Leaving a Legacy or a Scandal? - The Prisoner’s
Dilemma and the Truth - Purity 913
Purity 913 12/13/2022 Purity 913 Podcast
Purity 913 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a street lamp shining like the sun
in a blue sky as the real thing fades over the horizon illuminating the road
side trees on State Route 9J, or River Road in Schodack Landing, comes to us
today from yours truly, as I was moved to turn my phone sideways from its vertical
rearview mirror mounted orientation to capture some of the glory before me
during yesterday’s commute back to River House. After the previous day’s snow
storm the Lord graced us with a clear day and a reminder of that His creation
is awesome and something we can miss and just drive through if we are too
consumed with the things of this world.
Well, It’s Tuesday and I learned this morning that
Clyde Wilburn’s Memorial Service and Funeral will tomorrow in Catskill but I won’t
be in attendance. I am not the best “griever”
and a quote from F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s “Great Gatsby’s isums up my feelings
about funerals, a mob boss in the story says : “Let us learn to show our
friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.” Of course, the context of the Gatsby story
actually reveals that this quote isn’t so profound as it may have been self-serving,
as Gatsby’s Meyer Wolfsheim may have desired to distance himself from his
deceased friend and his illegal dealings.
So, do I want to distance myself from my deceased friend because of his falling away from the church we attended, his illegal choices, and his death by overdose? Not really, I try to be as transparent about my addictive past and don’t try to distance myself from anyone I met along the way during the 5 years that I went through, taught. and eventually led the Celebrate Freedom recovery ministry at my former church. Because of our interactions there and in church, I will always consider Clyde Wilburn as a brother and a friend but the truth is that other than seeing him earlier this year at a “Bible Study with the Cincotti’s”
https://youtu.be/7hvGHU1lmtg) I haven’t seen him in quite a while.
My life has taken me in a direction that led me away
from Hudson and the church that we used to attend together and before hearing
about Clyde’s death on Sunday I didn’t what was going on in Clyde’s life. I assumed he was well. I was wrong and discovered that he was
charged with armed robbery in September.
In 8 months, Clyde went from a Bible Study to the police blotter and,
now 3 months later, his obituary will be all the news we may see regarding our
old friend.
As I was thinking about Clyde yesterday, I was
reminded how important it is to keep walking with the Lord and how when I was
first saved I was so ignorant about the importance of having a “good testimony”. Because I had lived a very selfish and sinful
life for 38 years before being saved in 2010, I never thought that I would had
any hope to leave a “good testimony” other than that God is gracious to forgive
a sinner like me. I didn’t understand
that or testimony isn’t frozen in stone. It is progressive. While it is awesome to say a sinner’s prayer
and to attend church services, the glory that we give to the Lord comes from
our decision to continue to follow Him and to seek our identity and enact our purpose
in Christ.
My testimony regarding Clyde Wilburn would be
overwhelmingly positive as I loved him for his testimony as someone who had
walked in darkness and decided to get right with God. His insights on the word
of God, his sense of humility and humor, and his huge heart made it easy to love him,
But my testimony is obviously one sided and based on the context of Clyde’s
time in church.
However, recently I wrote about how due to
situations from my past, some people out there, even though I am walking out my
faith the best I can, consider me to be a “bad Christian” or hypocrite. And as I thought about the unfortunate circumstances
and poor choices Clyde had made in his life, I suspect that for every praise of
his name that will come tomorrow at his memorial service and funeral, there may
also be words of condemnation and possibly cursing whispered or flatly statde
about Clyde in the days, weeks, months, and years that will come as Clyde doesn’t
get a chance to change his story or to defend himself.
The woman charged as an accomplice in the armed
robbery that allegedly took place in September with Clyde, now has the perfect
opportunity to craft a defense as a hapless victim to an out of control man that
coerced her into participating in his crime.
How true that is we will never know but whether the legal proceedings
regarding those charges are resolved currently or not, this woman now has the
option to speak well of or ill of my friend because he gave into his dark side.
I wonder if she knows that Clyde was a Christian. Did he share his faith with her? Does she
know the Lord? Will she bless Clyde’s name with fond remembrances and a defense
of the things he is alleged to have done or will she, possibly rightfully,
curse him?
It’s is doubtful that I will ever know any of the answers
to these questions but I pray for peace and comfort for the Wilburn family and
I pray for this woman, who remain nameless, in my blog anyway, and all the people
that Clyde met in his time on this earth that they would discover the truth the
gospel of Jesus Christ, turn to Lord in repentance, and learn from Clyde’s
death just how important it is to continue walking with the Lord and to endure
in our faith.
The longer we live as active Spirit filled disciples
of Jesus Christ the longer and brighter our testimonies become. No matter how
dark our pasts may be, if we keep walking and talking with God and show our faith
in the way we live, every day, the brighter and more glorious our lives
become.
So let’s not forget to encourage one another as we
walk through the last month of this year, and through out our lives, to stay
the course, to resist the devil and his temptations and to stay within the
safety of the community and fellowship of the church. Church congregations and the individuals who
make them up may not be perfect but the One who established the church is and He
calls His to abide with Him there.
So let’s draw close together and keep following the
voice of the Good Shepherd all the days of our lives and show our friendship to
one another while we live so we can report on the good testimony and legacy of
faithfulness each of us will leave behind.
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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 1:29 (NLT2)
29 The next day John saw
Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world!
Today’s verse tells us that Christ was the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world.
Christ died for all sinners. But we must be redeemed by putting
our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
And let’s face it, we also have to follow Him,
I’m short on time but this “Lamb of God” thing indicates that
Christ was the perfect sinless sacrifice to pay for all the sins we have ever
done or will ever do and when we put our faith in Him we are forgiven and set
free. So thank God for Jesus and your forgiveness and walk free from the sins
of your past.
___________________________________________
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
Eleven
The
Visible Church-Community
The body of Christ takes up physical space here on earth. By
becoming human Christ claims a place among us human beings. He came unto his
own.[3] Yet when he was born he was given a stable, “because there
was no other place in the inn.” And when he died, they cast him from their
midst so that his body hung on the gibbet between heaven and earth. Nevertheless,
the incarnation does entail the claim to space granted on earth, and anything
that takes up space is visible. Thus the body of Jesus Christ can only be a
visible body, or else it is not a body at all. Our human eyes see Jesus the
human being; faith knows him as the Son of God. Our human eyes see the body of
Jesus; faith knows him as the body of God incarnate. Our human eyes see Jesus
in the flesh; faith knows him as bearing our flesh. “To this human being you
shall point and say: ‘Here is God’ ” (Luther).[5]
A truth, a doctrine,
or a religion needs no space of its own. Such entities are bodyless. They do
not go beyond being heard, learned, and understood. But the incarnate Son of
God needs not only ears or even hearts; he needs actual, living human beings
who follow him. That is why he called his disciples into following him bodily.
His community with them was something everyone could see. It was founded and
held together by none other than Jesus Christ, the incarnate one himself. It
was the Word made flesh who had called them, who had created the visible,
bodily community. Those who had been called could no longer remain hidden; they
were the light which has to shine, the city on a hill which is bound to be
seen.[8] Over their community stood visibly the cross and suffering
of Jesus Christ. For the sake of community with him the disciples had to give
up everything, they had to suffer and endure persecution; and yet, in the very
midst of being persecuted together with him, they received back in visible form
the very things they had lost—brothers and sisters, fields and houses. The
community of those who followed him was manifest to the eyes of the world. Here
were bodies that acted, worked, and suffered in community with Jesus.
The body of the exalted
Lord is likewise a visible body, taking the form of the church-community. How
does this body become visible? First, in the preaching of the word. “They continued in the apostles’ teaching”
(Acts 2:42). Every word in this sentence is significant. Preaching here is
called teaching (διδαχή) in order to set it apart from all forms of religious
speech. The term means communication of facts that have actually taken place.
The content of what has to be said is already objectively determined. It simply
needs to be conveyed through the ‘teaching’. A communication of news is by
definition confined to facts which are not yet known. Once these facts are
known, it makes no sense to communicate them again. ‘Teaching’ thus aims by
definition at making itself superfluous. However, in strange contrast we read
here that the earliest church-community “continued” listening to this teaching.
This means that this teaching did not make itself superfluous, but, on the
contrary, required precisely this continuing attention. There must, therefore,
be some rational necessity for this particular ‘teaching’ to demand continued
attention. This necessity lies in the fact that the teaching in question is
“the teaching of the apostles.” What does “teaching of the apostles” mean?
Apostles are those chosen by God to witness to the facts of the revelation in
Jesus Christ. They have lived in bodily community with Jesus. They have seen
the one who became incarnate, was crucified, and is risen. They physically
touched his body with their hands (1 John 1:1). They are the witnesses whom God
the Holy Spirit uses as instruments to proclaim the Word. The apostles’
preaching is the witness to the physical event of God’s revelation in Jesus
Christ. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church whose
cornerstone is Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:20). Any subsequent preaching must itself
be ‘apostolic’ in the sense of being based on the same foundation. Thus it is
the word of the apostles which makes us one with the earliest church-community.
But in what way does this apostolic teaching require ongoing and continual
hearing? The word of the apostles is truly God’s Word in human words (1 Thess.
2:13). It is thus a Word which seeks to accept human beings and which has the
power to do so. The Word of God seeks out community in order to accept it. It
exists mainly within the community. It moves on its own into the community. It
has an inherent impulse toward community. It is wrong to assume that on the one
hand there is a word, or a truth, and on the other hand there is a community
existing as two separate entities, and that it would then be the task of the
preacher to take this word, to manipulate and enliven it, in order to bring it
within and apply it to the community. Rather, the Word moves along this path of
its own accord. The preacher should and can do nothing more than be a servant
of this movement inherent in the Word itself, and refrain from placing
obstacles in its path. The Word goes forth to accept human beings. This is
something the apostles knew. It is the very essence of their preaching. They
had seen the Word of God with their own eyes, how it had come into the world
and assumed human flesh, and with it the whole human race. Now they were
compelled to bear witness to nothing else but the fact that God’s Word had
become flesh, and had come to accept sinners, to forgive their sins and
sanctify them. It is this same Word which now enters the church-community. The
Word made flesh, the Word which already bears the whole human race, the Word
which can no longer exist in isolation from the humanity it has assumed—this
same Word now comes to the church-community. And in this Word comes the Holy
Spirit, revealing to the single individual and to the church-community the
gifts they have already been given in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit bestows
faith on the hearers, enabling them to believe that, in the word of preaching,
Jesus Christ himself has come to be present in our midst in the power of his
body. The Holy Spirit enables me to trust that Jesus Christ has come to tell me
that he has accepted me and will do so again today.[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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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
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My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
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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), 225–228.
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