Ask Me How I Know - Two Lives - One Hopeful, The Other
Gone - Purity 912
Purity 912 12/11/2022 Purity 912 Podcast
Purity 912 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of State Route 9J, trees, and
utilities poles covered with snow comes to us today from yours truly as I slowly
drove through the outskirts of Castleton on the Hudson, NY on my way back to my
home “Down by The River” yesterday afternoon.
Just as the town of Castleton decided to decorate the utility poles with
holiday banners, with the one pictured proclaiming: “Love, Joy, Peace, Season
Greetings”, the Lord may have decided to set the stage for a white Christmas as
this week’s weather forecast calls for
high temperatures in the 30’s and possibly more snow next week.
I got quite the surprise on the way home yesterday
as I may have been going a bit too fast and a little off center as a I was
driving down State Route 40 in Schaghticoke when an oncoming jeep surprised and
caused me to manuever my steering wheel too quickly causing me to slide. I had
a full ten seconds of panic as my Honda HRV first slid towards the oncoming
jeep and then as I overcorrected to the right seemed to be on a collision
course for a guard rail on my right. But as I simultaneously cursed, slammed
the brakes, turned the steering wheel to the left, said a prayer, and was
bracing for impact, thankfully I regained control and got back in my lane and
was headed straight again! As I decreased
my speed significantly and relaxed, a few minutes later it was as if nothing
had happened but as I made my way back to Riverhouse, I saw several other
drivers who had probably made similar mistakes in judgement but weren’t as
blessed as I saw signs of 3 or 4 other vehicles who had gone “off roading”
because of the slick conditions.
Well, It’s Monday again and so now its time to deal
with a slow commute and the uncertainty that comes with the territory of having
to drive and park in snow covered conditions.
So let’s becareful out there. I had my scare yesterday, so I will be
keep my distance – 6 second rule is in full effect until I see dry black roads
again.
Beyond, yesterday’s scare on the road, this past
week I happened to see two different outcomes with a couple of guys I knew from
my “Celebrate Freedom” Recovery Ministry days.
I already testified of having the pleasure of encouraging one of my former
friends to start following the Lord again after they reached out for counsel. While the jury is still out in regards to how
things will play out in his life, the initial signs are encouraging as he has
texted me repeatedly about reading the word and about feeling the peace and joy
that comes from reestablishing one’s relationship with the Lord.
And then yesterday, as I announced during the latest
episode of Bible Study with the Cincotti’s, I got word that another participant
of our recovery ministry died of an overdose this past week sometime.
So we had two guys who were in recovery and walking with
Lord in victory for a while. Both of them strayed from the path. Both made a mess and got in legal trouble.
One reached out looking for help this week, and other one died this week.
While I was weary of my friend’s request for help
and am tempering my expectations regarding his success, after hearing the death
of our other friend I know that, regardless of what someone’s condition or likelihood
of success may be, that being a positive voice of encouragement can possibly save
somebody’s life. This latest tragedy just
confirms to me my purpose to encourage people to get right with God and to
repent: to tell people about the truth of who they are in Christ and the
necessity of living by faith, People need to know that a life of freedom and
victory is possible through their relationship with God but that it requires
that you remain in His presence and live according to what His word says is
right.
These men’s broken lives serve as a cautionary tale
that tells us that “doing things our way” is path that is fraught with danger
and can literally kill us.
These two men are very different from one another however
they both seemed to suffer a similar weakness.
Other than the poor choices to return to their addictive substances,
they both had a desperate need to be accepted, but also paradoxically shunned the
communities that could provide it when they couldn’t do it on their own terms
or felt they were being treated by a lack of respect. Their pride and their need to be loved and
revered caused them both to leave the church for bad company that led them both
into trouble and led the latter to his death.
The man who died, had talked about the “love of the
streets” and how although he had the love of his wife and children, the love of
the streets made him feel accepted in a way that he didn’t get at home. His behaviors undoubtedly put him in the dog
house and because of them he had to be on his best behavior and make amends continually,
inadvertently I imagine he ended up not feeling appreciated or loved. I imagine he felt condemned, that he was bad,
that he couldn’t do anything right, and I imagine he ended up messing up again and
again because everything in his pasttold him that “he couldn’t be good” and although he
might have known the Bible verses that told him that he was a new creation,
that he was free from sin, and that there was no condemnation for those in
Christ, his behaviors and ultimate demise indicate that he had forgotten them
or that he didn’t believe them in his heart. Those truths about who we are in
Christ didn’t change his experience. He
rejected the community of the saints and went his own way and now he is
dead.
I remember him as a friendly and funny guy and I
will always remember that he would often emphasize the knowledge he had by
saying: “Ask me how I know.” With the implication being that “he knew” because “he
lived it”, what he had to say was backed
up by his real life experience, his real life suffering.” I have borrowed that phrase often because a
lot of my “wisdom” has come from the school of hard knocks too.
Although provided for by my parents, I made lots of
poor choices, regarding the company I kept and the individual choices that I
made all by myself. So, when I tell you that walking in the Spirit, that being
a disciple of Jesus Christ, is the best way to live your life, I speak from
experience. Ask me how I know.
So as we go into another week of work, with snow on
the ground no less, let me encourage you to keep walking and talking with God
and be bold to tell other people of the wonders of His love in this Christmas
season.
My one friend will prayerfully continue in following
the Lord and very well could have one of the best Christmases ever because of
his restored relationship with the Lord.
My other friend, who died, doesn’t get another
Christmas. Although he was known to share Bible verses with others at recovery
meetings, even after he stopped going to our recovery ministry, the last few
months of his life where literally lawless, as he was arrested for armed
robbery with a young female accomplice that wasn’t his wife back in September.
And now he died in the throws of His addiction. He doesn’t get another chance to turn it
around. And it will only be by the
grace of God, and a genuine faith in Jesus Christ, that he will be allowed to live
eternally in God’s kingdom.
I know God’s grace is amazing, and that Jesus is a
friend of sinners, but in truth, I shudder by the cold chill cause dby other by
verses that indicate that our sins, our bad fruit, show we follow and that it
is equally plausible that my friend could be considered a false convert and be
told that Christ never knew him.
I am not making that call. God knows my deceased
friend’s heart and I trust that no matter what God will do what’s right. But the unstable ways of my friend that caused
his death and causes us to question his salvation, show us that in order to
have the peace and joy of the Lord in our lives, we need to be “real Christians”
by repenting of our sins and making the daily decision to do what is right according
to God’s word and to represent his kingdom on earth in spirit and in truth with
the ways live our lives.
So if you are unsure where you will sit when your
life expires, give up you pride, seek the love of the Lord, and follow His
wisdom and ways for your life.
I’m no genius or super saint but I know the
difference the Lord makes in your life if you keep walking with him. Ask me how
I know.
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Today’s Bible verses comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verses are:
Romans 6:6-7 (NLT2)
6 We know that our old sinful
selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our
lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.
7 For when we died with
Christ we were set free from the power of sin.
Today’s verses tell the truth of our death with Christ and our new
life free of the power of sin when we put our faith in Jesus.
We are no longer slaves to sin if we die with Christ. We are no
longer under the power of sin but we have to choose to be slaves of Christ and
to follow the example of our kind Master.
Bob Dylan famously wrote in his song – “Gotta Serve Somebody” that:
(https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/gotta-serve-somebody/)
“You might be a rock ’n’ roll addict prancing on the stage
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage
You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”
Not really a Dylan fan, but he reflects the
truth of today’s verses. If we are crucified with Christ, we are no longer
slaves to sin, which indicates if we aren’t in Christ, we are slaves to sin.
Without Christ, we serve the devil’s agenda with our selfish ways. By choosing to
do other than God’s will, we are in effect saying we reject Him as our Master.
There is God’s kingdom only and those who rebel
against His rule and reject Jesus as Lord and Savior will be judged by their works,
found lacking, and be consigned to eternity in the lake of fire with Satan and
his angels.
Life or Death.
Forgiveness or Punishment.
We serve the Lord or we serve the devil.
But when we choose life by making Jesus our
Lord and Savior, our old self must die. We must die to the old ways of doing
things and experience our new life by believing and receiving the gifts that
have been given to us by God. One of
those gifts is the power over sin. If we
say no to sin one time, we demonstrate our power over it and our victory is
confirmed by our daily decision to continually choose God’s ways of living rather
than going back to our old selfish ways.
In Christ, we have the power over sin. But we
have to believe it, receive it by living it.
And as our friend’s death shows us, we must
never waver because the one decision to go another way then God’s way could
lead us to our deaths.
The enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy and
he will tempt us with everything he can to change our story from one of
sustained victory and freedom into one of sadness and regret.
So live by the power of your new life in Christ.
Agree with the word of God and experience the fruit of the Spirit and a life of
increasing freedom and righteousness by choosing to walk with the Lord.
___________________________________________
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
Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship
Chapter Ten
The
Body of Christ, concludes
In concluding this
chapter, we must now trace this testimony to the body of Christ throughout
scripture as a whole. In so doing, we find that the body of Christ constitutes
the fulfillment of the great Old Testament prophecy about the temple of God.
The concept of the
body of Christ must be understood not in the context of the Hellenistic usage
of this image, but against the background of the Old Testament prophecy about
the temple. David intends to build a temple for God. He consults the prophet,
who conveys to him what God has to say about his plans: “Are you the one to
build me a house to live in?… the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make
you a house” (2 Sam. 7:5, 11). God’s temple can only be built by God’s own
self. In peculiar contrast to what he has been told before, David is also given
the promise that one of his offspring shall build the house for God, and that
his rule will last in eternity (vv. 12, 13). “I will be his father, and he
shall be my son” (v. 14). Solomon, the “son of peace”—meaning God’s peace with
the house of David—claimed this promise for himself. He built the temple, and
his action was approved by God. Nevertheless, this temple was not the
fulfillment of the prophecy. For it was built by human hands, and thus doomed
to destruction. The prophecy, still unfulfilled, remained valid. To this day,
the Jewish people still wait for the temple built by the son of David whose
kingdom shall endure forever. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed more than
once, a sign that it was not the temple of God’s promise. Where, then, is the
true temple to be found? Christ himself answers that question by applying the
prophecy of the temple to his body. “The Jews then said: ‘This temple has been
under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three
days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from
the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the
scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:20ff.). The temple which
the Jewish people expect is the body of Christ. The temple of the Old Testament
is merely a shadow of the body of Christ (Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1; 8:5). Jesus is
speaking of his human body. He knows that the temple of his earthly body will
be destroyed. But he will rise again, and the new, eternal temple will consist
of his risen and transfigured body. This is the house built by God’s own self
for God’s own Son; and yet it is also the house built by the Son for the
Father. In this house God truly dwells, as does the new humanity, the
church-community of Christ. The incarnate Christ himself is the temple which
fulfills the prophecy. This corresponds to what the Revelation of John says
about the new Jerusalem, namely, that it contains no temple, “for its temple is
the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb”
(Rev. 21:22).
The temple is the
place where God dwells and is graciously present among human beings. It is at
the same time the place where the church-community is accepted by God. Both of
these aspects have been fulfilled only in the incarnate Jesus Christ. Here is
the place where God is truly and bodily present. It is also here that humanity
is truly and bodily present, for Christ has accepted humanity in his own body.
The body of Christ is thus the place of acceptance, the place of reconciliation
and of peace between God and human beings. In the body of Christ God finds us,
and in that same body of Christ we find ourselves being accepted by God.
Christ’s body is the spiritual temple (οἶκος πνευματικός) built from living
stones (1 Peter 2:5ff.). Christ is the sole foundation and cornerstone of this
temple (Eph. 2:20; 1 Cor. 3:11); at the same time he himself is the temple (οίκοδομή,
Eph. 2:21) in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, filling and sanctifying the hearts
of the believers (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19). The temple of God is the holy
church-community in Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is the living temple of
God and of the new humanity.[1]
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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
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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), 223–224.
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