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Showing posts with label 2 Peter. Show all posts

Friday, April 14, 2023

I Can’t Forgive Myself– Lies of the Enemy #5– Purity 1017

 

I Can’t Forgive Myself– Lies of the Enemy #5– Purity 1017

Purity 1017 04/14/2023 Purity 1017 Podcast

Purity 1017 on YouTube: Coming Soon!

Good morning,

Today’s photo a springtime scene of a field of flowers under blue skies comes to us from Megan Seguin who shared this scene on social media a couple of days ago during her family vacation’s road trip stop at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. 

Well, it’s Friday and I know this is the second time we are sharing from Megan’s vacation this week, but I thought this was a good visual encouragement to “stop and smell the roses” as we head into the weekend. I know these are tulips, I think, but that also goes to show that we make the best of what we got and don’t need everything to be perfect to experience peace and joy.   

When you walk in the Spirit, our peace and joy is not dependent on positive circumstances and the fruit of the Spirit can grow in our lives even in dark times when we are walking with the Lord and resting in His presence.

But walking in the Spirit is an intentional choice that we need to make every day.  Ever wonder why some Christians are grouchy, depressed, angry, fearful, or joyless?  It’s because they have either forgotten what the Lord has done for them, don’t know who they are in Christ, or have deviated from the Lord’s path for them in their behavior or their thoughts.   

And some times that deviation that leads to sadness, depression, anxiety, or anger is a combination of pride and the subtle influences of the spiritual forces of darkness, who scripture attests can oppress even Christians with the “fiery darts of the wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16).  

That’s why we have to walk in the Spirit and put on the “whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:13) which includes “girding our waists with truth” and denying the lies of the enemy.  

And so today we continue our current series which is an examination of some of the common lies the enemy tells us to cause us to doubt our faith or to choose not to follow the Lord with the way we live our lives. 

So today’s big lie is:

Lie # 5: I Can’t Forgive Myself.     

For those who tuned in yesterday, you may think we already covered this with “I can’t be forgiven.”  However, there is a subtle distinction between these two lies that is directly addressed in the Steps to Freedom in Christ and just happened to be discussed in last night’s meeting of Deeper Walk International’s School of Pray Ministry cohort that I am currently being trained in.   This section’s course of study is spiritual warfare and part of last night’s discussion addressed the stronghold of unforgiveness and how the enemy could use it as legal permission to torment Christians.  

The Lord commands us to forgive, right in and after the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6: Where Jesus said:

Matthew 6:12 (NLT2)
12  …and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.

And

Matthew 6:14-15 (NLT2)
14  “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
15  But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Here, the Lord’s prayer indicates that our forgiveness is a forgone conclusion for the Christian and His instruction after it indicates that our failure to forgive could possibly separate us from the Lord.  If you don’t forgive others, you may be a false convert!

Or you may be prideful, the sin of Satan, and afflicted by demons! In Jesus’ parable of the ungrateful servant, when the master discovers how the ungrateful servant has had his fellow servant thrown into prison over a small debt, when he was forgiven of a much larger debt, the master makes him pay for it! Jesus tells us in:

Matthew 18:34-35 (NKJV)
34  And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.
35  So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."

Some have taught that “the torturers” could represent demonic oppression that comes from the foothold of unforgiveness.   

So what does that got to do with “I can’t forgive myself”?  Possibly a great deal!

When we say, we can’t forgive ourselves, we are subtly saying that we are greater than God. We (and/or the spiritual forces of darkness) are torturing ourselves by denying the forgiveness that God has given to us when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.  

We are begrudgingly agreeing with our “positional forgiveness” ( I “know” God forgives me….) but we are denying the benefits and effects of God’s forgiveness to work in our lives through pride or by believing the lie that “we can’t forgive” ourselves.

Somehow our pain, guilt, or shame trumps the power of God in our lives! In reality, it doesn’t – it can’t – we are forgiven of everything when we put our faith in Jesus – but in practice we are allowing our pride, ignorance, or believing the enemy’s condemning lies to keep us from accepting God’s forgiveness fully to experience the joy and peace of the forgiveness we have in Christ.  

Step 3 of the Steps to Freedom in Christ – Bitterness vs. Forgiveness, addresses this by directing us to forgive “myself”.   The teaching in that step states: 

“Often we hold things against ourselves as well, punishing ourselves for wrong choices we’ve made in the past. Write “myself” at the bottom of your list if you need to forgive yourself. Forgiving yourself is accepting the truth that God has already forgiven you in Christ. If God forgives you, you can forgive yourself!”

So don’t believe the lie that “I can’t forgive myself”! 

If you need to break the bondage, pray the following prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, I choose to forgive MYSELF for [what you did or failed to do], because it made me feel [share the painful feelings, for example, rejected, dirty, worthless, or inferior].

Lord Jesus, I choose not to hold on to my resentment against myself. I relinquish my right to condemn myself  and ask you to heal my damaged emotions. Thank You for setting me free from the bondage of my bitterness. I now ask You to bless me with the peace of your forgiveness. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

(modified Step 3 prayer to address forgiving “myself”)   

Okay so if you believed that lie that “I can’t forgive myself” and prayed that prayer, you are agreeing with what the Lord has already done in your life and to continue to experience the peace and joy of your forgiveness in Christ, you simply have to remember the truth of what the Lord done has for you.  

Truth overcomes the lies of the enemy. But we have to choose to believe the truth, and keep on believing the truth, and to live according to the Lord’s wisdom to make the truth a manifest reality in our lives. When we walk in the Spirit we stand in the truth, we overcome the lies of the enemy, and experience the abundant life that God wants us to live.

For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple apologetic will provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .

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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:

2 Peter 3:8 (NLT2)
8  But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.

Today’s verse points to God’s timeless nature and indicates that we should cultivate the fruit of patience as we grow as Christians.   

I am sharing a link to an article I found on this passage of scripture from the Christian Truth Center (https://www.christiantruthcenter.com/one-day-is-with-the-lord-as-a-thousand-years-and-a-thousand-years-as-one-day/#:~:text=One%20day%20is%20with%20the%20Lord%20as%20a,fastness%20but%20He%20comes%20at%20His%20right%20time.)  Now I am brand new to this site so I would be discerning in determining what they teach, as we should always be, but I was impressed with the following quote in the article enough to share it.  Heck they claim to be “Non-denominational, Non-religious, and Non-money making, Focusing only on Jesus Christ” so I don’t mind pointing in their direction, with the disclaimer that this is not an endorsement as they are brand new to me due to a google search!

Anyway the wisdom they share about this verse is that: 

“God is neither slow nor fast in accordance to humanity. This verse reveals that God is not slow in keeping His promise as humanity understands slowness neither is He fast as humanity understands fastness but He comes at His right time.”

Context bears this out as

2 Peter 3:9 (NLT2) says
9  The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

So as the context reveals, Jesus hasn’t returned because God wants people to come to repentance. When Christ comes back, He will come to rule and reign and Revelation indicates that will be a bloody affair.  

So we should be content to wait on the Lord in the end times, and in our individual lives.  If we believe that God is sovereign and is working all things together for good we should endeavor to patiently endure through the trials of our lives knowing that God is in control.  

So trust in the Lord for today, and tomorrow, and know that He can be trusted for the next 1,000 years as well.  

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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

CONCLUSION continues

Let us take up these questions in the order of mention.

1. God’s Sovereignty and the believer’s growth in grace

If God has foreordained everything that comes to pass, of what avail is it for us to “exercise” ourselves “unto godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7)? If God has before ordained the good works in which we are to walk (Eph. 2:10) then why should we be “careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8)? This only raises once more the problem of human responsibility. Really, it should be enough for us to reply, God has bidden us do so. Nowhere does Scripture inculcate or encourage a spirit of fatalistic indifference. Contentment with our present attainments is expressly disallowed. The word to every believer is “Press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). This was the apostle’s aim, and it should be ours. Instead of hindering the development of Christian character, a proper apprehension and appreciation of God’s sovereignty will forward it. Just as the sinner’s despair of any help from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer’s growth in grace; and just as the sinner despairing of help from himself will cast him into the arms of sovereign mercy so the Christian, conscious of his own frailty, will turn unto the Lord for power. It is when we are weak we are strong (2 Cor. 12:10): that it to say, there must be consciousness of our weakness before we shall turn to the Lord for help. While the Christian allows the thought that he is sufficient in himself, while he imagines that by mere force of will he shall resist temptation, while he has any confidence in the flesh then, like Peter who boasted that though all forsook the Lord yet should not he, so we shall certainly fail and fall. Apart from Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5). The promise of God is “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might (of their own) He increaseth strength” (Isa. 40:29).

The question now before us is of great practical importance, and we are deeply anxious to express ourselves clearly and simply. The secret of development of Christian character is the realization of our own powerlessness, acknowledged powerlessness, and the consequent turning unto the Lord for help. The plain fact is that of ourselves we cannot do this, or make ourselves do it. “In nothing be anxious”—but who can avoid and prevent anxiety when things go wrong? “Awake to righteousness and sin not”—but who can help sinning? These are merely examples selected at random from scores of others. Does then God mock us by biding us do what He knows we are unable to do? The answer of Augustine to this question is the best we have met with—“God gives commands we cannot perform, that we may know what we ought to request from Him.” A consciousness of our powerlessness should cast us upon Him who has all power. Here then is where a vision and view of God’s sovereignty helps, for it reveals His sufficiency and shows us our insufficiency.[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

(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 Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ),  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)

“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1949), 245–247.


Monday, January 2, 2023

Three Minutes In His Presence – Immanuel Prayer Process - Purity 930


Three Minutes In His Presence – Immanuel Prayer Process -   Purity 930

Purity 930 01/02/2023  Purity 930 Podcast

Purity 930 on YouTube: Coming Soon!

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a blazing sunset sandwiched between a stand of trees on the horizon and a thick canopy of clouds to the right of a transmission tower comes to us from yours truly as I was fortunate to have the presence of mind and my iphone handy to capture this last notable sunset of 2022 while out walking my canine friend, Harley, on Waite Rd on December 30th.  During that walk, as we set out the afternoon was pleasant but I didn’t have an expectations for anything spectacular but as we passed the forest areas for the farmland I took pleasure in the cloud formations that were pleasantly illuminated by the fading sun and decided to take some pics, thinking that what I was seeing was going to be as good as it gets because as time progresses, the sun fades further into the horizon, right?

But as we went down road the opposite seemed to take place as our place on Waite Rd changed the Sun seemed to rise, instead of fall so I took a couple of more shots. I rejoiced at the first three shots from 4:07 to 4:08pm – shared on the blog here: 




But then as we turned to head back home – I captured “today’s” photo – where the sun seemed to positively explode over the trees at 409pm, rejoicing and thanking the Lord for the opportunity to see this, before I took a couple of departing shots at 410pm, also on the blog, here: 



As I was walking the dog and as I was capturing these photos I was “walking and talking with God” too. Before this “sunset lightshow”, I was thanking the Lord for the cool cloud formations that were over those trees, which started the “photo session”, and if I recall it correctly, I inquired of the Lord something like: “What else do you have for us Lord?”

And then the sun rises over the trees and just as I am ready to just rejoice and thank the Lord for the scenes at 408pm, I turn back home and look up to see – whammo – this sunset flash at 409 to 410pm. 

At that point, I am thanking God for brining me to this place and then I realize that “this place, at this time” is just another part of the ongoing miracle and blessing of my relationship and marriage with TammyLyn. Without God TammyLyn isn’t in my life, Without TammyLyn I’m not in Easton to see this sunset. 

And then hilariously, I thanked God for Harley! Because if it wasn’t for him it would be doubtful that I  would be out walking along Waite Rd, because if he wasn’t our compulsory houseguest for the next 3 years, I wouldn’t have been there to see it either. 

At that point I got a tiny glimpse of just how good our God is at shaping our lives and at blessing our moments when we make the decision to follow Him. 

It was just three minutes out of my day, but in those three minutes I know that I was connecting with the Lord in conversation and something beautiful happened. I’m not sure how many people may have enjoyed those three minutes of sunset glory (even though it “feels” like this “sunset was for me”, I can’t claim that) But I can tell you that before it happened, I was talking to the Lord and after it happened I had a mini-revelation of God’s goodness and sovereign hand and a small idea of how God works all things together for good.  

Well, it’s the 2nd day of a new year, New year’s day observed, for many of us, and it is ,my prayer that anyone reading this or hearing this message will endeavor to spend more time in God’s presence and following His lead in 2023. 

Although, its Monday because of the “observed” holiday, I am still on vacation at my countryside home in Easton this morning but will be returning to my place “down by the River” in Stuyvesant later this afternoon. 

Although TammyLyn is the ideal Christian wife for me – I am humbled and amazed at the love we have for one another -, the technological and logistical accommodations at our place in Easton are not ideal and if I am to be completely honest, which I try to be, it feels like I have been “roughing it” for the past week because of the internet’s penchant for testing my patience and because I have been off the rails in terms of my health goals.

While I have been painfully faithful to my workout regiment, as in the bed here at Countryside or my vacation lethargy has done a number on my back – so it hurts,  and have been taking the dog for walks, my resolve to be mindful of what I have been eating has been sacrificed on the altar of compromise in the spirit of the holidays and in the name of vacation itself.  I have gotten quite a bit of rest since December 23rd but unfortunately I gave “self-control” a rest too. So like many others, I will be instituting a new year’s resolution to repent and “get healthy” going forward.  

Besides returning to sanity in terms of my diet, I also started to look ahead to the training I will receive as part of Deeper Walk International’s school of Prayer Ministry this year. Before the ball dropped on Saturday night, I spent the day looking at the student portal for the classes I will be taking and had the opportunity to meet some of my fellow students on the portal’s discussion boards and was pleased and somewhat intimidated by their acquaintance. 

As a way to get to know one another the course instructors invited/assigned us to introduce ourselves, telling every one what we like to be addressed as and to share one thing we were thankful for.  Another preliminary assignment was to describe what we would say, in our own words, what a  “Prayer Minister” is and what a prayer minster does?

Only a few early birds had responded to these assignments but from their introductions and responses I already have a sense that this program will definitely give me the opportunity to grow and develop as a Christian Counselor as their vernacular seems almost other worldly because it is grounded in the concepts and language of pray ministry, mindfulness, and pastoral counseling.  As someone who is seeking to transition to a career of full time ministry, I might be the low man on the totem pole in this group because I admittedly had to get out my “Christian Counseling decoder ring” to interpret exactly what it is what some of their words were trying to express, lol! But with my education and a couple quick google searches, I grasped what they were saying but was introduced to a term I hadn’t heard before. 

One of the responses used the term “Immanuel Prayer” to describe what a prayer minister does, and it caused me some mild trepidation because I didn’t know what that was and obviously had zero experience with it.  

As much as I thought I might be in over my head with this program already, I decided to dive on in and see what this “Immanuel Prayer” was all about.  

My research told me that: 

“Immanuel means “God with us” and this promise is the foundation for the whole ministry of Immanuel Prayer. Immanuel Prayer is a one to one prayer process of connecting deeply and personally with Jesus and removing barriers to an intimate, interactive lifestyle of connection with Him. Jesus loves to bring his healing and peace and help us to see ourselves, our circumstances and others as He does.”  (https://www.severnvineyard.org/immanuelprayer#:~:text=Immanuel%20Prayer%20is%20a%20one,and%20others%20as%20He%20does.)

My Christian Counseling master’s education indicated to me that Immanuel Prayer was a form of Theophositc Counseling, where a counselor basically leads a client through a process of prayerfully recalling trauma or areas of concern in which they invite God or Jesus to reveal to them the lies that the trauma caused them to believe, to reveal the truth that God wants them to know, and to assure them of God’s presence then and now.  Theophositc Prayer Ministry has been indicated to be helpful but like any therapy that involves human beings it’s history is not without its controversies or concerns and when I reviewed it in my studies I was hesitant in considering whether or not I would incorporate its techniques if I should begin practicing professionally.  

But that’s what this training and this life is all about: investigating the truth and seeing what is “out there” in terms of what God can and will do.  With my increasing experience, through leading men through the Steps to Freedom in Christ, I am a lot less skeptical than I once was and decided to give Immanuel Prayer a try for myself. 

I found a PDF list of instructions in the Immanuel process (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55e5c3c7e4b0123f9453cd3a/t/58f4b494c534a59e93371a8a/1492432020709/Immanuel+Prayer+Session+Worksheet+Final+080216.pdf)  in my research and decided to jump right in. I’m not a stranger to the Lord and prayer and I decided to see where Immanuel prayer would bring me.   

I won’t get into specifics but I would encourage anyone curious to “go and see” for yourself.

The instructions guide you to pray a prayer of protection, to invite the Holy Spirit into your presence and to rest. Participants are then instructed to recall positive memories of either a close time with the Lord or of joy where you can appreciate and “locate” the Lord’s presence and it directs to draw closer and enjoy your time with the Lord.   That’s session one. 

Session two invites the participant to repeat the steps from session one to draw into the Lord’s presence but then to recall a painful memory and ask the Lord to show His presence in that memory and to reveal what He would like us to know or learn from that experience. A successful session would result in revelations of truth and a possible resolution of one’s problem.   

So obviously this process demands faith, focused prayer, and a willingness to “go there” in terms of being open, honest, and vulnerable to the Lord.  

In my sessions, I brought three separate instances of experiencing the Lord’s closeness and joy during my life and was quite taken by an experience of peace and well-being.    Having established that I invited the Lord into some dark places, one from my childhood and one from a particularly tragic event, and asked Him to reveal Himself in those places and to reveal to me what I needed to know.  

So did He show up? Yeah, He did. Did He show me anything? Yes, He did. Am I forever changed by the experience?  I think so. The Lord basically revealed to me that He has been with me every step of the way in my life and He was giving me or has already given me the healing that I need for those dark places and was inviting me to simply experience and to take it with me all the days of my life.

So there you go. Follow the link and see what happens to you.  

Was this prayer session merely a “guide meditation”, my imagination, a delusion, a deception, or a supernatural manifestation of the Lord in my life?  Depending on your perspective you could explain it as anyone of these things I suppose, but as someone who knows the power of the Lord and the lay of the land when you walk in the Spirit, I know that the results we have are often subject to faith.  

I always point to John 11, when Christ asked Martha “Do you believe this?”  And I know that when we say “Yes” to that question, we can be lead from death to life, from pain to healing, and from darkness to light.  

I had a short “Immanuel Prayer” session in my little office at my countryside home on December 31st. In the natural you could say it was just me and a PDF of written instructions. But was I all by myself?  Did anything “actually happen”? Was “God with me”?   “Do I believe this?” 

I do.  I can’t explain it and I can’t give you my experience. I suppose I could doubt it and explain it away as something other than an encounter with the Lord. But I won’t.  The things I learned in this session could be said to be things that “I already knew”, but I didn’t know quite them in those “specific places” and I feel blessed and challenged to live in the truth of them going forward.  Those dark moments in the past have been bathed in light, so whatever remnants of that baggage has been lifted and I would say I have an increased sense of freedom and peace from those traumas. But I also know that I wasn’t given this experience just to feel better about the past but have been given this gift to propel me into the future, to take these truths and to use them to go forward with confidence.  

So, let’s get it! I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God because if only knew that the Lord has been with you all the days of your life and is walking with you now, you wouldn’t fear future and you wouldn’t look back.   Let me echo, the Apostle Peter’s encouragement from:

2 Peter 1:2-4 (NKJV)
2  Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3  as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4  by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Our grace and peace are multiplied when we know the Lord Jesus Christ and His power gives us all we need for life and godliness. We have and will inherit those precious promises of God and increasingly experience His divine nature in our lives and escape the corruption of this world when we seek His will for our lives and follow Him.  

 

If I keep writing like this I don’t know if I will be sharing the Bible Verse of the Day in 2023 or not,  I guess we will see tomorrow and the next day.  For today, I feel like I’ve written enough but encourage you to get in the word yourself.   

   ___________________________________________

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 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 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

By  ARTHUR W. PINK

CHAPTER ONE

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY DEFINED

“Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as Head above all” (1 Chron. 29:11).

The Sovereignty of God is an expression that once was generally understood. It was a phrase commonly used in religious literature. It was a theme frequently expounded in the pulpit. It was a truth which brought comfort to many hearts, and gave virility and stability to Christian character. But, today, to make mention of God’s sovereignty is, in many quarters, to speak in an unknown tongue. Were we to announce from the average pulpit that the subject of our discourse would be the sovereignty of God, it would sound very much as though we had borrowed a phrase from one of the dead languages. Alas! that it should be so. Alas! that the doctrine which is the key to history, the interpreter of Providence, the warp and woof of Scripture, and the foundation of Christian theology should be so sadly neglected and so little understood.

The sovereignty of God. What do we mean by this expression? We mean the supremacy of God, the kingship of God, the godhood of God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that God is God. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Most High, doing according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay His hand or say unto Him what doest Thou? (Dan. 4:35). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will (Psa. 115:3). To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is “The Governor among the nations” (Psa. 22:28), setting up kingdoms, overthrowing empires, and determining the course of dynasties as pleaseth Him best. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the “Only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). Such is the God of the Bible.

How different is the God of the Bible from the God of modern Christendom! The conception of Deity which prevails most widely today, even among those who profess to give heed to the Scriptures, is a miserable caricature, a blasphemous travesty of the Truth. The God of the twentieth century is a helpless, effeminate being who commands the respect of no really thoughtful man. The God of the popular mind is the creation of maudlin sentimentality. The God of many a present-day pulpit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring reverence. To say that God the Father has purposed the salvation of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express intention of saving the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seeking to win the world to Christ; when, as a matter of common observation, it is apparent that the great majority of our fellowmen are dying in sin, and passing into a hopeless eternity; is to say that God the Father is disappointed, that God the Son is dissatisfied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escaping the conclusion. To argue that God is “trying His best” to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent. To throw the blame, as many do, upon the Devil, does not remove the difficulty, for if Satan is defeating the purpose of God, then, Satan is Almighty and God is no longer the Supreme Being.

To declare that the Creator’s original plan has been frustrated by sin, is to dethrone God. To suggest that God was taken by surprise in Eden and that He is now attempting to remedy an unforeseen calamity, is to degrade the Most High to the level of a finite, erring mortal. To argue that man is a free moral agent and the determiner of his own destiny, and that therefore he has the power to checkmate his Maker, is to strip God of the attribute of Omnipotence. To say that the creature has burst the bounds assigned by his Creator, and that God is now practically a helpless Spectator before the sin and suffering entailed by Adam’s fall, is to repudiate the express declaration of Holy Writ, namely, “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Psa. 76:10). In a word, to deny the sovereignty of God is to enter upon a path which, if followed to its logical terminus, is to arrive at blank atheism.[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

(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)

“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship



[1] Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1949), 25–27.


 


 

Thursday, December 9, 2021

Homeward Bound – Christ’s Incredible Journey is Far Away but One Day Closer- Purity 597

Homeward Bound – Christ’s Incredible Journey is Far Away but One Day Closer- Purity 597

Purity 597 12/09/2021  Purity 597 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a man’s best friend leading the way up Waite Rd in Easton NY  under an overcast December sky comes to us from yours truly as I decided to capture a picture of my canine friend, Harley as “I took him” for a walk on Sunday.  

When I look at this photo I think of those old Homeward Bound movies, about a group of animal friends that take an incredible journey to make it back to their family, and can imagine that Harley is setting out on a mission of his own to find his owner, Rachael Pinter, who is far away completing the process of becoming a Marine on Paris Island in South Carolina. 

Little does our friend Harley know that his incredible journey isn’t necessary as his owner is one day closer to home as she graduates tomorrow and will begin her own incredible journey to be reunited with him.  They are each one day closer to being “home” in each other’s company. 

Likewise, I am currently separated from my fiancé who has travelled to the Palmetto State to share in the joy of Rachael’s accomplishment.  Although we are graphically separated by 788 miles, the physical distance between us doesn’t diminish the love we have for one another.   One of the songs on the “TammyLyn playlist” that I have compiled long before she went away is The Cure’s “Lovesong”: which proclaims: 

“Whenever I'm alone with you

You make me feel like I am free again

Whenever I'm alone with you

You make me feel like I am clean again

However far away

I will always love you

However long I stay

I will always love you

Whatever words I say

I will always love you

I will always love you”

This latest road trip that has increased the physical distance between my fiancé and me has verified the truth of these words for our relationship. No matter how far away we are from one another, I will always love you, TammyLyn.  

As much as I can love my fiancé and as much as a young women can love her dog, God’s love for us is so much greater and in this season of Advent we shouldn’t forget two things about our relationship with Him:  

1.     For the Christian, no distance, and no circumstances, can separate us from God’s love.

Yeah those words in Romans 8:38-39 that declare this truth are written to Christians, so although God loves all of His creation, some will refuse to come to faith in Christ and will separate themselves from God.  We don’t celebrate the coming of the newborn King because it doesn’t matter who we put our faith in.  

The Christian has been sealed by Christ’s atonement and can fully enjoy God’s love right now and for all of eternity. That’s one. 

2.    Christ is coming back.

Although we don’t know the time of His return and it may be far away, Christ’s “incredible journey on earth” that began with His birth and will culminate in His return to rule and reign can be fulfilled any day, without warning, and is one day closer. 

As much as we might be counting down the days to Christmas, we mustn’t forget that Christ isn’t being “born again” in a manger in Bethlehem each December 25th.  “Baby Jesus” doesn’t really exist anymore guys.  Just like “Baby MT” has moved on from infancy, Jesus did become a man, preached the gospel of the kingdom of God, was persecuted, crucified, died, and rose again with a glorified body. 

We shouldn’t think of Christ as a baby anymore. Neither should we think of Him as perpetually nailed to a cross.  Christ is risen! Remember? The glorified Christ, whose body was approximately 33 years old at the time of His resurrection, is seated at the right hand of the Father and will come again to judge the living and the dead, right?

When you speak about “Baby Jesus” in anything more than as a historical fact of the Incarnation of the Word made flesh, you reveal your ignorance, or immaturity, and are perhaps displaying more than you should of your “childlike” faith and understanding of the spiritual realities that God has proclaimed.

When we think about the “coming of Jesus” this Christmas season, although we should remember and rejoice over the original incarnation, we really should think of the “present day Christ” who is fully grown/glorified, alive, and waiting for the day of His return.

The Christian’s hope is a living hope with a future fulfillment. We are not looking back at “baby book” for our hope.  The NLT version of Hebrews 11:1 puts it clearly:

Hebrews 11:1 (NLT2)
1  Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

 It’s Thursday, December 9th and we are all one day closer to Christmas, but for the Christian although we are physically separated from our Lord and Savior, the love that God has is for us is not diminished and we are to have faith that Christ’s return will actually happen and our faith should be edified by the of the truth of God’s word that  assures us that even though we can’t see it, Christ’s incredible journey to reclaim the earth is a certainty that will come to pass.

So keep walking and talking with God, share the good news that Christ came to save that which was lost and that He is coming back for those that were found to bring them home for good.

 

Today’s Bible verse is drawn from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.  

This morning’s meditation verses are:

2 Peter 1:10-11 (NLT2)
10  So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away.
11  Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Today’s verses encourage us to walk the walk and talk the talk of being an authentic Christian and that if we walk out our faith on the path of Christian Discipleship we need not worry about our “spiritual relationship status” and are assured of our grand entrance.  

Now don’t get this twisted, we don’t “walk out our faith” by living according to the Biblical principles of morality to gain the grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

Peter’s letter is to his brothers and sisters in Christ.  In Christ.  They made it already.  When you put your faith in Christ, you are “in”.  Nothing can separate you from the love of God, remember? 

So Peter is encouraging a victorious experiential life of purpose for his brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Yeah, you are in the kingdom. I know it’s hard to believe. It might seem too good to be true. But it is true.   

One way we can settle the uncertainty about whether we are in the kingdom, is to answer the Lord’s call to be sanctified, to be more like Jesus, by living like He would.   

Why? So we can be saved? NO!

So we can experience the fruit of the Spirit and the full assurance that we are children of God.  

We walk out our faith so we can not only be assured that we are not a false convert, because in reality you really can’t fall away – but some men and women who proclaim their “relationship status” as a Christian will one day be discovered as false because their lives and their hearts have not been given to Christ; we walk out our faith to also encourage others to place their faith in Christ to join us in our grand entrance into God’s kingdom.  

So work hard to prove who you already are in Christ.  Our “work” is to remind ourselves – “Yes, I really am a Christian”  and to show others that “That’s a good thing to be!”.  When we “work hard” to live out our faith, we reap the benefits of the fruit of the Spirit and may just also play a part in God’s claiming more souls for His harvest. 

Our “hard work” to prove we are “among those God has called and chosen”, results in peace, love, and joy as we walk ever closer to being reunited with Jesus.  We can have the assurance of our status as God’s called and chosen by living our faith every day.

So walk that walk of a Christian, not only will it give you peace and empower you to meet your purpose in Christ, it just may be used by God to give you company of more saints that God allows you to usher into His kingdom.

     

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. Tozer’s Advent Devotional – From Heaven,  for Day 13, as this current resource series will lead us to Christmas Eve.

 As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase A.W. Tozer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.

DAY 13

CHRIST—THE CHANNEL OF GRACE

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

JOHN 1:17

The idea that the Old Testament is a book of law and the New Testament a book of grace is based on a completely false theory.

There is certainly as much about grace and mercy and love in the Old Testament as there is in the New. There is more about hell, more about judgment and the fury of God burning with fire upon sinful men in the New Testament than in the Old.

If you want excoriating, flagellating language that skins and blisters and burns, do not go back to Jeremiah and the old prophets—hear the words of Jesus Christ!

Oh, how often do we need to say it: the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. The Father in the Old Testament is the Father in the New Testament.

Furthermore, the Christ who was made flesh to dwell among us is the Christ who walked through all of the pages of the Old Testament.

Was it the law that forgave David when he had committed his great sins? No, it was grace displayed in the Old Testament.

Was it grace that said, “Babylon is fallen, the great harlot is fallen, Babylon is fallen” (paraphrase of Revelation 18:2)? No, it was law expressed in the New Testament.

Surely there is not this great difference and contrast between Old and New Testaments that many seem to assume. God never pits the Father against the Son. He never pits the Old Testament against the New.

The only contrast here is between all that Moses could do and all that Jesus Christ can do. The Law was given by Moses—that was all that Moses could do. Moses was not the channel through which God dispensed His grace.

God chose His only begotten Son as the channel for His grace and truth, for John witnesses that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

All that Moses could do was to command righteousness. In contrast, only Jesus Christ produces righteousness.

All that Moses could do was to forbid us to sin. In contrast, Jesus Christ came to save us from sin.

Moses could not save, but Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior.

Grace came through Jesus Christ before Mary wept in the manger stall in Bethlehem.

It was the grace of God in Christ that saved the human race from extinction when our first parents sinned in the garden.

It was the grace of God in Jesus Christ yet to be born that saved the eight persons when the flood covered the earth.

It was the grace of God in Jesus Christ yet to be born but existing in preincarnation glory that forgave David when he sinned, that forgave Abraham when he lied. It was the grace of God that enabled Abraham to pray God down to ten when He was threatening to destroy Sodom.

God forgave Israel time and time again. It was the grace of God in Christ prior to the incarnation that made God say, “I have risen early in the morning and stretched out my hands unto you!”

The apostle John speaks for all of us also when he writes of the eternal Son and reminds us that we beheld His glory.

Tozer, A. W. (2016). From heaven: a 28-day advent devotional. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.

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

 

Join our “Victory over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” 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. 

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

 

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship