The Revolutionary, but Tried and True, Path - Purity 873
Purity 873 10/27/2022 Purity 873 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of an elevated wooden pathway winding
through brush and trees underneath a pleasant cloud filled blue sky comes to us
from yours truly as I captured this scene while on my honeymoon vacation with
my beloved wife back in February as we stayed in Tampa and ventured out to
various parks in the surrounding area to enjoy God’s creation and each other’s
company. I don’t remember the name of
this park and didn’t have enough time to figure it out but my iPhone recorded
that I was in Holiday Florida, so I guess you could say I was in Holiday while
on holiday. (Update - TammyLyn tells me that this was taken at "Key Vista Nature Park", no wonder I lover her.)
Anyway it is Thursday again, and I share today’s
photo of another pathway as a visual reminder to encourage all my friends to get
on or to stay on the path of Christian Discipleship because I know that taking Christ’s
“path less travelled” makes all the difference in our journey to find meaning,
peace, and purpose in this life,
Last night, I had the singular pleasure and honor of
leading a brother in Christ’s up and over the Steps to Freedom in Christ. I
have walked this way before and while no two journeys through the Steps to
Freedom in Christ are the same I know that if I encourage the participant to
follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance they will emerge from the process with a new
sense of freedom and victory as the Lord will help them to unburden themselves
of their spiritual and personal conflicts and to cancel any claims the enemy
has to torment them. The Steps are a
repentance process and when they are approached and completed in faith amazing
break throughs can happen as the person turns from the darkness of their pasts
and chooses to walk in the way that the Lord would lead them.
My jail house apologetic that I developed from my
short stint “inside”, as a part of my former church’s jail ministry team,
presented the captive audience with 3 quick evidences for God:
1. Creation – Who made all of this? God did. Genesis
1:1 right?
2. Our consciences – We know right and wrong because
God wrote His law on our heats. (Romans
2:15) Who put that sense of right or wrong, our “oughtness” in us? God
did.
And number three:
Transformed Lives – People who come to put their faith in Christ and
repent demonstrate the NEW LIFE that God has given them. They once were lost
and now they are found. They once were one way, and now they are different, in
a good way.
And there is perhaps no place better to see the
truth of my third point then in a walk through the Steps to Freedom in
Christ. In the process the participants,
testify of the changes God has made in their lives and how He has drawn them out
of the darkness of their sins and worldly living and how the Holy Spirit has
empowered them to walk away from the habits and sins of the past and to start
living according to God’s ways.
Although it was the first time through the Steps to
Freedom in Christ for last night’s participant, he was no stranger to following
the call of God on his life. My brother
in Christ truly has a heart for God and has increasingly surrendered parts of
his life to God and had some amazing victories over alcohol and sexual immorality,
(as in zero masturbation! No one makes that claim unless it is true and I
believe him because it is so contrary to our society’s sexual permissiveness
that to admit to sexual purity is almost as taboo as it once was to admit to
the sexual sins that are now presented as normal and acceptable and shame free. Last night’s freedom appointment was just another
step in this man’s journey into sanctification and a deeper walk with the Lord.
What he and others on the path of Christian Discipleship
have done is almost revolutionary in this worldly day and age: to not just rest
on the grace and forgiveness of God and remaining stuck in the all too familiar
sin-confess, sin-confess cycle but to be intentional and victorious by overcoming
the sins that can so easily beset us through crucifying the flesh through faith
and the power of the Holy Spirit.
That’s what disciples are: overcomers. We walk in
the Spirit and we accept God’s truth as our standard for living and as our
instructions for life. And this is important, a disciple of Jesus does this not
out of some sense of meeting a legal or religious requirement, but seeks to take
on new challenges and to overcome because of the love they have for God. Disciples
repent and start living according to God’s word because of the love, joy, and
peace they have received from the Lord. And it is through that love that we
endeavor to do whatever we can to please the Lord, up to and including changing
the man in the mirror.
I often quote the benefits of walking in the Spirit
with the list of the fruit of the Spirit from
Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV) which says
22 But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control.
Against such there is no law.
But unfortunately it seems that while the fruit of the Spirit is
talked about. No one really gives applicable instructions on how to experience
them. Ironically those instructions are
found in the following verses.
Galatians
5:24-25 (NKJV)
24 And those who are
Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25 If we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit.
Crucify
the flesh. Live and walk in the Spirit and THEN you experience the fruit of the
Sprit. So keep seeking the Lord and His
will for your lives. Confess and Repent
of your sins and seek to live your life according to who you are in Christ and
you will not satisfy the lusts of flesh.
That
may seem like a hard road, but I assure you that other disciples of Christ have
walked this way before and if we just keep walking and talking with God with a
heart of repentance we will find our way to freedom, victory, and the life we
always wanted to live.
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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:
John
14:27 (NLT2)
27 “I
am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a
gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.
Today’s Bible verse are the words of Jesus and they remind us of
His precious gift to us: the peace and mind of heart that comes from knowing
that we are His and He is with us always.
A peace of mind and heart that is a gift from God and that can give us
the power over all fear.
Perfect love casts out all fear and the love of Jesus has
perfectly saved us!
So focus on Jesus and who you are in Christ. Live according to the
Teacher’s Lessons. Christ’s words and life show us the Way and when we follow
Him we discover the peace of mind and heart that God wants us to experience.
God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love, peace and a
sound mind. So let not your hearts be troubled but trust in the One who has
overcome the world and given us the power over sin and death. Follow Jesus and live in His peace and love.
___________________________________________
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.
The
Sermon on the Mount
Matthew
5
On
the “Extraordinary” of Christian Life
Retribution
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an
evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;
and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and
if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone
who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you”
(Matt. 5:38–42).
At
this point Jesus is placing the rule “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”
parallel to the other Old Testament commandments he has already quoted, for
example, to the prohibition against killing in the Decalogue. He thus
recognizes the rule as a valid commandment of God, just as much as that
prohibition. As in that case, it is not to be abolished, but fulfilled
completely. Jesus does not elevate the Ten Commandments above other Old
Testament commandments as we once did. For him the commandment of the Old
Testament is one, and he directs his disciples to obey it.
Jesus’
followers renounce their own rights for his sake. He blesses them as the meek. If,
after they had given up everything else for the sake of his community, they
desired to hold fast to this one possession, they would have abandoned
discipleship. Therefore, this is nothing more than an expansion of the
Beatitude.
The
Old Testament law puts the claim to rights, or justice, under the protection of
divine retribution. Nothing evil may happen without its being retaliated. Its
concern is to construct a just community, to overcome and identify evil, and to
eradicate evil from the community of God’s people. That is the purpose of
justice, which is enforced by retribution.
Jesus
takes up this will of God and affirms the power of retribution to convict and
overcome evil, and to ensure the community of disciples as the true Israel.
Just retribution should do away with injustice and give proof to the disciples’
following Jesus.
According
to Jesus’ words, such just retribution takes place only in not resisting it.
With
this statement, Jesus releases his community from the political and legal
order, from the national form of the people of Israel, and makes it into what
it truly is, namely, the community of the faithful that is not bound by
political or national ties. God’s chosen people of Israel did exist in a
political form in which, according to the divine will, retribution consisted of
returning a blow for a blow. For the community of disciples, which makes no
national or legal claims for itself, retribution means patiently bearing the
blow, so that evil is not added to evil. That is the only way community can be
established and preserved.
Here
it has become clear that the followers of Jesus who experience injustice do not
cling to their own rights as if they were possessions to be defended at all
costs. Instead, they are completely free of such possessions and are bound to
Jesus Christ alone. Indeed, in giving witness to their sole allegiance to
Jesus, they create the only solid foundation for community and place sinners
into the hands of Jesus.
The
overcoming of others now occurs by allowing their evil to run its course. The
evil does not find what it is seeking, namely, resistance and, therewith, new
evil which will inflame it even more. Evil will become powerless when it finds
no opposing object, no resistance, but, instead, is willingly borne and suffered.
Evil meets an opponent for which it is not a match. Of course, this happens
only when the last remnant of resistance is removed, when the urge to retaliate
evil with evil is completely renounced. Then evil cannot achieve its goal of
creating more evil; it remains alone.
Suffering
passes when it is borne. The evil comes to an end when we permit it to pass
over us, without defense. Humiliation and debasement are revealed as sin when
the disciple does not commit them, but bears them, without defense. Assault is
condemned by not being met with violence. The unjust claim on my coat is
answered by my giving up my cloak as well.[119] The exploitation of
my service becomes obvious as exploitation when I set no limit on it. Our
willingness to yield up everything when we are bidden to do so is our
willingness to have enough in Jesus Christ alone, to desire to follow him
alone. Our voluntary renunciation of counterviolence confirms and proclaims our
unconditional allegiance to Jesus as his followers, our freedom, our detachment
from our own egos. And it is only in the exclusivity of this adherence that
evil can be overcome.
Our
concern here is not only with evil, it is with the person who is evil. Jesus
calls the evil person evil. My behavior should not give excuses and
justification for those who indulge in violence or who oppress me. Nor do I
intend to express my understanding for the rights of an evil person by my
patient suffering. Jesus has nothing to do with such sentimental
considerations. The humiliating blow, the violent deed, and the act of
exploitation all remain evil. Disciples are to know this and to give witness to
it just as Jesus did, because otherwise the evil person will not be engaged and
overcome. A disciple should not resist when challenged by evil that cannot be
justified at all. Instead, by suffering, the disciple will bring evil to its
end and thus will overcome the evil person. Suffering willingly endured is
stronger than evil; it is the death of evil.
There
is no thinkable deed in which evil is so large and strong that it would require
a different response from a Christian. The more terrible the evil, the more
willing the disciple should be to suffer. Evil persons must be delivered to the
hands of Jesus. Not I but Jesus must deal with them.[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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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), 131–134.
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