The Lie of Religious Standards and Performance for
Acceptance - Self-Deception Series 14 – Purity 1103
Purity 1103 07/25/2023 Purity 1003 Podcast
Purity 1103 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the setting sun painting the clouds
yellow, orange, purple and pink comes to us from Sammy “Pat” Harris who captured
this scene on Sunday while on vacation in Hilton Head Lakes, SC.
Well, It’s Tuesday and my personal count down for
vacation is down to 4 days. or 3 sleeps as I will consider myself to be in “vacation
mode” as soon as I leave work Friday afternoon.
But to be honest, even though I will be off from work and will be
travelling a bit, not much will change in terms of my routine when it comes to
my walk of faith and my daily spiritual practice. I know the importance of staying in the
presence of the Lord and reminding myself of who I am in Christ and have no
plans on taking a vacation from connecting to my Heavenly Father through my practices
of prayer, Bible Study, meditation, gratitude, and simply walking and literally
talking to God as I go through my day. I
don’t think of these spiritual disciplines as work, as something “I have to do”.
They are the ways that I relate to God, and they are something “I get to do”
and just like I know God never takes a vacation from guiding the course of all
things in time and space, it is my intention to never take a vacation from “walking
in the Spirit” with these practices.
With that said, I feel I simply must point out that
I don’t do these things to feel accepted or approved by God. While they may
remind me of the fact that I am accepted and approved by God, because of my faith
in Christ alone, my choice to practice these spiritual disciplines isn’t about
meeting some religious standard or about being perfect or “performing” for
God.
Our acceptance by God is about faith not performance.
We don’t have to “earn” our way into God’s kingdom or His love. God’s love was demonstrated by Christ on the
cross, and our invitation into His royal family came when we saw the truth of
who Jesus is and how we could be forgiven and accepted by God when we put our
faith in Him. Our “good standing” with
the Lord is a done deal and while we can endeavor to know God more, seek our
purpose in His kingdom, and to become more and more like Jesus in our character,
we don’t have to perform to be accepted.
And that brings us to our current series on Self-
Deception, where we have decided to investigate some of the ways we deceive
ourselves by walking through Step 2, Deception Vs. Truth, of the Steps to
Freedom in Christ to see what ways we may have been deceived by “the world” and
ourselves and in what ways we have wrongly defended ourselves.
So we present the thirteenth “Way You Can Be
Deceived By the World”:
13. Believing that I must measure up to certain
religious standards for God to accept me.
The scripture reference for this point is:
Galatians
3:2-3 (NLT2)
2 Let me ask you this one
question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of
course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard
about Christ.
3 How foolish can you be?
After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to
become perfect by your own human effort?
And
Galatians 5:1 (NLT2)
1 So Christ has truly set us
free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery
to the law.
The reference verses for this point in Galatians point to the fact that Christ set us free, and we received the Holy Spirit because we believed the message we heard about Jesus and made the decision to put our faith and trust in Him as our Lord and Savior. As
Ephesians
2:8-9 (NKJV) tells us
8 For by grace you have been
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should
boast.
We are not saved by works, we are saved by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus. We didn’t earn it so we can’t boast about it. And as the Apostle Paul told the Galatians, we would be “foolish” if we now thought that we could become perfect in our own human effort and got tied up again in the “law”.- by thinking we could or must somehow achieve or maintain our acceptance by “doing it ourselves” through our works.
The performance based system of the world doesn’t apply to God’s grace, it’s a free gift. And once we are in the kingdom of God, though our faith in Jesus, we are told that nothing can separate us from God’s love – we are in God’s family when we put our faith in Jesus, and nothing can snatch us out of His hand.
When we try to “earn our way” into God’s kingdom, we have been deceived and we become vulnerable to Satan’s accusations that we are “not good enough”, “not saved”, “not a Christian” and a whole host of condemning lies that seek to steal our peace and joy of the Lord, destroy our relationship with the Lord and with the body of Christ, and to kill our assurance of our salvation, or us literally, by drawing us into temptation and things that would lead to an untimely death (I know Christians who were tempted, drawn away from what is good, and who literally died when they returned to the dark lifestyles of sin).
So don’t believe
the lie that you have to meet some religious standard or do certain things to
be accepted by God. Instead believe the
truth that because you put your faith in Christ, you have eternal life in God’s
kingdom, forever. And forever starts the
minute you put your faith in Jesus and the abundant life that Jesus has for you
begins the minute you believe it and decide to live according to your new life
in Christ by following Him and His wisdom and ways.
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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 verse comes 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 Affliction, Discipline,
Chastisement, & Trials.
Job 1:1-22 (ESV)
1 There was a man in the
land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who
feared God and turned away from evil.
2 There were born to him
seven sons and three daughters.
3 He possessed 7,000 sheep,
3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants,
so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.
4 His sons used to go and
hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and
invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
5 And when the days of the
feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would
rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of
them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God
in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.
6 Now there was a day when
the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
7 The LORD said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered
the LORD and said, “From going to
and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
8 And the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered
my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and
upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
9 Then Satan answered the
LORD and said, “Does Job fear God
for no reason?
10 Have you not put a hedge
around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed
the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
11 But stretch out your hand
and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.”
12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he
has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan
went out from the presence of the LORD.
13 Now there was a day when
his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s
house,
14 and there came a messenger
to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them,
15 and the Sabeans fell upon
them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and
I alone have escaped to tell you.”
16 While he was yet speaking,
there came another and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up
the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell
you.”
17 While he was yet speaking,
there came another and said, “The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid
on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the
sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
18 While he was yet speaking,
there came another and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking
wine in their oldest brother’s house,
19 and behold, a great wind
came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it
fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell
you.”
20 Then Job arose and tore
his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.
21 And he said, “Naked I came
from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD
has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
22 In all this Job did not
sin or charge God with wrong.
Today’s
verses fall under the second point of our
counseling reference guide resource’s section on Affliction, Discipline,
Chastisement, & Trials
2. “Job, a godly man, was severely tried, he lost his possessions and his children.”
Why do bad things happen to good people? Ask Job, because while there technically are no “good people” because of our sin, our resource highlights verses 1 & 8 above to show that even God considered Job to be “blameless and upright”. While the text doesn’t say that Job was perfect, as his story demonstrates, the Bible does show us that sometimes it is not easy to figure out why we are suffering, suffering can happen to “good people* (upright and blameless,), and there may be unseen forces behind the scenes that can influence our lives.
Job story tells us to endure in our faith, to rightly see that Lord gives and that He can take away, and because of all we have received from God it is always appropriate to worship.
So should we suffer, or I should say when we suffer, we should remember Job and thank God for being with us in our trials and afflictions. As someone who has suffered losses with and without Christ, let me assure you that God is with the broken hearted and when we remember His truth and stay in His presence, the Lord will comfort us and remain with us all the days of our lives, in sickness and health, for better or worse, until death – where we will not part but be immediately welcomed into His eternal glorious kingdom, forever. The Church is the bride of Christ and our covenant with God endures for all time and will give us the strength to endure what needs to be endured until we experience His glory.
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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 The Holy Spirit By A.W. Pink.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for $0.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Arthur-Pink-Collection-ebook/dp/B008CM5292/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AHKAQOM39CTN&keywords=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit&qid=1684376225&sprefix=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit+%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-3)
A.W. Pink’s The Holy Spirit
15 - The Spirit Drawing
The
Natural Man Rejects God
As the Christian now loves God “because he first loved” him (1 John 4:19), so he
sought Christ, because Christ first sought him (Luke 19:10). Before Christ
seeks us, we are well content to lie fast asleep in the Devil’s arms, and
therefore does the Lord say, “I am found of them that sought Me not” (Isa. 65:1). When the Spirit first applies the Word
of Conviction, He finds the souls of all men as the angel found the world in
Zechariah 1:11; “all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest.” What a strange
silence and midnight stillness there is among the unsaved! “There is none that seeketh after God” (Rom.
3:11).
It is because of
failure to perceive the dreadful condition in which the natural man lies, that
difficulty is experienced in seeing the imperative need for the Spirit’s drawing power if he is to be brought out
of it. The natural man is so completely enslaved by sin and enchained by Satan
that he is unable to take the first step toward Christ. He is so bent on having
his own way and so averse to pleasing God, he is so in love with the things of this world and so out of love with
holiness that nothing short of Omnipotence can produce a radical change of heart in him, so that he will come to hate the things he naturally
loved, and love what he previously hated. The Spirit’s “drawing” is the freeing
of the mind, the affections, and the will from the reigning power of depravity;
it is His emancipating of the soul from the dominion of sin and Satan.
Prior to that
deliverance, when the requirements of God are pressed upon the sinner, he in
every case, rejects them. It is not
that he is averse from being saved from Hell—for none desire to go there—but
that he is unwilling to “forsake”
(Prov. 28:13; Isa. 55:7) his idols—the things which hold the first place in his
affections and interests. This is clearly brought out in our Lord’s parable of
“The Great Supper.” When the call went forth, “Come for all things are now
ready,” we are told, “they all with
one consent began to make excuse” (Luke 14:18). The meaning of that term
“excuse” is explained in what immediately follows: they preferred other things;
they were unwilling to deny
themselves; they would not relinquish the competitive objects—the things of
time and sense (“a piece of ground,” “oxen,” “a wife”) were their all-absorbing
concerns.
Had nothing more been
done by “the Servant”—in this parable the Holy Spirit—all had continued to “make excuse” unto the end:
that is, all had gone on cherishing their idols, and turning a deaf ear to the
holy claims of God. But the Servant was commissioned to “bring in hither” (v.
21), yea, to “compel them to come in”
(v. 23). It is a holy compulsion and not physical force which is there in
view—the melting of the hard heart, the wooing and winning of the soul to
Christ, the bestowing of faith, the imparting of a new nature, so that the
hitherto despised One is now desired and sought after: “I drew them with cords of a man (using means and motives suited to a
rational nature) with bands of love”
(Hosea 11:4). And again, God says of His people “with loving-kindness have I drawn thee” (Jer. 31:10).[1]
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My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
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Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
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For those who require the assistance of a Deeper
Walk International Prayer Minister to experience healing or your freedom in
Christ, I highly recommend Christy Edge’s Life on the Edge Freedom Prayer
Ministry. You can schedule a session by going to : https://cedge216.wixsite.com/life-on-the-edge
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
