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]
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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 podcasts
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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.