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Thursday, March 23, 2023

Alone or In Community, Beware – Lent with Bonhoeffer Day 26– Purity 998


 Alone or In Community, Beware – Lent with Bonhoeffer Day 26– Purity 998        

Purity 998 03/23/2023 Purity 998 Podcast

Purity 998 on YouTube: 


Oh YouTube my world sideways... again... 


Good morning,

Today’s photo of my canine friend, Harley, looking down a freshly fallen snow bordered Waite Rd with the morning sun shining down from on high comes to us from  yours truly as I captured this scene on a later than usual morning walk this past Sunday, which I now realize was the last morning of Winter 2023.  See ya.  

What a difference a few days can make! That morning I was a little miffed because I discovered that we had a fresh dusting of the white stuff and even though the sun was shining brightly I wondered if we would ever be free of the snow and cold temperatures that were clear and present that Sunday morning.  But now spring has sprung and most of the snow down my way here in Stuyvesant is gone and I wake up this morning with my electronic personal assistant reporting that it is 45 degrees outside with a forecast of showers and a high of 58 degrees.  So who knows it looks like we are free so let’s believe it and even if we experience some bumps in the road in the days ahead that challenge that belief let’s trust that the Lord will do what He has done before and move the seasons forward in the way He has before.   

Now I fully understand that my beliefs and hope don’t have an effect on the weather, if they did it would have been a snowless winter, but sometimes our beliefs and our standing on the truth of God’s word is the missing ingredient in our success at experiencing our freedom and victory in Christ. 

Today’s Thursday and I shared today’s photo because it highlights a pathway and I intentionally used that as a visual reminder to keep walking and talking with God on the path of Christian Discipleship because our life of faith is a walk and it must be continuous. Our faith must endure to the end. Scripture doesn’t paint a pretty picture of people who lived a righteous life for a time and then go into sin at the end. Scripture indicates that those who say they believe but never repent of their sin may be a false convert, that they were with us but not of us.   The fruit of a Christian disciple’s life grows out of faith and the application of God’s wisdom to their life. A Christian disciple agrees with the word of God and lives by it. They can their minds that lived independently of God to align with the truth of what God says in His word.  

Just like our salvation is won by faith alone, in Christ alone,  our freedom and victory comes through the faith that God has set us free and has already given us all we need for life and godliness. 

In my walk of discipling others I have often encountered Christians that seem to have a “block” or a “wall” that separates them from realizing or keeping their freedom in Christ for long.  After much thought and consideration, I believe that the “wall” or “block” in these Christians life is self-imposed and created by a combination of deception and a lack of faith.  These Christians can either have that thick wall of separation in their minds that divides the holy and the secular aspects in their lives into two distinct categories. With these there is their life of faith and “real life”. They shift from the secular to the holy when they go to church or do their spiritual practices but then revert to their worldly ways for most of the time in their days.  They end up being those who honor the Lord with their lips but their hearts or minds are not “all in” and that causes a real problem of doubt and disbelief.  These are the “sinners saved by grace”. They “believe” in God but actually show their disbelief by not repenting or by believing that the promises of God don’t apply to them – they are hopeless cases – it’s not God’s fault -it’s there’s – is what they think. And in a way, they are right. 

They are believing a lie – that God hasn’t given them the power to overcome – or they simply don’t believe in any real way – they claim belief but not a belief that would cause them to obey God’s word or not a belief that would cause them to seek the Lord and His purpose for their life. Whether its based on the belief that they can’t do it or they simply don’t want to do it – that’s volitional – by their own will they are choosing not to trust the Lord and follow Him into repentance and freedom.  

Marcus Warner touched on this in the realm of spiritual warfare by stating that even though we have the authority to cast out demons that oppress us, if we don’t really believe we have that authority – the demons don’t have to leave. He wrote in “What Every Believer should know about Spiritual Warfare that:

Sometimes the missing ingredient is simply the person's confidence. The demon is waiting to see if the person doing the evicting really believes. I have seen more than one demon flee after a person who had been victimized and reduced to slavery for years finally begin to affirm their true identity in Christ and often for the first time in their lives stand up to the demons and fight for what was theirs.” (Warner, 2020 Page 41).

So we have to really believe, and we have to demonstrate that we really believe by standing in our true identity in Christ and fight for what is ours.   

So let’s fight the good fight, and let’s show the enemy and ourselves that we really believe by drawing close to God in this season of Lent, as we enter into Day 26 of our current series, the 40 Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

As a reminder, and as we will say each day of this journey, we take this path to mark the season of Lent and to draw closer to God in anticipation of the celebration of Easter, knowing that if we take this journey of repentance seriously, we will not only see the days and seasons change, the Lord will use it to change us too. 

You can sign up to get this devotional yourself by going to the Biblegateway link on the blog ((https://www.biblegateway.com/devotionals/40-Day-Journey-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/today)) . 

Day 26

Bonhoeffer writes:

“Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community. 

Such people will only do harm to themselves and to the community.

Alone you stood before God when God called you. Alone you had to obey God’s voice. Alone you had to take up your cross, struggle, and pray and alone you will die and give an account to God.

You cannot avoid yourself, for it is precisely God who has singled you out. If you do not want to be alone, you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called…

But the reverse is also true. 

Whoever cannot stand being in community should beware of being alone. You are called into the community of faith; the call was not meant for you alone.

You carry your cross, you struggle, and you pray in the community of faith, the community of those who are called. You are not alone even when you die, and on the day of judgment you will be only one member of the great community of faith of Jesus Christ…

Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community. Whoever cannot stand being in community should beware of being alone.”

Biblical Wisdom

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. Romans 12:4-5

Questions to Ponder

  • Why do so many people in our society seem to fear being alone?

M.T. Clark: Many people fear being alone because it can be frightening and depressing.  If we are alone we can feel unsafe. If we are alone we can feel unloved.  God has made us relational creatures from the beginning as He declared of Adam, it is not good for man to be alone. Our existence depends on community and when we isolate from the company of others we are failing to meet our purpose in Christ which is to love God and to love others as ourselves.   However, we are to love God first. If we love God first, we need never fear being alone because when we put our faith in Christ, God is with us. He indwells us with the Holy Spirit. Those who fear being alone don’t understand or appreciate the presence of God in their lives. But to be complete we are not just to stay hidden away in God’s presence either. God calls us to go out into the world and love people into His kingdom. God’s purposes are perfect because they fulfill our need for companionship and they meet His desire that people would have peace with Him. Thus Bonhoeffer, encourages to beware of both being alone and being in community to the exclusion of the other because we are to do both. Just another paradox of our simple faith.

  • Why do so many churches seem to be mere aggregates of individuals rather than true communities of faith?

M.T. Clark: Aggregates? If you are as sharp as I am you may have to look that up.  An aggregate is a “whole formed by combining several elements”, a collection I guess.  So why do some churches seem to be a mere “collection” of individuals rather than true communities of faith? Western societies tend to stress the individual more than a group or community identity that eastern cultures tend to stress.  So it is not surprising that our societal influences that tell us to focus on ourselves affects us when we come into the community of faith.  The world at least in this hemisphere seems to teach us that it’s “everyone for themselves” rather than “we are all in this together” and I don’t care what propaganda may have been pushed during Covid-19 – the empty shelves in the supermarkets demonstrated just how much we are “ all in this together”.  So that’s why churches can seem more like aggregates of individuals, than a true community. I don’t think we will have true community until Jesus comes back, because of the world broken by sin and driven by self-interest. I’m guilty too.  

  • In what ways can a disciple establish a healthy balance between aloneness and community?

M.T. Clark: A disciple can establish a healthy balance between aloneness and community by being intentional about having “alone time” with God and by fully engaging in their local church by making friendships within the body of Christ and by seeking to serving where they worship.  We need both to be balanced.

Psalm Fragment

Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
   in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
Great are the works of the Lord,
   studied by all who delight in them. 
Psalm 111:1-2

Journal Reflections

  • Write about times when you have intentionally been alone. How did it make you feel? What did you do? Did your aloneness have any impact on how you felt when you were with others again?

M.T. Clark: I have often been intentionally alone. Before Christ, I did it to escape the company of man that rejected me or to indulge in sinful behavior that I didn’t want any witnesses of. But after I put my faith in Christ, I realized the I was never alone and when I choose to have some solitude, God goes with me.  Aloneness before Christ made me feel anxious, afraid, angry, or depressed.  But now in Christ, I have peace and joy in the presence of the Lord. My aloneness would make me wary of being in the presence of others before Christ but since I have Jesus in my life I am markedly less wary and more appreciative of the other people of my life.

·       Write about your experience in community. Do you feel an integral part of your community? Do you feel like you have a good balance between time in community and time alone?

M.T. Clark: Some of the best moments of my faith journey have been in community. Those perfect shining moments where I and others were serving or praising the Lord in unity make one feel like an integral part of our community, that we are a part of something much bigger than ourselves, and we are blessed. Do I have a good balance between being in community and time alone?  I do for me.  My disposition, my temperament, or my relational attachment style if you will, is one that demands a good deal of alone time. And not for nothing, a disciple’s zeal for our faith can afford us some loneliness even when we crave community.  But I do feel I have a good balance, for me, in that I regularly engage with small groups for the sake of community or ministry. I sometimes think that it would be nice just to stay in my room reading the vast quantity of books that I have collected and to just focus on my individual relationship with the Lord but when I contemplate actually doing that it never sits right in my spirit because I know that part of my purpose is to be in community with the body of Christ and to be an ambassador for the kingdom to welcome others in.  We need each other and thus we need a balance between being alone and being in community.

Intercessions

If you know anyone who seems lonely, pray that they might discover true community. If you know anyone who seems afraid to be alone with themselves, pray that they might discover the joy of solitude, of being alone with God.

M.T. Clark:  

Lord God, 

I’m not going to call out names. But you know who I am thinking of who is lonely and of another person who seems incapable of being alone, I pray for these people to be touched by you to be compelled to seek out a community of faith where they can have their relational met and be able to grow in their faith and maturity individually.  I pray that the one who fears being alone find the joy of solitude – of being alone with You and I pray for the one who is alone to find the faith community they so desperately need.

In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Prayer for Today

O Lord, when I am too much alone, help me seek community. When I am too dependent on the community, help me to set aside time to be alone.

In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. 

 

(40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Copyright © 2007 Augsburg Books, imprint of Augsburg Fortress.)

***As we are being provided with Bible verses from the 40 Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we will are taking a break from sharing a verse of the day from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”. We plan on resuming that normal installment of the blog following Easter.*** 

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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 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 ELEVEN

DIFFICULTIES AND OBJECTIONS continues

 

The Word of God is addressed to men, and therefore it speaks the language of men. Because we cannot rise to God’s level He, in grace, comes down to ours and converses with us in our own speech. The apostle Paul tells us of how he was “caught up into Paradise and heard unspeakable words which it is not possible (margin) to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4). Those on earth could not understand the vernacular of heaven. The finite cannot comprehend the Infinite, hence the Almighty deigns to couch His revelation in terms we may understand. It is for this reason the Bible contains many anthropomorphisms—i.e, representations of God in the form of man. God is Spirit, yet the Scriptures speak of Him as having eyes, ears, nostrils, breath, hands, etc., which is surely an accommodation of terms brought down to the level of human comprehension.

Again; we read in Gen. 18:20, 21 “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come up unto Me; and if not, I will know.” Now, manifestly, this is an anthropologism—God speaking in human language. God knew the conditions which prevailed in Sodom, and His eyes had witnessed its fearful sins, yet He is pleased to use terms here that are taken from our own vocabulary.

Again; in Gen. 22:12 we read “And He (God) said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me.” Here again, God is speaking in the language of men for He “knew” before He tested Abram exactly how the patriarch would act. So too the expression of God so often in Jeremiah (7:13 etc.) of Him “rising up early” is manifestly an accommodation of terms.

Once more: in the parable of the vineyard Christ Himself represents its Owner as saying, “Then said the Lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send My beloved Son: it may be they will reverence Him when they see Him” (Luke 20:13); and yet, it is certain that God knew perfectly well that the “husbandman” of the vineyard (the Jews) would not “reverence His Son” but, instead, would “despise and reject” Him as His own Word had declared!

In the same way we understand the words of Gen. 6:6—“It repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth”—as an accommodation of terms to human comprehension. This verse does not teach that God was confronted with an unforeseen contingency and therefore regretted that He had made man, but it expresses the abhorrence of a holy God at the awful wickedness and corruption into which man had fallen. Should there be any doubt remaining in the minds of our readers as to the legitimacy and soundness of our interpretation, a direct appeal to Scripture should instantly and entirely remove it—“The Strength of Israel (a Divine title) will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, that He should repent” (1 Sam. 15:29)! “Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jas. 1:17)!

Careful attention to what we have said above will throw light on numerous other passages which, if we ignore their figurative character and fail to note that God applies to Himself human modes of expression, will be obscure and perplexing. Having commented at such length upon Gen. 6:6 there will be no need to give such a detailed exposition of other passages which belong to the same class, yet, for the benefit of those of our readers who may be anxious for us to examine several other scriptures, we turn to one or two more.

One scripture which we often find cited in order to overthrow the teaching advanced in this book is our Lord’s lament over Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matt. 23:37). The question is asked, Do not these words show that the Saviour acknowledged the defeat of His mission, that as a people the Jews resisted all His gracious overtures toward them? In replying to this question, it should first be pointed out that our Lord is here referring not so much to His own mission as He is upbraiding the Jews for having in all ages rejected His grace—this is clear from His reference to the “prophets.” The Old Testament bears full witness of how graciously and patiently Jehovah dealt with His people, and with what extreme obstinacy, from first to last, they refused to be “gathered” unto Him, and how in the end He abandoned them to follow their own devices, yet, as the same Scriptures declare, the counsel of God was not frustrated by their wickedness, for it had been foretold (and therefore, decreed) by Him: see, for example, 1 Kings 8:33.

Matt. 23:37 may well be compared with Isa. 65:2 where the Lord says, “I have spread out My hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts.” But, it may be asked, Did God seek to do that which was in opposition to His own eternal purpose? In words borrowed from Calvin we reply, “Though to our apprehension the will of God is manifold and various, yet He does not in Himself will things at variance with each other, but astonishes our faculties with His various and ‘manifold’ wisdom, according to the expression of Paul, till we shall be enabled to understand that He mysteriously wills what now seems contrary to His will.” As a further illustration of the same principle we would refer the reader to Isa. 5:1–4: “Now will I sing to my well Beloved a song of my Beloved touching His vineyard. My well Beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And He fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard. What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought forth wild grapes?” Is it not plain from this language that God reckoned Himself to have done enough for Israel to warrant an expectation—speaking after the manner of men—of better returns? Yet, is it not equally evident when Jehovah says here “He looked that it should bring forth grapes” that He is accommodating Himself to a form of finite expression? And, so also when He says “What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” we need to take note that in the previous enumeration of what He had done—the “fencing” etc.—He refers only to external privileges, means, and opportunities, which had been bestowed upon Israel, for, of course, He could even then have taken away from them their stony heart and given them a new heart, even a heart of flesh, had He so pleased.

Perhaps we should link up with Christ’s lament over Jerusalem min Matt. 23:37, His tears over the City, recorded in Luke 19:41: “He beheld the city, and wept over it.” In the verses which immediately follow we learn what it was that occasioned His tears: “Saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side.” It was the prospect of the fearful judgment which Christ knew was impending. But did those tears make manifest a disappointed God? Nay, verily. Instead, they displayed a perfect Man. The Man Christ Jesus was no emotionless stoic, but One “filled with compassion.” Those tears expressed the sinless sympathies of His real and pure humanity. Had He not “wept” He had been less than human. Those “tears” were one of many proofs that “in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17).[1]

 

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1949), 206–210.

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