Do It Yourself Baptisms and Bringing it All Together -
Purity 953
Purity 953 01/28/2023 Purity 953 Podcast
Purity 953 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a red nosed kayak gliding along the
surface of what I suspect to be Lake George comes to us from a FB friend who
shared this scene from a paddling session on social media on August 20th
2020. I have a few FB friends that
paddle so the suspects are limited but as of this morning the photographer’s
identity remains a mystery. So if this is your “memory” and want to be
identified speak up and I will update the blog after the fact to give you the
credit for sharing this tranquil scene that fills me with joy and keeps me
looking ahead to the spring and summer.
Well, it’s the last Saturday in January, rejoice,
and I guess I have to admit it – I prefer the months of the year where winter
is a distant memory. Whether it’s the first green of spring, the thriving life
of summer, or even the fading colors of autumn, I prefer them all to the cold harsh
barren landscapes of winter. Now don’t get
me wrong, I appreciate the beauty that can be seen after freshly fallen snow or
the silent stillness that is unique to winter but during a morning meditation
exercise where I was directed to think of “My Eden” visions of a winter
landscape did not come to mind.
The meditation exercise which is part of the “30 Days
to Resilient” program on the One Minute App calls you to think of the places
you like to go on vacation, the places in nature that you appreciate,
indicating that the joy found from contemplating your favorite places resonates
with us all as the desire for paradise lost. Our joy we experience whe n we contemplate
the different places we enjoy on earth supposedly is deep in our souls because
we are longing to be restored to Eden.
During my meditation, I thought of various beaches
in upstate NY, hiking trails, the beaches I knew as a child on Cape Cod, Pike’s
Peak in Colorado, beaches and parks in Florida, and views from a trip to Big
Island of Kona in Hawaii. But when the meditation directed me to ask Jesus to
reveal – “the Eden He was making for me”
I was a little shocked to realize I was brought back to a memory from my
past of my backyard when I lived on Oak Hill Road in Claverack, just a couple
of miles outside of the village of Philmont, where my spiritual journey with
the Lord had begun.
My backyard on Oak Hill Road was a clear open space
that featured an above ground swimming pool with a big clear view of the sky
above with all the trees typical of upstate New York on the boarders of the
property. I spent many summers in that
pool looking up to the sky with my children through the years there and when
directed to be brought to “Eden” I was taken there.
It was at Oak Hill Road that the biggest tragedy of
my life happened. My son, Holden died there.
But because of that tragedy, my search for the meaning of life began
there too. In the wake of that loss in
2002, I was lost in a few years of depression and going through the motions of
living when I eventually started asking the “big questions” or at least started
looking to answer them. I was too
damaged from the trauma of the loss to turn back to Christianity and so started
examining life on a base level of scientific speculation accompanied with the
theories posited by Buddhism and so I really started looking at life with an
inquiring mind. Easernt mysticism just
keeps you looking at what is and invites you to see the realities of impermanence
and interconnectedness, to investigate the mysteries of creation – all the
while never pondering the Creator. I
spent years rejoicing over of the mysteries of how things come into being and
fall apart and how with focus attention you could find peace in the present
moment. Although I am sure I probably
thought my contemplations of the universe and ‘how things really are” were deep
the truth is when you only focus your attention of the universe and life on
earth without including God, its like you are examining the bark on a tree and
become very familiar with all the contours and grooves of the bark on the tree
but you are failing to notice that you are standing in a forest of trees and
there is a great big sky over head and the reaches of outer space and all the
expanses of the galaxies and universe beyond.
Without including God, and the person of Jesus Christ in your
contemplations, you can’t see the forest for the trees, your view of life is
incomplete and you are lost in the woods.
But hey man, I was digging the bark on the tree, I
was just loving it and probably would have stayed lost in the forest of the
contemplation of the universe, the passing of my breath, and my own “wisdom”
forever because due to my pain, I didn’t want to think about God. I decided that
there wasn’t a God, life was just a mystery and I was destined to die and
become “One with the Universe” and possibly be “born again” through some
magical reincarnation. I decided that
Christianity was just a myth created by men to control others. I decided it
wasn’t real. I never counted on a personal God who would call me on it!
But that is what happened, through a radio message
in 2010 the Lord revealed the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and having been shown the forest, the sky, and the
Creator God above it all who loved us enough to come to earth and to die for us
to save us, I put my faith in Jesus immediately. And the journey of my life has been a wild
one of progressive “goodness” ever since.
So why did Jesus bring me back to Oak Hill Road
during this morning’s meditation? Why would He bring me back to the place where
I spent ends hours rejoicing over the universe and mystery of life irrespective
of Him? Why would He bring me back to
the place of my largest loss?
I think He brought me back there because it was
while I was living Oak Hill Road that I surrendered my life to Him. I was saved in a parking lot on Aviation Road
Albany on a Friday in March but I eventually went home to Oak Hill Road with my
“born again” faith in Jesus.
Those were obviously confusing days back in 2010,
having been a full fledged practicing Buddhist of the Kaygu Mahamudra Tibetan
tradition for 5 years or so I had to figure out how to be a “born again” Christian!
My last Christian experience was in an Episcopal Church
but my congregation was ultra-liberal and I knew that rejoining my previous
church that had homosexual reverends was not the way to go if I wanted to
follow the Bible which I been reading in earnest. Sorry, while we are all forgiven of our sins
when we come to Christ – no matter what they are – we are also called to repent
of them. I didn’t go to the church that featured reverends that were into
adultery, murder, or theft either, no matter how nice that professed to be…
I eventually found a Bible believing church where I
learned to be authentic in my Christian faith, to live according to the word of
God, but in those early days of my “born again” Christianity I was just trying
to figure it out.
Having read the Bible, I knew that baptism was an
important part of being a Christian and it was some time in the summer of 2010
that I decided to “baptize” myself! Taking the Book of Common Prayer, that I had
from my Episcopal “classes” before my confirmation, one summer day I read the prayers
for the rite of baptism and immersed myself in my swimming pool, baptizing
myself before the Lord to demonstrate to God that I was serious about my new found
faith.
I sort of forgot about this little episode in my
life. I was actually later baptized by
members of Hillsong Church while on a work assignment in in NYC during the
spring of 2013 ,on the day of the Boston bombings, and point to that day as the
day of “my baptism”. I had more or less forgotten all about the “dunking”
and baptizing myself back in 2010. I
guess I wasn’t sure that it counted.
But God didn’t forget. I think I was brought back to Oak Hill Road
in this mornings meditation session because that impromptu self-baptism counted
with God. God took me back to a place
where I enjoyed many summers in the splendor of His creation and it just happen
to be the place where I did an outward expression of my inward faith even
though there was no one there to see it.
Jesus brought me back to “My Eden” – the place where I did a simple act
of faith, without witnesses, that told God I was His.
So have you been baptized? Have you chosen to die with Christ and to be
raised to life again? A lot of people
who have been baptized as babies will tell that it doesn’t matter, but I
believe it does. I believe that we can’t choose the new life that Christ has
for us by proxy. I believe we all have to make a choice to die and live for
Him.
So I invite you to seek the Lord and to make sense
of the mystery of life by contemplating it all and bringing all together – the wonders
of the universe, the Creator God who made it, and the person of Jesus Christ who
came into it to tell us all of God’s love and to make a way to have peace with
Him. Only when you knock down the four
walls of the church and your limited understanding of life and the way things
are and contemplate God and Jesus Christ, can you make sense of it all.
SO keep walking and talking with God and invite Him
to show you your “Eden” and to be restored to the life that He has for you.
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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:
Psalm 40:2 (NLT2)
2 He lifted me out of the pit
of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and
steadied me as I walked along.
Today’s Bible verse reminds us how the Lord will save us and
pull us out of the dirt of our darkness and depths of despair to give us a new
life to walk into.
Today’s verse should speak to all of us who have come to
faith in Jesus, when we realize just how lost we really were and how our faith
caused us to repent and walk away from the dark ways of our past.
This is a rejoicing verse if there ever was one. So rejoice!
God lifted us out of our muck and mire. He took us out of the pit of despair.
And He has put us on the solid Rock of faith in Jesus and invites us to walk it
out. So keep on walking and rejoicing over what God has done for you!
___________________________________________
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 A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase A.W. Pink’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
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By ARTHUR W. PINK
CHAPTER FIVE
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN REPROBATION continues
Coming down to our
own day, and to those in our own country—leaving out the almost unnumberable
crowds of unevangelized heathen—is it not evident that there are many living in
lands where the Gospel is preached,
lands which are full of churches, who die strangers to God and His holiness?
True, the means of grace were close to their hand, but many of them knew it
not. Thousands are born into homes where they are taught from infancy to regard
all Christians as hypocrites and preachers as arch-humbugs. Others, are
instructed from the cradle in Roman Catholicism, and are trained to regard
Evangelical Christianity as deadly heresy, and the Bible as a book highly
dangerous for them to read. Others, reared in “Christian Science” families,
know no more of the true Gospel of Christ than do the unevangelized heathen.
The great majority of these die in utter ignorance of the Way of Peace. Now are
we not obliged to conclude that it
was not God’s will to communicate grace to them?
Had His will been otherwise, would He not have actually communicated His grace to them? If, then, it was the will
of God, in time, to refuse to them
his grace, it must have been His will from all eternity, since His will is, as
Himself, the same yesterday, and today and forever. Let it not be forgotten
that God’s providences are but the manifestations of His decrees: what God does in time is only what He purposed
in eternity—His own will being the alone cause of all His acts and works.
Therefore from His actually leaving some men in final impenitency and unbelief
we assuredly gather it was His everlasting determination so to do; and
consequently that He reprobated some from before the foundation of the world.
In the Westminster
Confession it is said, “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy
counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably foreordain whatsoever comes to pass.” The late Mr. F. W. Grant—a
most careful and cautious student and writer—commenting on these words said:
“It is perfectly, divinely true, that God hath ordained for His own glory
whatsoever comes to pass.” Now if these statements are true, is not the
doctrine of Reprobation established by them? What, in human history, is the one
thing which does come to pass every
day? What, but that men and women die, pass out of this world into a hopeless
eternity, an eternity of suffering and woe. If then God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass then He must
have decreed that vast numbers of human beings should pass out of this world
unsaved to suffer eternally in the Lake of Fire. Admitting the general premise,
is not the specific conclusion inevitable?
In reply to the
preceding paragraphs the reader may say, All this is simply reasoning, logical no doubt, but yet
mere inferences. Very well, we will now point out that in addition to the above
conclusions there are many passages in Holy Writ which are most clear and
definite in their teaching on this solemn subject; passages which are too plain
to be misunderstood and too strong to be evaded. The marvel is that so many
good men have denied their undeniable affirmations.
“Joshua made war a
long time with all those kings. There was not a city that made peace with the
children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they
took in battle. For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should
come against Israel in battle, that He might destroy them utterly, and that
they might have no favour, but that He might destroy them, as the Lord
commanded Moses” (Josh. 11:18–20). What could be plainer than this? Here was a
large number of Canaanites whose hearts the Lord hardened, whom He had purposed
to utterly destroy, to whom He showed “no
favour.” Granted that they were wicked, immoral, idolatrous; were they any worse than the immoral, idolatrous
cannibals of the South Sea Islands (and many other places), to whom God gave
the Gospel through John G. Paton! Assuredly not. Then why did not Jehovah
command Israel to teach the Canaanites His laws and instruct them concerning
sacrifices to the true God? Plainly, because He had marked them out for destruction, and if so, that from all eternity.
“The Lord hath made
all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Prov. 16:4).
That the Lord made all, perhaps every
reader of this book will allow: that He made all for Himself is not so widely believed. That God made us, not for
our own sakes, but for Himself; not for our own happines, but for His glory,
is, nevertheless, repeatedly affirmed in Scripture—Rev. 4:11. But Prov. 16:4
goes even farther: it expressly declares that the Lord made the wicked for the Day of Evil: that was His design in giving them being. But why? Does not Rom. 9:17 tell us, “For the Scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew My
power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth!”
God has made the wicked that, at the end, He may demonstrate “His power”—demonstrate it by showing what an easy
matter it is for Him to subdue the stoutest rebel and to overthrow His
mightiest enemy.
“And then will I
profess unto them, I never knew you: Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity”
(Matt. 7:23). In the previous chapter it has been shown that the words “know”
and “foreknowledge” when applied to God in the Scriptures, have reference not
simply to His prescience (i.e. His bare
knowledge beforehand), but to His knowledge of approbation. When God said to Israel, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth”
(Amos 3:2), it is evident that He meant, “You only had I any favorable regard
to.” When we read in Rom. 11:2 “God hath not cast away His people (Israel) whom
He foreknew,” it is obvious that what
was signified is, “God has not finally rejected that people whom He has chosen
as the objects of His love—cf. Deut.
7:8. In the same way (and it is the only
possible way) are we to understand Matt. 7:23. In the Day of Judgment the Lord
will say unto many, “I never knew you.” Note, it is more than simply “I know
you not.” His solemn declaration will be, “I never knew you”—you were never the objects of My approbation.
Contrast this with “I know (love) My
sheep, and am known (loved) of Mine” (John 10:14). The “sheep,” His elect, the
“few” He does “know”; but the
reprobate, the non-elect, the “many” He knows not—no, not even before the foundation of the world did He know
them—He “NEVER” knew them![1]
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tomorrow------------------------
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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
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