Moving Out and Moving On - 40 Day Journey with Martin
Luther – Day 38 - Purity 1311
Purity 1311 03/28/2024 Purity 1311 Podcast
Purity 1311 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of green grass, a winding path, and a
stand of trees near the shore of what I suspect to be Lake Ontario comes to us
from an unknown FB friend who shared this scene on social media on or around May
23rd, 2021. If this beauty is yours, give us a heads up and we will update
the blog to give you the photo credit you deserve after the fact.
Well, It’s Maundy Thursday, and tonight I will lead
one of the men from the Freedom in Christ Course through the Steps to Freedom
in Christ. While any day is a good day to go through that prayerful repentance
process, I have to admit that choosing the day when we remember the night that
Jesus humbled himself to wash the Apostles’ feet is a good choice as this man
will seek to be washed clean of any spiritual or personal conflicts from his
past that he has been carrying and he will be able to walk into Resurrection
Sunday knowing that he has renounced the lies and defilements of this corrupted
world and fully committed himself to his identity in Christ and following
Jesus.
When we decide to get right with God and choose to
walk in the Spirit with the rest of our lives, the joy of our new life in
Christ is palpable but at the same time, we should also realize that there may
be tough roads to travel ahead because of our decision to walk the way of Jesus. You might think that the decision to “do what’s
right according to God’s word” and to attempt to live a righteous and holy life
would be applauded, but if we look at the life of Jesus, we can see that some
people will hate us for it. If people hated Jesus who was without sin, they will
probably oppose us too – in fact Jesus told us they would. In
John
15:18-19 (NKJV) , where Jesus said:
18 "If
the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
19 If
you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of
the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
When people are living a fleshly or sinful life and don’t have
a relationship with the Lord, our Christian witness can cause people to dislike
us. People don’t like the idea that they aren’t living as they should, and some
will vehemently rebel and oppose any attempts on our part to encourage them to “get
right with God” or even to “do what is right”.
Yesterday, my son decided to move out of my home. He doesn’t
have any visible relationship with God as he stopped going to church when I
left that decision up to him. Recently, he quit his job and has been suffering
from what looked like clinical depression at times but I think it is just a depressed
state because he doesn’t know what to do with his future,
he didn’t prepare himself for it, and his situation demands that he work to support
himself, but he doesn’t want to work.
The answer to his problem is the cause of his problem. Working would
give him the means to support himself and thrive but he doesn’t like it. So he quit. He needs to work but work
depresses him. But the fact that he doesn’t have any money depresses him also.
It’s a really “double bind”. Having to
work bums him out but not working doesn’t solve the problem. In January, he stopped working and I gave him
60 days’ notice to get a job or to move out of my house. I wanted to motivate him
to “do what was right”. But after much
drama and no action, my son decided to move out of the house because I ordered
him to clean up his act by getting a haircut and to get a job. The haircut was the deal breaker. Although my son will periodically cut his hair
cut short because I basically told him to do it, he decided to move out and
move in with his sister. So before the
60 days was up, and even though I was willing to give him another 30 to get a
job, Brennan moved out.
And although I don’t like the way things transpired, I have
peace about Brennan hasn’t living right and he is free to continue to live the
way he chooses but it doesn’t have to be under my roof. He was destined to move out someday and
someday was yesterday. I still love my
son and wish him well and pray he will make good choices, get a job, and
support himself.
We can’t control anyone
and all we can do is try to encourage them to do what we know to be right and
let them make their own decisions. Brennan’s
problems are his problems, and he will have to figure out how to solve them. I
release him to the Lord and the care of his sister.
Well, it’s Lent - the season of letting and letting God and drawing
close to Him and asking him to take our burdens. And speaking of Lent…
It’s the thirty-eighth day of Lent and so we
continue my personal walkthrough of Gracia Grindal’s 40 Day Journey with
Martin Luther to observe and celebrate the Lenten season. In this walkthrough of Grindal’s
devotional, it is our hope that we will
get to know Martin Luther a little better as we seek to draw closer to the Lord
on our journey to Resurrection Sunday – Easter.
And so we continue.
“Journey
Day 38
What
is confession?
Answer:
Confession consists of two parts. One is that we confess our sins. The other is
that we receive the absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the confessor as
from God himself and by no means doubt but firmly believe that our sins are
thereby forgiven before God in heaven.
(As
to Confession) I refer to the practice of confessing to God alone or to our
neighbor alone, asking for forgiveness. These two kinds are included in the
Lord's Prayer when we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
Indeed, the entire Lord's Prayer is nothing else than such a confession. For
what is our prayer but a confession that we neither have nor do what we ought
and a plea for grace and a joyful conscience? This kind of confession should
and must take place continuously as long as we live. For this is the essence of
a genuinely Christian life, to acknowledge that we are sinners and to pray for
grace.
Biblical Wisdom
This
is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light
and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with
him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if
we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we confess
our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a
liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John 1: 5-10.
Silence for Meditation.
Questions to Ponder
· Why
is confession the “essence of a genuinely Christian life”?
Confession is the essence of a genuinely Christian
life because it involves our acknowledging that God’s ways are good and holy,
and we have deviated from His ways and separated ourselves from His presence –
and so we confess to be made right with God and to restore the harmony of our relationship
with Him. We will all invariably make missteps on the path of Christian
discipleship and so we will need to confess our faults and come back to God’s
good graces continually as we attempt to walk with Him.
· Why
do we need to be exhorted and encouraged to confess our sins either to another
or to God alone? What is the role of the church?
We need to be exhorted and encouraged to confess our
sins because the tendency is to hide our shame, guilt, and continue to stay in
our sins. When we confess to God or
other Christians we not only admit that we “did it” we are agreeing that God’s
ways are right and that we will try to walk in them. The church’s role – the body of Christ- is
to encourage us to walk by faith and to make us accountable to do so – to provide
support, instruction, and fellowship to help us to live a Christian life.
· The
reading from 1 John points to our ability to deceive ourselves when it comes to
sin. How does our culture encourage such self-deception? How can we learn to
avoid such self-deception?
Our culture encourages self-deception by either
denying that there is anything wrong with what we are doing or that Jesus’
blood gives us a license to sin. The best way to avoid such self-deception is
to know and live by the truth of God’s word and to make ourselves accountable
to God and a trusted Christian or group of Christians to do so.
Psalm Fragment
Then
I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will
confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm
32:5.
Journal Reflections
· Meditate
on the word “confession”. What feelings does it evoke in you? Do you resist the
idea or embrace it as a positive spiritual practice? Why?
The word confession used to evoke feelings of fear,
guilt, or shame as “confession” in the Catholic church meant going before the
priest and getting “punished” with penance to be clean. It gave one a real
sense of “being in trouble”. But now I know that I can confess my sins and not
be punished. Confession is the means by which
we get right with God and reestablish the harmony of our relationship. So I don’t fear it. I embrace it and keep a
short list of things to confess by doing it on a continual basis. It’s a positive
spiritual practice because it gives me peace.
· Meditate
on the Lord's Prayer and then journal about how this prayer can be used as a
daily experience of confession and forgiveness.
The petition to “forgive us our debts” or sins can
be seen as a confession. God knows what we have done so we don’t necessarily
need to list our transgressions to receive a measure of peace when we sincerely
pray the Lord’s Prayer.
· Meditate
on what it means to “walk in the light”. Have you ever experienced light
breaking over your soul after an experience of confession and forgiveness? If
so, describe the experience and what you learned from it.
Walking in the light means forsaking our sin and living
according to God’s will. I have experienced the joy and peace of God’s light
and I have learned that God’s ways are the best ways to live by, regardless of
the opposition we may face from the world for it.
Prayers for the Life of Faith
Pray
that you will learn to live in daily confession and forgiveness so that you
will be able to walk in the light with Christ.
Lord, I pray that I will continue to live in daily
confession and the forgiveness You give me so that I will increasingly walk in
the light with Christ. So help me God, Amen.
Prayer For Today
Dear Heavenly
Father, forgive me my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me. Teach
me to revel in your grace.
Amen.
(Gracia M. Grindal. 40-day
Journey With Martin Luther. Kindle Edition.
(We encourage you to purchase Grindal’s book and
take the 40 Day Journey with Martin Luther for yourself by purchasing Grindal’s
book wherever books are sold. You can find it online at many different sites
and purchase it new, used – paper or electronic for less than $15.00).
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For
those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide,
I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
Today’s
Bible verses come to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.
(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick
Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late
author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )
This
morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Contentment, Coveting
& and Priorities.
2 Kings 5:19-27 (ESV)
19 He said to him, “Go in
peace.” But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance,
20 Gehazi, the servant of
Elisha the man of God, said, “See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian,
in not accepting from his hand what he brought. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something from
him.”
21 So Gehazi followed
Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the
chariot to meet him and said, “Is all well?”
22 And he said, “All is well.
My master has sent me to say, ‘There have just now come to me from the hill
country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets. Please give them
a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’”
23 And Naaman said, “Be
pleased to accept two talents.” And he urged him and tied up two talents of
silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and laid them on two of his
servants. And they carried them before Gehazi.
24 And when he came to the
hill, he took them from their hand and put them in the house, and he sent the
men away, and they departed.
25 He went in and stood
before his master, and Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And
he said, “Your servant went nowhere.”
26 But he said to him, “Did
not my heart go when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time
to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen,
male servants and female servants?
27 Therefore the leprosy
of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.” So he went out
from his presence a leper, like snow.
Today’s
verses fall under the twenty-second point of our counseling reference guide
resource’s section on Contentment, Coveting, and Priorities.
22. God chastised Gehazi severely for his covetousness.
Today’s
verses teach us that our greed and lying can have far reaching effects that
could curse us and our descendants. While Gehazi’s fate is immediate, we too could
be cursed by carrying the leprosy of covetousness and deceit and suffer from it
all the days of our lives and that in turn could be taught to our children who
pass it on to the next generation.
Having
to look over your shoulder because of the lies you have told or having to
satisfy your greed continually is a burden that will cause us pain and so we should
learn to always be honest and to be content with what we have.
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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 “According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A
Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.
MORNING READING: JOHN 3
“God does not give the Spirit by
measure.” – John 3:34
It is quite obvious that the reference here is to the Lord
Jesus Christ. But nevertheless, this is God's principle – He never gives by
measure. He so loved that He gave His only begotten Son. He did not spare His
Son. If He did not spare, it follows that He does not give by measure. For in
giving His Son, through Him He now freely gives me all things (not by
measure!).
The question of the “measure,” however, is governed by the
life of the believer. Paul speaks of Christians who were not able to receive
the meat of the Word because of carnality. The human vessel can only be filled
in so far as it is emptied. The Lord was “The Empty One” for He emptied Himself
(See Phil. 2). Therefore, the Spirit was given to Him without measure.
Lord, I empty myself entirely that I
may be
filled to overflowing with Your Holy Spirit.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
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at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts
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My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ), her
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“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]
Stephen Olford and Heather Olford, According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament, A Collection of Devotional
Journals 1940-1941 (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2008).