“Willing to Become Willing” -
Purity 847
Purity 847 09/27/2022 Purity 847 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo a roaring fire, neatly contained, in
front of a lake that is perfectly reflecting the nearby shore and the heavens
above, comes to us from a friend who share view of their “perfect night on the
lake” on social media back on August 13th. My friend lives in Greene County but as for
the location of this lake your guess is as good as mine as my friend didn’t
feel moved to share that information, perhaps with the motivation to keep the
contentment they had found to themselves.
Well it’s Tuesday, and while we should be wise and
discerning in our choices of what information we will share, with whom, as someone
who encourages others to experience their freedom in Christ, I am somewhat
dumbfounded when I encounter others in the body of Christ who decide to not
only choose to keep their information guarded from me, I get that, but who also
seem to be hesitant to trust the Lord or themselves with the shadows of their
pasts.
This past weekend my pastor concluded his series on “emotional
hygiene” – I am sharing the link to it on the Ask, Seek, Knock Facebook Group today, (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098/permalink/678020323218516/)
by addressing guilt and shame and how our faith in Christ and our relationship
with God resolves these issues for good.
At the end of the message, Pastor Roscoe Lily invited people to come up
and lay down whatever guilt and shame that people may have been carrying by
humbling themselves before the Lord in prayer.
It may not be surprising that only a few from the
rather large crowd went forward, which could indicate that we have a healthy
church filled with people that have repented of their sins successfully and already
resolved any issues with guilt and shame or it could indicate that people with
secret sins and who have guilt and shame preferred to remain in the shadows of
our darkly lit worship center because they didn’t trust the Lord to help them
and they didn’t want to step forward and expose their silent struggle in front
of the entire church.
I have only been going to Starpoint Church for less
than a year in person and while the people I have met who serve in the church
seem very friendly and the leadership seems solid in their Christian doctrine,
I know that as in every church, some of the attendees may not be living out
their faith to the point that they have victory over the sins that have plagued
them and may live like most of their neighbors who are not ashamed of their
complete lack of faith or who only grace a church with their presence at
Christmas or Easter. So when you don’t
see people go up for prayer it is not surprising, most people want to keep
their problems to themselves and certainly don’t want to make a “spectacle of
themselves” in public.
But I love the fact that my church gave people the
opportunity to do it and it is my hope that the message touched people’s hearts
so that they made peace with God and laid down their guilt and shame even if
they didn’t leave their seats.
One thing I learned when I went through, and then
taught at and led, the Christian Recovery program, Celebrate Freedom, in my former
church is that we are only as sick as our secrets and that our victory over sin
is not about will power, it’s about our willingness to trust the Lord to help
us and to follow Him.
My new pastor gave his congregation the opportunity
to trust the Lord and I know that when we are open and willing before our God
amazing things can happen, things like freedom, victory, and transformation. But those things all come from surrendering
to God.
I mean how can you “Let Go and Let God” if you “won’t
go there” when it comes to things in your past.
How can you say “I don’t have to do that” or “I don’t want to do that” when
you receive an opportunity to take a step of faith that could lead to the life
of peace, joy, and love that you always wanted?
But I get it.
This world teaches us to hide our pain and to not trust anyone. So I’m not going to push you out of the shadows
but I would encourage you to pray to the Lord to become “willing to become
wiling” to trust Him with your guilt, to trust Him with your pain, to trust Him
with your shame, and to provide you with His healing, freedom, and
victory.
So, don’t sweat it, after my LONG walk of faith, I
understand when you feel you are not ready to “go there” but after all I have
been through I know that I wish I had started trusting the Lord sooner and had
not been so stubborn to be willing to follow Him.
However, I will encourage you to keep walking and
talking with God because if you do that I know that He will guide you in the
way you should go and some day you will decide for yourself to “go there” with
the Lord and become willing to receive all that He has for you.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm 146:8 (NLT2)
8 The LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are weighed
down. The LORD loves the godly.
Today’s Bible verse assures us that
the Lord will open the eyes of the blind, will lift us up when we are weighed
down and that He loves the godly.
The word of God is true and this
verse should encourage us to live a godly life and to trust the Lord to lift us
up and to open our eyes to the things we do not yet see.
The Lord is alive and blesses those
who follow Him in all kinds of ways. Trust Him and Follow Him.
_____________________________________________
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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
“Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”
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.
Chapter Four
Discipleship
and the Cross
“Then he began to teach them that the Son
of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief
priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He
said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get
behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on
human things.’
¶ “He called the
crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my
followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For
those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life
for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it
profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can
they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words
in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be
ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels’ ”
(Mark 8:31–38).
The call to
discipleship is connected here with the proclamation of Jesus’ suffering. Jesus
Christ has to suffer and be rejected. God’s promise requires this, so that
scripture may be fulfilled. Suffering and being rejected are not the same. Even
in his suffering Jesus could have been the celebrated Christ. Indeed, the
entire compassion and admiration of the world could focus on the suffering.
Looked upon as something tragic, the suffering could in itself convey its own
value, its own honor and dignity. But Jesus is the Christ who was rejected in
his suffering. Rejection removed all dignity and honor from his suffering. It
had to be dishonorable suffering. Suffering and rejection express in summary
form the cross of Jesus. Death on the cross means to suffer and die as one
rejected and cast out. It was by divine necessity that Jesus had to suffer and
be rejected. Any attempt to hinder what is necessary is satanic. Even, or
especially, if such an attempt comes from the circle of disciples, because it
intends to prevent Christ from being Christ. The fact that it is Peter, the
rock of the church, who makes himself guilty doing this just after he has
confessed Jesus to be the Christ and has been commissioned by Christ, shows
that from its very beginning the church has taken offense at the suffering
Christ. It does not want that kind of Lord, and as Christ’s church it does not
want to be forced to accept the law of suffering from its Lord. Peter’s
objection is his aversion to submit himself to suffering. That is a way for
Satan to enter the church. Satan is trying to pull the church away from the
cross of its Lord.[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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Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,
ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 84–85.