may be, these events show us that our human lives are far more valuable than any possessions.   

The lessons of life and death that are taught through instances of traumatic losses show us that things no matter how cherished they are only things and whether our stuff is destroyed, broken or lost through out our lives or if they survive and are passed on to others after we go to the grave, our possessions value is limited in comparison to our lives.   

In my men’s Freedom in Christ discipleship group one of the men has reported that he has been suffering from debilitating aches and pains and exhaustion for months and just the other night he commented on the extreme value of our physical health, stating that he would willingly sacrifice his possession in a moment to have his health and strength restored.   But because He is a Christian, he still was thanking and praising the Lord for all that He has provided with in his life even though he is suffering,

When our health fails and things are torn asunder in our lives, where will we find our hope?  

Well that is why our personal relationship with the Lord through our faith in Jesus Christ is so important.   

When we know who we are in Christ, we know we are accepted into God’s kingdom and we are secure in God’s love no matter what negative circumstances we will face.  

In Christ, we know that we are citizens of heaven and that our place on the earth is temporary and that when death comes or when Christ returns to reclaim the earth, we will be safe and secure in the company of our Heavenly Father and the community of saints who put their faith in Christ.     

Also in Christ we know that we can receive God’s strength, grace, and mercy when we call out to Him to help us.  

We don’t know what help will come but in Christ we know that we are not abandoned, we are not forsaken, and that the Lord is with us and will help us for God works ALL THINGs together for good for those who love Him and who are called according to His purposes.  

So even in the wake of disaster, we can thank God it’s Friday today and we can thank Him for so much more.  

So if you are short on hope, peace, or joy, draw close to God and He will lift you up.  Put your faith in Christ and you will never have to walk through this life wondering about your safety. Keep walking and talking with God and you will know that even if our health fails or we lose everything we have, we will not be alone and He will give us the strength to endure our sufferings and possibly rejoice as He gives us the will to survive and build our lives new again. 

 

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

This morning’s meditation verses are:

John 15:4-5 (NLT2)
4  Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
5  “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

In Today’s Bible Verses Jesus tells His disciples to remain in Him and He will remain in them and that apart from Him we can do nothing.    

Christ’s words encourage us to remain in His presence with the indication that if we do that He will be with us and He will help us to produce much fruit.  

Fruit could be seen as good works done for others for the glory of God to give compassionate care or to guide people out of the darkness by showing them the light of Jesus or it could be the fruit of righteousness as our spiritual disciplines of repentance, Bible study, and prayer transforms our character.  

This passage of scripture is perhaps one of the bests examples of how Christ isn’t just telling us to follow the rules of God’s law but is inviting us into a dynamic personal relationship with Him and He assures us that their will be the benefits of much fruit.   

So don’t focus on the fruit of “doing good works” because you “have to” now that you are a Christian, instead abide with Christ and experience the peace of His presence and follow the call that He puts on your life and watch as the fruit grows naturally from being attached to the Vine of Christ.

 

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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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

Chapter Four

Discipleship and the Cross - concludes

But how should disciples know what their cross is? They will receive it when they begin to follow the suffering Lord. They will recognize their cross in communion with Jesus.

Thus, suffering becomes the identifying mark of a follower of Christ. The disciple is not above the teacher. Discipleship is passio passiva [passive suffering], having to suffer. That is why Luther could count suffering among the marks of the true church.[17] A preparatory document for the Augsburg Confession defined the church as the community of those “who are persecuted and martyred on account of the gospel.” Those who do not want to take up their cross, who do not want to give their lives in suffering and being rejected by people, lose their community with Christ. They are not disciples. But those who lose their lives in discipleship, in bearing the cross, will find life again in following in the community of the cross with Christ. The opposite of discipleship is being ashamed of Christ, being ashamed of the cross, being scandalized by the cross.

Discipleship is being bound to the suffering Christ. That is why Christian suffering is not disconcerting. Instead, it is nothing but grace and joy. The acts of the church’s first martyrs give witness that Christ transfigures the moment of greatest suffering for his followers through the indescribable certainty of his nearness and communion. In the middle of the most terrible torment that the disciples bore for their Lord’s sake, they experienced the greatest joy and blessedness of his community. Bearing the cross proved to be for them the only way to overcome suffering. But this is true for all who follow Christ, because it was true for Christ himself.

“And going a little farther, [Jesus] threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’ … Again he went away for the second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done’ ” (Matt. 26:39, 42).

Jesus prays to the Father that the cup pass from him, and the Father hears the son’s prayer. The cup of suffering will pass from Jesus, but only by his drinking it. When Jesus kneels in Gethsemane the second time, he knows that the cup will pass by his accepting the suffering. Only by bearing the suffering will he overcome and conquer it. His cross is the triumph over suffering.

Suffering is distance from God. That is why someone who is in communion with God cannot suffer. Jesus affirmed this Old Testament testimony. That is why he takes the suffering of the whole world onto himself and overcomes it. He bears the whole distance from God. Drinking the cup is what makes it pass from him. In order to overcome the suffering of the world Jesus must drink it to the dregs. Indeed, suffering remains distance from God, but in community with the suffering of Jesus Christ, suffering is overcome by suffering. Communion with God is granted precisely in suffering.

Suffering must be borne in order for it to pass. Either the world must bear it and be crushed by it, or it falls on Christ and is overcome in him. That is how Christ suffers as vicarious representative for the world. Only his suffering brings salvation. But the church-community itself knows now that the world’s suffering seeks a bearer. So in following Christ, this suffering falls upon it, and it bears the suffering while being borne by Christ. The community of Jesus Christ vicariously represents the world before God by following Christ under the cross.

God is a God who bears. The Son of God bore our flesh. He therefore bore the cross. He bore all our sins and attained reconciliation by his bearing. That is why disciples are called to bear what is put on them. Bearing constitutes being a Christian. Just as Christ maintains his communion with the Father by bearing according to the Father’s will, so the disciples’ bearing constitutes their community with Christ. People can shake off the burdens laid on them. But doing so does not free them at all from their burdens. Instead, it loads them with a heavier, more unbearable burden. They bear the self-chosen yoke of their own selves. Jesus called all who are laden with various sufferings and burdens to throw off their yokes and to take his yoke upon themselves. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light. His yoke and his burden is the cross. Bearing the cross does not bring misery and despair. Rather, it provides refreshment and peace for our souls; it is our greatest joy. Here we are no longer laden with self-made laws and burdens, but with the yoke of him who knows us and who himself goes with us under the same yoke. Under his yoke we are assured of his nearness and communion. It is he himself whom disciples find when they take up their cross.

“Things must go, not according to your understanding but above your understanding. Submerge yourself in a lack of understanding, and I will give you My understanding. Lack of understanding is real understanding; not knowing where you are going is really knowing where you are going. My understanding makes you without understanding. Thus Abraham went out from his homeland and did not know where he was going (Gen. 12:1ff.). He yielded to My knowledge and abandoned his own knowledge; and by the right way he reached the right goal. Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it, but I must lead you like a blind man. Therefore not you, not a man, not a creature, but I, through My Spirit and the Word, will teach you the way you must go. You must not follow the work which you choose, not the suffering which you devise, but that which comes to you against your choice, thoughts, and desires. There I call; there you must be a pupil; there it is the time; there your Master has come” (Luther).[1]

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

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" 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 also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

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



[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 89–91.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Bonhoeffer's Discipleship - Lesson 4 - Discipleship & The Cross


 I am happy to announce that I have completed and uploaded  Lesson 4 of “Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship” : an informal study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship – with Lesson 4 – Discipleship & The Cross  

 

Here is a link to the audio podcast: Discipleship & The Cross Podcast

Here is a link to the video on YouTube: Discipleship & The Cross on YouTube

It is my prayer that this series will encourage people to read Bonhoeffer’s work but more importantly I hope the lessons encourage people to deepen their faith in Christ by pursuing a life of Christian Discipleship. 

God bless you all. 

 

M. T. Clark  

The Ways We Can Encourage Others - Purity 849


The Ways We Can Encourage Others- Purity 849

Purity 849 09/29/2022 Purity 849 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the sky reflected in the waters near Murray Bridge in South Australia comes to us from Dave Baun Photography (https://www.facebook.com/DaveBaunPhotography) who shared this pathway on social media back on June 17th, stating: “Another reflection image from our day at Murray Bridge. We spent hours hiking around the place and enjoying scenes like this all day long.”  

Well, It’s Thursday again and I thought I would use Dave’s photo as a visual representation of the hope we have for those of us who are “going from here to there” on the pathway of Christian discipleship and it is my prayer that my fellow travelers on Christ’s narrow path will have joy in their journey.

In Christian circles where people are actively pursuing all that God has for them by following the Lord’s wisdom and ways as outlined in the Bible, you may have heard the familiar testimony that Christians may not be perfected like Christ yet but they are no longer who they once were.  Apparently this adage was expanded upon and the following quote is attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:   

I may not be the man I want to be; I may not be the man I ought to be; I may not be the man I could be; I may not be the man I truly can be; but praise God, I’m not the man I once was. – (https://quotefancy.com/quote/864928/Martin-Luther-King-Jr-I-may-not-be-the-man-I-want-to-be-I-may-not-be-the-man-I-ought-to)  

As a Christian, Dr. King knew about the transformative power that comes through Christ and His dream was that people could get past their differences caused by group identifiers such as race and be united in harmony where people were not judged by the color of their skin but because of the content of their character, knowing that Christ can change people’s hearts.  

And so I encourage people to not just believe in Jesus but to follow Christ in the way they live their lives, to compassionately love and serve others by sharing with them what Christ tried to show us through His teachings in the word of God.  

I know you can’t push people into faith and so I just try to encourage people to seek the Lord by “walking and talking with God” and being open to the possibility to follow where He leads knowing that God is the one that will have to break though the walls that people build between themselves and his love and sometimes His “hard truth”.   

So I just encourage, “go that way “and point to Jesus.

So knowing we can’t affect those changes in people for them, what can we do to encourage them?  

Well Dr. Charles Stanley just happen to send me a letter that shared his wisdom on how we can encourage others. Okay it was a mass mailing from his ministries and not apersonal correspondence from the good Dr. , but it was addressed to me, in fact I got two copies, one to Marc Clark and another to “M. t. Clark” (small t?, typo I guess).    Anyway Dr. Stanley shared that we can encourage others by: 

1.    Giving people our time and attention

2.    Meeting their emotional or physical needs

3.    Building each other up spiritually

4.    And by trying to be a “motivator”. 

So while, I may not be doing all of the above perfectly in all situations, Dr. Stanley and I have the same teacher, the Lord and His word, and apparently I was following the right path in terms of how I try to be an encourager.  

I do my best to give my time and attention to others. I try to meet their emotional and physical needs, where I can. I try to build people up spiritually and I try to motivate others to seek the Lord and to solve their problems with His help.  

My “ministry work” is all about showing others how the Lord can help them with these things and how a relationship with Him through faith in Jesus Christ can help them “cross that bridge from here to there”, to walk toward becoming the person God made us to be and to leave behind the troubled person we once were. 

So be motivated by Dr. Martin Luther King’s quote, consider Dr. Charles Stanley’s “prescription” for being an encourager, and follow the Lord in all your ways and you will discover that when you encourage others, the person that is most encouraged is you.

 

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

This morning’s meditation verses are:

Isaiah 53:5-6 (NLT2)
5  But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.
6  All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all.

Today’s Bible verses were shared in our resource under the heading “When you wish that some else could carry your problems…”  so while this passage of scripture can serve as evidence for Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, our simple devotional resource shows us that we can also use today’s verses to find hope and comfort in our walk by putting our current burdens on to the Lord just like the weight and punishment of our sins were laid on Christ on the cross.   

In our Christian walk we will go through trials and tribulations and be rejected by men just like Christ did, but just like Christ endured suffering on the cross for the joy set before Him (our salvation, for the glory of God), we can bear the burdens of our sufferings and rejections because of our communion with Him and we can do it as a continual practice of our faith. 

As the NLT Bible Promise Book for Men indicates, when you wish someone else could carry your promise, you can look at these verses in Isaiah and two things could happen. 

1.     In light of Christ’s sufferings on the Cross to save us our earthly problems may seem somewhat insignificant. Christ’s suffering may put out “suffering” in proper perspective, especially if our problems aren’t as painful as Christ’s passion.  So we could feel relieved and motivated to endure because of Christ’s example. 

2.    We can “give” the Lord our problems by going to the Lord in prayer and asking Him to give us strength by “releasing” or “surrendering” the weight of our problems to Him by making the choice to trust the Lord to help us, to do the best we can and to leave the results up to God.   

I have just suffered another loss and disappointment in my life and at first I agonized over it and tried to “Monday quarterback” the situation and contemplated what I could have done differently that could have changed the situation to avoid this negative outcome.  But after a far amount of thinking about the situation, and the fact that it involved another person, I realized that some of the factors in this situation were simply beyond my control and I took to forgiving myself for anything that I may have inadvertently done to cause offense and then I forgave the other person for the hurt of rejection that they inadvertently caused me.  Sometimes people go separate ways and it isn’t necessarily because of anything we did but our selfish view in life makes it all about us. 

So after forgiving myself and the other person, and knowing that everything I did was motivated by my desire to help and encourage the other to follow the Lord, I prayed to “surrender” this person to the Lord knowing that God’s plan for this person’s life is perfect and it just won’t involve me anymore.

 When our relationships break down in any sense, in order to move on we need to say “good bye”, and the faithful men and women of God that have contributed to my maturity in my Christian walk have taught me to “let go, and let God” by “surrendering” people, things, and situations that are beyond my control to the Lord.   

So if you wish that someone else could carry your problems and you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, there is good news.  Christ took all our sins on Him on the Cross and at the time all of those sins of ours were “future sins”, that means that any sins, problems, or burdens, that we encounter now or in the future can likewise be given to God through Christ.  We can surrender our sins, our pains, and our problems to God and endure.      

_____________________________________________

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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

Chapter Four

Discipleship and the Cross - continues

The cross is neither misfortune nor harsh fate. Instead, it is that suffering which comes from our allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. The cross is not random suffering, but necessary suffering. The cross is not suffering that stems from natural existence; it is suffering that comes from being Christian. The essence of the cross is not suffering alone; it is suffering and being rejected. Strictly speaking, it is being rejected for the sake of Jesus Christ, not for the sake of any other attitude or confession. A Christianity that no longer took discipleship seriously remade the gospel into only the solace of cheap grace. Moreover, it drew no line between natural and Christian existence. Such a Christianity had to understand the cross as one’s daily misfortune, as the predicament and anxiety of our natural life. Here it has been forgotten that the cross always also means being rejected, that the cross includes the shame of suffering. Being shunned, despised, and deserted by people, as in the psalmist’s unending lament, is an essential feature of the suffering of the cross, which cannot be comprehended by a Christianity that is unable to differentiate between a citizen’s ordinary existence and Christian existence. The cross is suffering with Christ. Indeed, it is Christ-suffering. Only one who is bound to Christ as this occurs in discipleship stands in seriousness under the cross.

“… let them take up their cross …” From the beginning, it lies there ready. They need only take it up. But so that no one presumes to seek out some cross or arbitrarily search for some suffering, Jesus says, they each have their own cross ready, assigned by God and measured to fit. They must all bear the suffering and rejection measured out to each of them. Everyone gets a different amount. God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while others are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case, it is the one cross.

It is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus’ death. They turn their living into dying; such has been the case from the very beginning. The cross is not the terrible end of a pious, happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death. Whether we, like the first disciples, must leave house and vocation to follow him, or whether, with Luther, we leave the monastery for a secular vocation, in both cases the same death awaits us, namely, death in Jesus Christ, the death of our old self caused by the call of Jesus. Because Jesus’ call brings death to the rich young man, who can only follow Jesus after his own will has died, because Jesus’ every command calls us to die with all our wishes and desires, and because we cannot want our own death, therefore Jesus Christ in his word has to be our death and our life. The call to follow Jesus, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, is death and life. The call of Christ and baptism leads Christians into a daily struggle against sin and Satan. Thus, each day, with its temptations by the flesh and the world, brings Jesus Christ’s suffering anew to his disciples. The wounds inflicted this way and the scars a Christian carries away from the struggle are living signs of the community of the cross with Jesus. But there is another suffering and another indignity from which no Christian can be spared. To be sure, Christ’s own suffering is the only suffering that brings reconciliation. But because Christ has suffered for the sin of the world, because the whole burden of guilt fell on him, and because Jesus Christ passes on the fruit of his suffering to those who follow him, temptation and sin fall also onto his disciples. Sin covers the disciples with shame and expels them from the gates of the city like a scapegoat. So Christians become bearers of sin and guilt for other people. Christians would be broken by the weight if they were not themselves carried by him who bore all sins. Instead, by the power of Christ’s suffering they can overcome the sins they must bear by forgiving them. A Christian becomes a burden-bearer—bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). As Christ bears our burdens, so we are to bear the burden of our sisters and brothers. The law of Christ, which must be fulfilled, is to bear the cross. The burden of a sister or brother, which I have to bear, is not only his or her external fate, manner, and temperament; rather, it is in the deepest sense his or her sin. I cannot bear it except by forgiving it, by the power of Christ’s cross, which I have come to share. In this way Jesus’ call to bear the cross places all who follow him in the community of forgiveness of sins. Forgiving sins is the Christ-suffering required of his disciples. It is required of all Christians.[1]

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

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" 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 also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

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



[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 86–88.

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

The Importance of Worldview and Knowing the Truth - Purity 848


The Importance of Worldview and Knowing the Truth - Purity 848

Purity 848 09/28/2022 Purity 848 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a breathtaking mountain top view comes to us from a friend who paid a visit to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, that straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, and shared this scene on social media on Tuesday. 

Well it’s Wednesday, and I thought our friend’s photo of the Great Smoky Mountains was a great way to visually represent our arrival to another “hump day” and to suggest that we use discernment when deciding on our “worldview” and to not straddle the border of the world’s view of the truth and the truth of reality that is revealed in God’s word. While we recognize the truth of what is going on in the world and in our daily lives, as travelers on the path of Christian discipleship, we want to interpret our experiences with the wisdom that the word of God teaches us.  

Without an objective standard of truth, our thoughts and opinions about various aspects of life are not necessarily qualitatively better than anyone else. Without an objective standard of truth, everything becomes relative and confusing as people will put forth beliefs and ideas that logically contradict one another and then demand that we must affirm that they are all somehow equally true. 

Last night in the Freedom in Christ Course Men’s group that I facilliate on Zoom, we examined the course’s teaching on the importance of knowing the various types of worldviews and how they contradict the Biblical worldview. 

According to the lesson - the Western world view generally bases its view on logic and scientific observations, but all but denies any spiritual realm that may influence events on the earth.   It can range complete Atheism, with no god all, or be deist, the belief that there is a God who created everything but has since left it to its own devices and does not intervene in the lives of men. 

The lesson also presents the “Non-Western worldview” – that generally believes that the universe is controlled by a kind of universal power that runs through everything and by spirits of many types.  This view can range from animistic (God is in everything), to pagan (there are local or tribal gods that can work for or against you) and spiritist – there are good and bad spiritual entities and those of the departed that can be communicated with).  Where the western view generally denies the spiritual realm, the non-western view has many forms and expressions that affirms it and seeks to manipulate it.  

And finally, the lesson presented the “post-Modern” worldview which is a reaction against past generation’s reliance on science and “experts” because, after all, the experts have often proven to be wrong.  Whereas previous generations have seen truth as something revealed by God or discovered by science, “post modernists” seek to test whether ideas are valid based solely on their own personal experiences. If it feels good to me, it’s okay.  

And thus we can have political and social movements and special interest groups, that deny aspects of objective reality or flies in the face of facts but who collectively promote and reinforce each other’s outlandish views on social media because it is “true for them”. 

And thus Christians are under constant pressure to “be loving” and to affirm other’s beliefs and lifestyle choices as not only “possible” but as equally valid and true, even though logic, reason, and the word of God indicate otherwise.   

The lesson points that none these worldviews- Western, Non-Western, or Post-modern give us a true view of reality. When they all make different claims about things like our eternal destiny it becomes a little clearer that they all can’t be right, because they contradict one another.   The following excerpt comes right from last night’s lesson:

Consider the most important question facing everybody in the world: What happens when you die?

• Hinduism teaches that when a soul dies it is reincarnated in another form.

• Christianity teaches that souls spend eternity in either heaven or hell.

• Spiritists think we float around as ghosts.

 • Atheists believe that we have no soul and that when we die our existence simply ends.

Can all those things be true at the same time?

To put it another way, does what you believe will happen to you when you die make any difference to what will actually happen?

 Or will the same thing happen to everyone when they die regardless of what they believed before the event?

Surely, if Hindus are right, we will all be reincarnated. If Christians are right, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. If atheists are right, all of our existences will come to an end. If spiritists are right we’ll all float around as ghosts. But they simply can’t all be true at the same time.

So it’s clear that there is such a thing as real truth that exists whatever individuals may choose to believe.

(Anderson, Neil T.; Goss, Steve. Freedom in Christ Participant's Guide: A 10-Week Life-Changing Discipleship Course (pp. 73-74). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.) 

So how can we know what is true? 

Christ came to tell us the truth. He lived a sinless life, taught wisdom and affirmed the truth of the Old Testament scriptures that predicted His coming, performed miracles as a sign that He was heaven sent, died on the cross for our sins,  and proved that everything He said was true and that He was God by not only rising from the dead, but also literally ascending to heaven in the presence angelic witnesses.  

The truth of Christ’s claims are seen in the spread of Christianity throughout the world and the transformed lives of the millions that have put their faith in Him and live according to His teachings.  

What’s even more amazing is that while other religions won’t name Him as Lord and Savior exclusive, every faith system from, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and others pay homage to Christ some way – either as “a god” among many”, a prophet, or a wise teacher.  Christ is special enough that even the religions that deny Him want a piece of Him.  

But Christianity doesn’t do the same because they believe Christ when He said:

John 14:6 (NLT2)
6  … “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.   

So as Christians know the truth and live by it. And we shouldn’t be surprised if the world hates us for it. For Christ said:

John 15:18-19 (NLT2)
18  “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.
19  The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.

But we shouldn’t hate the world back.  Christ came to save that which was lost and to taught us to love our enemies. Just before He told His disciples how they would be hated He said.  

John 15:17 (NLT2)
17  This is my command: Love each other.

So let’s do that. Let’s love one another, be kind, but also be clear about the truth.  Love doesn’t mean affirming someone when they are harming themselves and don’t know it.

Obviously, this is a hard road to walk on: to love one another but to stand on the truth of God’s word. 

So let’s keep walking and talking with God and see what He tells us as we seek to be the peacemakers and to reconcile ourselves and others to come into His kingdom.  

 

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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 3:5-6 (NLT2)
5  Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.
6  Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

Today’s Bible verse encourages us to trust the Lord and to seek His will in all you do. 

I love it when a plan comes together. I don’t plan these messages but I think God helps bring it together sometimes.  In last nights discussion, we addressed the fact that it was really hard to know what to do when talking to friends, loved ones, or others who don’t have a relationship with the Lord. How do we tell the truth in love? How do we stand for Christ and have peace with those who reject Him?  How do I live this Christian life without losing all the relationships in my life?  

I was honest and told the men to be discerning and to go to the Lord to direct their paths and pointed out how Christ usually answered questions with a question or gave answers that took into account who He was talking to.   So what do you do? It depends. 

While I could give advice to follow in every situation, that strategy doesn’t even work with regular problems on the earth because of the complexity of the realities that we face. That’s why politics is a mess. Life is not one size fits all.  

So I point to word of God every time because I know the author has the answers. As today’s verse directs our path, we should trust the Lord and lean not on our own understanding but we should seek His will in all we do and trust that He will show us what to do.   That’s walking in the Spirit.  So before you speak or act be sure check in with your heavenly Father and listen to what He tells you and trust Him to show the way to go.   

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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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

Chapter Four

Discipleship and the Cross - continues

So Jesus has to make it clear and unmistakable to his disciples that the need to suffer now applies to them, too. Just as Christ is only Christ as one who suffers and is rejected, so a disciple is a disciple only in suffering and being rejected, thereby participating in crucifixion. Discipleship as allegiance to the person of Jesus Christ places the follower under the law of Christ, that is, under the cross.[5]

When Jesus communicates this inalienable truth to his disciples, he begins remarkably by setting them entirely free once more. “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can even be expected to follow him. Rather, “if any” intend to follow him, despite any other offers they may get. Once again everything depends on a decision. While the disciples are already engaged in discipleship, everything is broken off once again, everything is left open, nothing is expected, nothing is forced. What he is going to say next is that decisive. Therefore, once again, before the law of discipleship is proclaimed, even the disciples must accept being set free.

“If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves.” Just as in denying Christ Peter said, “I do not know the man,” those who follow Christ must say that to themselves. Self-denial can never result in ever so many single acts of self-martyrdom or ascetic exercises. It does not mean suicide, because even suicide could be the expression of the human person’s own will. Self-denial means knowing only Christ, no longer knowing oneself. It means no longer seeing oneself, only him who is going ahead, no longer seeing the way which is too difficult for us. Self-denial says only: he is going ahead; hold fast to him.

“… and take up their cross.” The grace of Jesus is evident in his preparing his disciples for this word by speaking first of self-denial. Only when we have really forgotten ourselves completely, when we really no longer know ourselves, only then are we ready to take up the cross for his sake. When we know only him, then we also no longer know the pain of our own cross. Then we see only him. If Jesus had not been so gracious in preparing us for this word, then we could not bear it. But this way he has made us capable of hearing this hard word as grace. It meets us in the joy of discipleship, and confirms us in it.[1]

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

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

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

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These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

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



[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 85–86.