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Wednesday, September 14, 2022

When Things Get Real - Purity 836


When Things Get Real - Purity 836

Purity 836 09/14/2022  Purity 836 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo a rainbow over the Cumberland River on a sunny day comes to us from a friend who visited Cumberland Falls State Resort Park yesterday, sharing the fact that the water fall there is also the only waterfall in the entire Western Hemisphere that produces a “moonbow”.  Apparently during a full moon accompanied by a clear night sky, an arch of white light is produced at the base of the falls and continues downstream!

Well it’s Wednesday again and I thought that this “hump” of rainbow over the Cumberland River could visually represent our arrival at the midpoint of our work week. I don’t know about you but the last two days seemed to last forever. So I am celebrating the fact that it is “hump day”  and I am also celebrating another successful meeting of the Freedom in Christ course men’s group that I facilitate because just like we know that a you don’t see a rainbow or a moonbow every day, when you lead a group where the participants are open, vulnerable, and supportive you know you have found something special.   

When Christian small groups meet sometimes, because they are a Christian gathering, people will be so positive and encouraging, you will wonder about the genuineness of what people say and are trying to convey.  Quite frankly when people meet and quote Bible verses and speak about how thankful and blessed they are you have to wonder if you entered a different country. 

Are we in Christ-landia, where no one has any problems and everyone speaks Christianese?

I remember one time years ago, going to a graduation party of my stepdaughter that was hosted by her grandparents that were born again Christians.  At the time I went to a denominational church but was far from “born again”. We had arrived early while everything was still being set up and I had thanked my step daughter’s grandparents for throwing her a party.  They seemed nice enough to me. What do you expect from a greeting to the husband of your son’s ex, who you weren’t crazy about?  They were gracious, humble, and nice.   

But then the guests arrived, and my stepdaughter’s grandfather literally put on his “happy face” and buoyantly greeted the new arrivals with the zeal of a game show host on ecstasy. He was syrupy sweet and enthusiastic. The transformation was so stark that he seemed like a complete and utter phony.  And this no comment on his faith, I think the grandmother was the “believer” in the family,  but I will never forget how quickly he shifted from “normal” to “the host”.  “Hey guys!”

Likewise in church or small groups, you can get a lot of “Amens” and “I’m blessed” and on occasion you will see smile “run away from someone’s face” and quickly return the moment they realize they are in a Christian setting and they let their “happy face” mask slip for a minute.    Or you can have those exchanges were everything is “fine” or “great” and you could spend years in church with people and never really know what is going on in their lives. We can just know one another as that “nice guy” or “friendly lady” at church that we say hello to.   

That’s why I love facilitating the Freedom in Christ course because I encourage people to be truthful, open, vulnerable, and transparent with one another and when that happens the participants in the group realize that they can take their masks off.  

Last night, some participants shared that they are truly struggling, that they are searching for meaning and purpose, that they get their sense of value from the things they do, or they have a problem with believing what the word of God says about who they are in Christ.   Last night, things got real. 

And when things “got real” something wonderful happened, the men in the group started supporting one another by admitting they had similar problems or they offered advice about what the Lord showed them to resolve them.  Guided by the Holy Spirit, the group took on a life of its own. The group became a community.  

When that happened, I asked the participants to recognize it for what it was.

“This is discipleship. Christian men trying to apply the teachings of Jesus to their lives and supporting one another in their walk of faith. This is Christianity.   

This is only the second meeting and I pointed out that the course is progressive. Each lesson builds upon the previous one and I can see that the Holy Spirit is already working to guide these men into a deeper relationship with God, to connect the mind and the heart, and to help them to experience or deepen their freedom in Christ.      

I was clear that while I facilitate the group I am not “the discipler”, The Holy Spirit is and I encouraged the men to seek His wisdom, to listen for His voice, and to follow His lead. 

God is alive and well - over, above, and on the earth.  He lives inside everyone who has made Christ their Lord and Savior in the person of the Holy Spirit and He invites each one of us, as His disciples to “come and see” all that He has for us.  

So keep walking and talking with God. Because He is real, you can take the “happy face” mask off and be real with Him and if you trust Him with your life He really will show the way to go. 

So answer His call, follow His lead, and discover the person He created you to be.

 

 

Well I spent some time before my Bible study this morning to send an email to encourage a brother in Christ, so my time is limited and we will skip the verse of the day for today but hope to share one  from  “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men” again tomorrow.

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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.

PART ONE - Chapter One: Costly Grace, continued

Like ravens we have gathered around the carcass of cheap grace. From it we have imbibed the poison which has killed the following of Jesus among us. The doctrine of pure grace experienced an unprecedented deification. The pure doctrine of grace became its own God, grace itself. Luther’s teachings are quoted everywhere, but twisted from their truth into self-delusion. They say if only our church is in possession of a doctrine of justification, then it is surely a justified church! They say Luther’s true legacy should be recognizable in making grace as cheap as possible. Being Lutheran should mean that discipleship is left to the legalists, the Reformed, or the enthusiasts, all for the sake of grace. They say that the world is justified and Christians in discipleship are made out to be heretics. A people became Christian, became Lutheran, but at the cost of discipleship, at an all-too-cheap price. Cheap grace had won.

But do we also know that this cheap grace has been utterly unmerciful against us? Is the price that we are paying today with the collapse of the organized churches anything else but an inevitable consequence of grace acquired too cheaply? We gave away preaching and sacraments cheaply; we performed baptisms and confirmations; we absolved an entire people, unquestioned and unconditionally; out of human love we handed over what was holy to the scornful and unbelievers. We poured out rivers of grace without end, but the call to rigorously follow Christ was seldom heard. What happened to the insights of the ancient church, which in the baptismal teaching watched so carefully over the boundary between the church and the world, over costly grace? What happened to Luther’s warnings against a proclamation of the gospel which made people secure in their godless lives? When was the world ever Christianized more dreadfully and wickedly than here? What do the three thousand Saxons whose bodies Charlemagne killed compare with the millions of souls being killed today? The biblical wisdom that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation has become true in us.[38] Cheap grace was very unmerciful to our Protestant church.

Cheap grace surely has also been unmerciful with most of us personally. It did not open the way to Christ for us, but rather closed it. It did not call us into discipleship, but hardened us in disobedience. Moreover, was it not unmerciful and cruel when we were accosted by the message of cheap grace just where we had once heard the call to follow Jesus as Christ’s call of grace, where we perhaps had once dared to take the first steps of discipleship in the discipline of obedience to the commandments? Could we hear this message in any other way than that it tried to block our way with the call to a highly worldly sobriety which suffocated our joy in discipleship by pointing out that it was all merely the path we chose ourselves, that it was an exertion of strength, effort, and discipline which was unnecessary, even very dangerous? For, after all, everything was already prepared and fulfilled by grace! The glowing wick was mercilessly extinguished. It was unmerciful to speak to such people since they, confused by such a cheap offer, were forced to leave the path to which Christ called them clutching instead at cheap grace. Cheap grace would permanently prevent them, from recognizing costly grace. It could not happen any other way but that possessing cheap grace would mislead weaklings to suddenly feel strong, yet in reality, they had lost their power for obedience and discipleship. The word of cheap grace has ruined more Christians than any commandment about works.

In everything that follows, we want to speak up on behalf of those who are tempted to despair, for whom the word of grace has become frightfully empty. For integrity’s sake someone has to speak up for those among us who confess that cheap grace has made them give up following Christ, and that ceasing to follow Christ has made them lose the knowledge of costly grace. Because we cannot deny that we no longer stand in true discipleship to Christ, while being members of a true-believing church with a pure doctrine of grace, but no longer members of a church which follows Christ, we therefore simply have to try to understand grace and discipleship again in correct relationship to each other. We can no longer avoid this. Our church’s predicament is proving more and more clearly to be a question of how we are to live as Christians today.

Blessed are they who already stand at the end of the path on which we wish to embark and perceive with amazement what really seems inconceivable: that grace is costly, precisely because it is pure grace, because it is God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Blessed are they who by simply following Jesus Christ are overcome by this grace, so that with humble spirit they may praise the grace of Christ which alone is effective. Blessed are they who, in the knowledge of such grace, can live in the world without losing themselves in it. In following Christ their heavenly home has become so certain that they are truly free for life in this world. Blessed are they for whom following Jesus Christ means nothing other than living from grace and for whom grace means following Christ. Blessed are they who in this sense have become Christians, for whom the word of grace has been merciful.[1]

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

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

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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), 53–57.

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