Alarm Clocks, A Sovereign God, and the Power of
Perspective and Practice- Purity 927
Purity 927 12/29/2022 Purity 927 Podcast
Purity 927 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a headlight illuminated highway pathway
that runs alongside the silhouette of trees, while moving towards a cross like shadow
of a utility pole with the outline of the Castleton on the Hudson Bridge in the
distance, comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene during my
commute home from work back on December 12th. I took a bunch of shots during that drive and
am not really sure of what to do with them. Some are better than others, some
are blurry, but all of them capture the magic of twilight time and each
document another step in the journey of one man’s simple drive home from work
that testifies to the continuous beauty and mystery of our lives.
Well, It’s Thursday and as is my old habit I am
sharing this photo that features a pathway of sorts to encourage all who read
or hear this message to get on our stay on the path of Christian Discipleship:
to discover who you are in Christ, to experience your freedom in Christ, and to
seek the Lord and to pursue the purpose that He has for your life.
However, while I do wholeheartedly make this
recommendation and believe that it’s pursuit is God’s purpose for all of our
lives, I have to warn you that it comes with a cost and it is a path that is
meant to be travelled continuously, meaning that it is a path that you must
choose for yourself, because of the cost, but it is a path that once chosen
should not be forsaken. Verses like
Hebrews
6:4-8 (NKJV) indicate that we may not be able to come back to faith if we walk
away, the text says
4 For it is impossible
for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and
have become partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5 and have tasted the good
word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6 if they fall away, to renew
them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of
God, and put Him to an open shame.
7 For the earth which drinks
in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom
it is cultivated, receives blessing from God;
8 but if it bears thorns and
briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to
be burned.
This
parallels the “sowing of the seed parable” where Jesus in explaining the parable
to His disciples indicates that some receive the word but “become unfruitful”:
In
Matthew 13:20-22 (NKJV), Jesus says:
20 But
he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and
immediately receives it with joy;
21 yet
he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation
or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles.
22 Now
he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares
of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes
unfruitful.
So does our “falling away” of “stumbling”, lead to destruction
or just an unfruitful testimony? Christ’s
teachings even warn us about maintaining our freedom and victory over the
spiritual forces of darkness. Describing
a unclean spirit that has been cast out, Christ taught:
In
Matthew 12:43-45 (NKJV) that
43 "When
an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest,
and finds none.
44 Then
he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he
finds it empty, swept, and put in order.
45 Then
he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and
they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than
the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation."
When I taught at
and later led Celebrate Freedom, a Christian recovery ministry, I would use these
verses to warn about “giving into the demons of temptation” and falling into
relapse and sin, and pointed to the fact that addicts often fall lower or harder,
and sometimes into an early death, when they try to recover and then relapse. The state of a person who once decided to
walk with God but then for whatever reason decides to not follow or not believe
in the Lord always seems to be worse. Instead of “finding their freedom again”,
when people walk away from God they often go further into their former darkness,
bondage, or hopelessness and sometimes with immediate tragic results.
Ask me how I know…
Well, I have seen it time and time again in others as
my progressive walk of discipleship has seen many traveling companions come to
a certain point where they decided to abandon their faith walk for other
worldly pursuits, to remain in their spiritual infancy, or to go running back
to their sin, or just to walk away without ceremony. I never thought I would
get “ghosted” by someone who was supposedly walking in the Spirit but it happens.
Some of these “ghosts” actually go into eternity as
victims of their poor choices and others remain a mystery. In some cases, I honestly don’t know if these
people who I had seen experience a measure of freedom or victory in their lives
have gone on to enjoy it or if they doubted and went back to their lives of quiet
desperation of depression and addiction or were revisited by their demonic “friends
in low places” and are currently afflicted with condemnation and oppression.
This is why Christ emphasized obedience and endurance
to His disciples. The Apostle Paul doesn’t
encourage the church to seek out their salvation with fear and trembling or
warn us to put on the full armor of God because we are safe. Our faith will be
tested and only those who endure and decide to follow the Lord in Spirit and in
truth on a continual basis will have the assurance that they will be “in that
number, when the saints go marching in” to God’s kingdom.
Our faith is to be practiced as well as preached and
it is a journey of constant adjustments as the Lord will continually reveal to
us the errors of our ways and the things that He would have us do. It is a journey of both correction and
accomplishment. The Lord has things for us to fix and He has things for us to
build.
When we seek the Lord and His will for our lives,
our personal lives change and the direction we follow takes us ever towards Him
and His purpose for our lives.
Of course we don’t do this perfectly, and that’s
okay, when we put our faith in Jesus, we have already been forgiven of
everything we will ever do and are accepted into God’s kingdom. Our journey is not about perfection, it’s
about being faithful to the calling and about learning from our mistakes, it’s
about experiencing peace and joy while we make progress.
This morning I awoke from a “work anxiety”
dream. Although I am on vacation until January
4th, I was back at work early this morning in my dreams. Nothing horrific
mind you, but the dream of me at work was anxious because I was given a task
that I wasn’t going to complete and would have to refer to someone else, but in
the dream I desperately “wanted to do a good job” and I was struggling with the
fact that I wasn’t going to “get ‘er done”.
Even after I woke up from the dream, I was considering other possible
solutions to the problem at hand, that didn’t exist.
After putting the brakes on my thoughts of problem solving,
I wondered just how long it would be before my alarm would go off. You know how
this is right?
Quite often I awaken anywhere from 30 to 15 minutes
before the alarm goes off and spend that time trying get those last few minutes
of sleep, with or without success. But
this morning, I got the feeling that something was wrong and rather than trying
to go back to sleep I checked my phone/alarm clock to discover I never set the
alarm and was 2 hours past when I normally would get up.
So all my plans for my normal morning routine have
been altered. I had plans to work out
before Bible study, prayer, and blogging and was upset for a few moments before
I “practiced” my faith.
Just like a karate expert who knows how to defend
himself from enemy attacks, I went into action by combatting the reactivity and
beginnings of condemnation with a one two punch of the truth.
I am on vacation, I can do whatever I want, in the
order I want, any time today.
I can work out later. I can take a “rest day”.
As for my spiritual practices, they are somewhat
non-negotiable but because I am not a perfect person who has made similar
mistakes in the past or been distracted and not managed my time wisely at all
times, I knew that it wasn’t the end of the world and I would do what I could,
because I know from my previous experiences at being less than perfect that “we
can only do what we can do”.
So although I felt the urgency to start blogging, I decided
that my Bible Study had to come first.
There is nothing like the word of God to cool your jets and to make you
realize what is important. When you read
the word, you can rest assured that no matter what else transpires that day, at
least you did something of value and usually it will help us to remind us that
as compelling as this world and our problems can be there is a Sovereign God
above it all who has called us to be at peace with Him and He knows how everything
will turn out.
So was my forgetting to set my alarm on my phone God’s
will?
Well, it happened, so if nothing else it was “allowed”
and who knows maybe it was intended to disrupt my regular routine… maybe He
wanted to get my attention, maybe He wanted to remind me that I am not perfect,
that I am weak while He is strong… or
maybe this was just a lesson to myself to be diligent to set the alarm!
Well, I’m not sure about that stuff but as I “practiced”
shifting my perspective and prioritizing my tasks I experienced the peace that
comes from knowing that I am already accepted by God, I am positively blessed
with where I am right now in life, I have an incredible past to marvel over,
and I anticipate more of God’s wonder sand love in the days ahead.
My morning Bible study was in Jerimiah 5 and 2 Kings
22 which just so happen to teach about harsh warnings to follow the Lord and
rediscovering faith. They taught that there are negative consequences for those
who don’t follow the Lord and that, for some, it is not too late to rediscover
the word of God and to be blessed by the Lord when we answer His call to repentance.
It's the end of the year, and I noticed once again,
(has it always been this way?), the messages of mourning the “very bad” year we
have had and other messages that are welcoming 2023 with fear, suspicion, and trepidation.
I have seen friends suffer loss this year so I get
it, some of us are hurting and I suppose it is “compassionate” to share these
well intentioned messages of doom and fear, but honestly because I have learned
to walk in the Spirit and have learned to keep things in perspective, it positively
puzzles me why the basic practices of gratitude and shifting our perspective to
consider the plights of those even worse off than “lil’ of me” haven’t been
widely disseminated to the masses.
But then I remember, why the prophets of old, like
Jerimiah, had to speak of impending judgement. People don’t believe in the
Lord. People don’t follow the Lord. They don’t know if there is anything to
believe in and they don’t know if there is anything beyond the circumstances of
their immediate lives. And they
certainly don’t know about the mental, physical, and spiritual consequences for
their decision to live independently form God.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and if
we disregard what His word says and fail to believe and follow Him our lives
will be a progression or tragedy and woe as we age and continue to lose the things
of this world that passing away as we march ever closer to eternity. Without an eternal perspective, we will
lament over every bump in the road or negative circumstance that we suffer
because we have chosen to worship our personal happiness and the things that we
can manipulate to produce it.
So forgive me for seeming harsh and suggesting that
people “get over it” when I see these well intentioned but sorry laments over
the “very bad year it has been”.
From someone who has been through the crucible of a
life lived in the errors of atheism, addiction, false worship, and sexual
immorality and who has suffered the pain of loss of loved ones to death and
from broken relationships and who has seen the national tragedies of 9/11 and
the recent paradigm shifting world changing waves of a global pandemic, I don’t see how 2022 was a particularly bad
year.
Of course, I understand the personal tragedies I
have suffered didn’t fall within the last 365 days, but I would continue to
object to any messages that would encourage people to focus on the pain of the
year past and actuallyfear the new year, instead of a giving a message of hope
that is based on the reality of God, His Creation, and His plan for humanity
and that encourages us to consider others more than ourselves and to thank the
Lord for all that He has done, even in the storms of life, and all that He will
do in the future.
Without God, life is a bitter shame. So if you have
suffered and have had a bad year, let me encourage you to make Christ your Lord
and Savior, or to recommit yourself to Him,
and make the decision to never walk alone again, to make to make the decision
to keep on walking and talking with God, forever and always.
There might be a cost for the new life in Christ but
the dividends for investing yourself into His kingdom are the peace that goes
beyond all understanding and joy that comes from knowing you are accepted, secure,
and significant with God.
---------------------------------------------------
Well, I’m short on
time this morning because I overslept so I’m taking a vacation from sharing the
“Bible Verse of the Day from the “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”, or from the “Quick Scripture Reference for
Counseling” By John G. Krus but I do encourage you to read the Bible every day,
for yourself.
I am including a link to Ligonier Ministries:
“Bible Reading Plans for 2023” ( https://www.ligonier.org/posts/bible-reading-plans?fbclid=IwAR0aVs0a31ebdwexS1-N9i-dwV5v45fVTH5zoKCHsnmCPJnDks9fY9AjWsQ) as
an encouragement to read the word this year - to have a plan, if you need one,
to draw close to God through His word to experience the power that He wants to
unleash into your life.
___________________________________________
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.
The
Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship
Chapter
Thirteen
The
Image of Christ, concludes
The form of Christ on
earth is the form of the death [Todesgestalt] of the crucified
one. The image of God is the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is into
this image that the disciple’s life must be transformed. It is a life in the
image and likeness of Christ’s death (Phil. 3:10; Rom. 6:4f.). It is a
crucified life (Gal. 2:19). In baptism Christ engraves the form of death on his
own. Having died to the flesh and to sin, Christians are now dead to this
world, and the world is dead for them (Gal. 6:14). Those who live out of their
baptism live out of their death. Christ marks the life of his own with their
daily dying in the struggle of the spirit against the flesh, and with their
daily suffering the pains of death which the devil inflicts on Christians. It
is the suffering of none other than Jesus Christ that all of his disciples on
earth have to endure. Christ honors only a few of his followers with being in
the most intimate community with his suffering, that is, with martyrdom. It is
here that the life of the disciple is most profoundly identical with the
likeness of Jesus Christ’s form of death.
¶ It is by
Christians’ being publicly disgraced, having to suffer and being put to death
for the sake of Christ, that Christ himself attains visible form within his
community. However, from baptism all the way to martyrdom, it is the same
suffering and the same death. It is the new creation of the image of God
through the crucified one.
All those who remain
in community with the incarnate and crucified one and in whom he gained his
form will also become like the glorified
and risen one. “We will bear the image of the heavenly human being” (1 Cor.
15:49). “We will be like him, for we will behold him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
The image of the risen one will transform those who look at it in the same way
as the image of the crucified one. Those who behold Christ are being drawn into
Christ’s image, changed into the likeness of Christ’s form. Indeed, they become
mirrors of the divine image. Already on this earth we will reflect the glory of
Jesus Christ. The brilliant light and the life of the risen one will already
shine forth from the form of death of the crucified one in which we live, in
the form of sorrow and cross. The transformation into the divine image will
become ever more profound, and the image of Christ in us will continue to
increase in clarity. This is a progression in us from one level of
understanding to another and from one degree of clarity to another, toward an
ever-increasing perfection in the form of likeness to the image of the Son of
God. “And all of us, who with unveiled faces let the glory of the Lord be
reflected in us, are thereby transformed into his image from glory to glory” (2
Cor. 3:18).
This is the
indwelling of Jesus Christ in our hearts. The life of Jesus Christ here on
earth has not yet concluded. Christ continues to live it in the lives of his
followers. To describe this reality we must not speak about our Christian life
but about the true life of Jesus Christ in us. “It is no longer I who live, but
it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). The incarnate, crucified, and
transfigured one has entered into me and lives my life. “Christ is my life”
(Phil. 1:21). But together with Christ, the Father also dwells in me; and both
Father and Son dwell in me through the Holy Spirit. It is indeed the holy
Trinity who dwells within Christians, who permeates them and changes them into
the very image of the triune God. The incarnate, the crucified, and the
transfigured Christ takes on form in individuals because they are members of
his body, the church. The church bears the incarnate, crucified, and risen form
of Jesus Christ. The church is, first of all, Christ’s image (Eph. 4:24; Col.
3:10), and through the church so too are all its members the image of Christ.
Within the body of Christ we have become “like Christ.”
It now becomes
understandable that the New Testament calls us again and again to be “like
Christ” (καθὼς Χριστός). We are to be like Christ because we have
already been shaped into the image of Christ. Only because we bear Christ’s
image already can Christ be the “example” whom we follow. Only because he
himself already lives his true life in us can we “walk just as he walked” (1
John 2:6), “act as he acted” (John 13:15), “love as he loved” (Eph. 5:2; John
13:34; 15:12), “forgive as he forgave” (Col. 3:13), “have the same mind that
was in Jesus Christ” (Phil. 2:5), follow the example he left for us (1 Peter
2:21), and lose our lives for the sake of our brothers and sisters, just as he
lost his life for our sake (1 John 3:16). Only because he was as we are can we
be as he was. Only because we already
are made like him can we be “like Christ.” Since we have been formed in the
image of Christ, we can live following his example. On this basis, we are now
actually able to do those deeds, and in the simplicity of discipleship, to live
life in the likeness of Christ. Here simple obedience to the word takes place.
I no longer cast even a single glance on my own life, on the new image I bear.
For in the same moment that I would desire to see it, I would lose it. For it
is, of course, merely the mirror reflection of the image of Jesus Christ upon
which I look without ceasing. The followers look only to the one whom they
follow. But now the final word about those who as disciples bear the image of
the incarnate, crucified, and risen Jesus Christ, and who have been transformed
into the image of God, is that they are called to be “imitators of God.” The
follower [Nachfolger] of Jesus is the imitator [Nachahmer] of God. “Therefore
be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph. 5:1).[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
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These teachings are also available on the
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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
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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]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,
ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 285–288.
