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Friday, December 9, 2022

Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t? To HELL with that! - Purity 910


 Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t?  To HELL with that!  -  Purity 910    

Purity 910 12/09/2022  Purity 910 Podcast

Purity 910 on YouTube: Coming Soon!

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a robust tropical plant and a quaint wooden walking bridge leading to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean comes to us from a friend, a “cousin-in-law?, who shared this scene from South Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida yesterday on social media commenting that they “needed this more than words can express!”

Well, It’s Friday, and in light of recent developments in my life concerning matters of the past that live on in my present, I think I need the weekend to be here more than words can express! Thank You Lord!   

I don’t know if  my “matchmaking” friend and “cousin-in-law” used a filter on this photo but while I can’t discuss the specific matters that are effecting my life because of legal agreements, I will be unfiltered in giving my advice of what to do with untenable situations, in a general sense.   

First of all some common sense with some support from the word of God to validate it’s wisdom.  

You shouldn’t trust people who are not walking with the Lord and especially if they have proved to be untrustworthy in the past, and even more so if they abuse alcohol or drugs.  

In terms or our faith, those without a covenant relationship with God and who are “walking in the flesh” could rightly be described as “wicked”,  and not “wicked good”, no matter how nice, friendly, or dynamic they are.

Proverbs 25:26 (NLT2)
26  If the godly give in to the wicked, it’s like polluting a fountain or muddying a spring.

 

As much as we try to be peacemakers and witnesses for Jesus Christ, and play “nice”,  when we compromise our better judgement by “giving in to the wicked”, we can’t be surprised when things turn into a big mess.   

Christ said:

Matthew 7:17-20 (NLT2)
17  A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
18  A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.
19  So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire.
20  Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

And if someone is not walking with the Lord, it is foolish for us to think that they will do “what’s right.”  Eventually, we could pay for our decisions to “give into the wicked”.  

To paraphrase a line from National Lampoon’s Animal House: “You “messed” up, you trusted us.”    

Yup, you messed up you trusted the untrustworthy! Surprise, things went bad.  

And from my experience, I have learned that before the “disaster” comes there are signs of the impending storm.   Just like an earthquake will be precipitated by tremors, generally we get signs that we have chosen a poor path in trusting the “wicked”. 

Of course, if we respond to these early signs and change our course we can avoid disaster, but when you call someone out at the first sign of trouble, you usually get accused of “overreacting” or “being unloving” or, my favorites: being a “bad Christian” or a “hypocrite”.  

So if you have gotten those accusations thrown in your direction, rather than shying away from withdrawing your trust and making others accountable, I suggest you agree with the accusations that are intended to shame you into inaction and show the accuser that while you have given trust, mercy, and grace, you are free to withdraw them and do what you have to do to correct the situation.

Easier said then done, of course, because dealing with people is always unpredictable and the truth of the matter is that we simply can not control what others do and often there can be negative consequences for taking corrective action.  Doing the right thing may cost you money, time, your reputation, or your relationships and when we consider the costs we may shy away from doing the right thing and just “hope and pray” things will get better on their own.  

Or out of fear, we will agree that we have to do what is right, but we can’t do that “NOW”. Our fear will tell us that the circumstances aren’t right and that we simply “can’t” do it.

“It’s too painful. It costs too much. I don’t like confrontations!  I don’t want to be a “jerk.”

While I can understand all of these sentiments, when we look at them we can see that the voice of fear is speaking through us, not the voice of faith that has confidence in God.

Not long ago, I counseled a brother in Christ that was in a “real pickle”, a situation where he couldn’t see a good outcome no matter what he did.  He saw things dualistically and didn’t think either of the paths he considered would fix his problem. 

He lamented: “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t”  

While I could totally understand where he was coming from, because we can really feel trapped when we don’t see an easy way out, but that “sitting on the fence in fear” does nothing to alleviate our trouble and just prolongs it. 

His situation reminds me of the common experience of removing a bandage from a wound that has healed but is still tender.  There are those who will peal it away slowly, feeling every bit of pain in every little bit of it being removed and there are those who will just rip it off, to feel a sharp sudden pain and then have it be over with in an instant.  

But there is the third option of course, which is to do nothing.  While in this scenario, it is completely plausible that our wound will eventually heal and the bandage will let go and fall away on its own with absolutely no pain, it just requires patience. 

However, I can also imagine this inaction could lead to more pain as the bandage becomes dirty and the wound is prevented from drying out, doing nothing could possibly lead to a bigger problem as the wound doesn’t heal properly and becomes infected.

Of these 4 hypothetical situations, only one of them is pain free but unfortunately we don’t live in hypothetical situations, we live in a fallen world of sin. There are many things than can complicate matters, including the spiritual forces of darkness, and generally prolonged inaction on our part results in the situations becoming worse. 

Most cancers caught early can be successfully treated, the ones that show signs but are ignored and allowed to fester can kill us.   

So although, in the moment, I gave my friend who proclaimed “I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t” sound, measured, proactive advice ,when I most recently related that story to the Freedom in Christ Men’s group that led, I said:

“So you think that you are “Damned if you do and you are damned if you don’t”? TO HELL with THAT!  That is a lie of the enemy, who would love to keep you frozen in fear!

That’s a lie. Yeah you may suffer, but we are not to sit idly by while things fall apart around us. We may not be able to fix anything, but God would direct us to do everything we could to makes things better, even if it costs us everything, and He would expect us to trust in Him to see us through."

So because of the things I have walked through, I have discovered that it is best to meet our responsibilities head on and to “get ‘er done” as soon as possible to solve problems.   

However, I am not perfect.  I genuinely want to be loved by everyone. I am a “people pleaser” and because I desperately want to “love my neighbor” and “be kind” I have failed in some instances to “push the issue” to “make things right” and I have left them on the “back burner”.  

In vaguely, detailing this current situation in a recent blog post, my wife, TammyLyn was quite surprised to hear me say that I would deal with it “eventually”. These words coming out of my mouth didn’t sit right with her spirit and she lovingly shared her concerns saying:   “This doesn’t sound like my hubby… “eventually”? That isn’t you. Let’s just get it done”.  

So yesterday, against my fears and fully knowing that action would cost me, I reached out to retain the service of professionals that could take action on my behalf to right an injustice, to finish some bad business, to compel the “wicked” to do what was right.    

So never believe the lie that “you are damned if you do, and you are damned if you don’t”.   God has put us here on earth to be holy and righteous: simply to do what is right, and to undo the works of the devil: to confound and resist the “wicked”, to compel the sinful to repent, and the irresponsible to be responsible.  

Of course that is a hard road, but it is the road that God has put us on as Christ commanded us to go into the world and make disciples: people who would learn and apply the wisdom of the Lord to their lives. So we are to be vocal in telling others what is right and to encourage them to do so.  

If someone is living outside of God’s will, they are suffering.  

If we refuse to do what God would have us do, to be righteous, to be bold and courageous, we will suffer.  

While we can’t control what others do, we can take action to stop the suffering and put an end to untenable situations.  As peacemakers, we want the “greater peace” of being right with God, and sometimes we have to go to war and resist the enemy on the pathway that will lead us there.  

God wants us to fully to surrender to Him and fully trust in Him. We are not to trust in men and we are not to surrender to God in half measures, to compromise His “perfect will” for a life of limited or “conditional” peace that would have us make treaties with the “wicked” that will eventually cause us to suffer or compromise “who we are” in Christ.  

So to HELL with the Devil and to Hell with doing nothing because we are afraid of the consequences of the actions that we don’t know the outcomes to, and to Hell with being less than the people that God calls us to be.  

Yeah, like Jonah I walked away from the Lord’s call to complete freedom from my past because I was afraid or simply “didn’t want to” but as I continued to walk in the Spirit, He wouldn’t let it His desire for my well being go and He sentam angel in the person of my wife, to encourage me to be “bold and courageous” and to do the hard things, to be the person He created me to be.  

So keep walking and talking with God, In Christ we are never “damned” and it is only in trusting Him and following Him that we can discover that He will be with us every step of the way “through the fire” of adversity and that He will see us through, no matter what the out comes are: Trust in God only.      

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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:

Romans 6:23 (NLT2)
23  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Today’s verse speaks of the reality that sin is death, and that God gives us the free gift of eternal life through Christ alone.  

Ever feel less than fresh?  If we are suffering from bad moods or attitudes, we have most likely stepped off the path of Christian Discipleship by either not remembering who we are in Christ or from doing things or thinking things that are contrary to who we are in Christ: and will it wasn’t etched in stone tablets from the finger of God: that’s sin!

To “sin” is to “miss the mark” – basically to go astray from the way the Lord would have us walk.  So this includes doing things that go against what God has said is right in His word as well as not doing the “good” that God would have us do.  But these things, our behaviors or our inaction are driven by what we believe about life and us individually.  

To agree that something is bad, but to still do it, reveals that a part of us actually believes it is good or desirable in some way, that causes us to do it.   When we say one thing and  do another, it shows we believed the second thing.

The wages of sin is death. Ultimately, we are lost if we don’t repent and have our sins covered by the blood of Jesus: that’s eternal death in torment in hell.  

But sin also causes “death” in our lives as we are filled with shame or guilt or are just cold hearted, spiritually dead, when we live independent of and in opposition to the Lord.  

So as today’s verse tells us we can experience the free gift of eternal life through Christ alone, and when we follow Him and turn from our sin we can experience a life filled with peace, love, joy, and the other fruit of the Spirit here on earth.  

So stop collecting those “death wages” to your mind, body, soul, and spirit by turning away from sin and agree with what God says about you and by avoiding what is wrong and doing what is good.  

 

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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.

The Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship

Chapter Ten

The Body of Christ, continues

 

The body of Jesus Christ is identical with the new humanity which he has assumed. The body of Christ is his church-community [Gemeinde]. Jesus Christ at the same time is himself and his church-community (1 Cor. 12:12). Since Pentecost Jesus Christ lives here on earth in the form of his body, the church-community. Here is his body crucified and risen, here is the humanity he assumed. To be baptized therefore means to become a member of the church-community, a member of the body of Christ (Gal. 3:28; 1 Cor. 12:13). To be in Christ means to be in the church-community. But if we are in the church-community, then we are also truly and bodily in Jesus Christ. This insight reveals the full richness of meaning contained in the concept of the body of Christ.

Since the ascension, Jesus Christ’s place on earth has been taken by his body, the church [Kirche]. The church is the present Christ himself. With this statement we are recovering an insight about the church which has been almost totally forgotten. While we are used to thinking of the church as an institution, we ought instead to think of it as a person with a body, although of course a person in a unique sense.

The church is one. All who are baptized are “one in Christ” (Gal. 3:28; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17). The church is “the human being per se.” It is the “new human being” (καινὸς ἄνθρωπος). As such, the church was created through Christ’s death on the cross. Here the hostility between Jews and Gentiles which had torn humanity apart is abolished, “in order that he might create in himself one new human being in place of the two, thus making peace” (Eph. 2:15). The “new human being” is one, not many. Outside of the church, which is this new human being, there is only the old, internally divided human being.

The “new human being,” which is the church, is “created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness and truth” (Eph. 4:24). The “new human being” is “being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). It is none other than Christ himself who is described here as the image of God. Adam was the first human being bearing the image of the creator. But he lost this image when he fell. Now a “second human being,” a “last Adam,” is being created in the image of God—Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:47). The “new human being” is thus at the same time Christ and the church. Christ is the new humanity in the new human being. Christ is the church.

The relation of the individual believer to the “new human being” is described in terms of “putting on” the new human being.16 The “new human being” is like a garment made to cover the individual believers. They are to put on the image of God, that is, Christ and the church. In baptism we are putting on Christ (Gal. 3:27), which means we are being incorporated into his body, or into the one human being in whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither free nor slave. Whoever is baptized is being incorporated into the church-community. No one can become a new human being except by being within the church, that is, through the body of Christ. Whoever seeks to become a new human being individually cannot succeed. To become a new human being means to come into the church, to become a member of Christ’s body. The new human being is not the single individual who has been justified and sanctified; rather, the new human being is the church-community, the body of Christ, or Christ himself.[1]

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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/@MT4Christ247

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

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