Going Nowhere without God – Wisdom from Dr. Neil Anderson
- Purity 1239
Purity 1239 01/04/2024 Purity 1239 Podcast
Purity 1239 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a driveway’s pathway and view of a
calm partially frozen pond and the barely visible snow-capped peaks of
mountains in the distance comes to us from yours truly as I decided to capture
this scene before taking one last look and walk around the grounds of my Adirondack
retreat on New Year’s Day.
Well, it’s Thursday and although this photo may be
lacking a bit on majestic beauty don’t let it fool you, sometimes our photos don’t
do justice in reflecting the beauty that we can encounter on even gray overcast
days. There can be beauty in silence and
stillness and sometimes the “big picture” of things near and far and how they all
display the wonder of God’s creation can’t be captured on film, or whatever you
call digital phone photography. Sometimes
you have to be there, go there, or live it to know a place and the beauty it
holds.
Likewise, on the path of Christian Discipleship –
the beauty of one’s relationship with God and the joy of discovering the joys
of living in harmony with His wisdom for our lives is only known by doing it. Similarly,
knowing what the Bible says intellectually or factually is a whole lot
different from knowing it experientially, when the Holy Spirit reveals to you
the depth of it wisdom in revelatory moments of eureka or when you put its
wisdom to the test by actually doing what it says and experiencing the results
for yourself. I can tell you to read the
Bible, but I can’t read it for you. I
can even quote what the Bible says but just like a photograph may fail to
convey the experience of beauty, I may not be able to transfer to you just how
much a certain passage of scripture changed my understanding or impacted my
heart.
Often when people put their faith in Jesus, they decide
that they will now “work on” changing their lives. Each new year droves of people will speak an
intention to change in some way, but more often than not, they don’t end up “keeping
the change” because their hearts or minds weren’t changed at a fundamental
level – they didn’t “faith” in their new life – and they went back to what they
“really believed”. They pridefully
thought they could change in their own strength, but their strength gave out or
they gave into the flesh that said the new life was too hard or that it wasn’t what
they really wanted.
That’s why we have to go to God to be transformed
and we have to form that deep personal attachment to Him, because faith is not
just about “doing everything right” by following rules. Our faith is in God,
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and their “Way”.
Our faith is to be a relationship where we recognize that God loves us,
cares about us, and tells us the things He does to help us. God doesn’t tell us to obey His word to “correct
us” in a traditional sense, He gives us His word because He loves us and knows
that if we follow Him we will discover our best lives, but that comes not by
our will power, but by believing in Him, trusting Him, and experiencing the joy
of discovering just how true and good His teachings are. God doesn’t want us to be self-sufficient,
He wants us to depend on Him.
I am currently re-reading Dr. Neil Anderson’s
Discipling Counseling, and I have to share the following passage that deals
with our pride and what it, the world, and the devil say about change and how those
contrasts with what God says. Anderson writes:
“After Jesus fed the 5,000, He sent the disciples
across the Sea of Galilee while He went up to the mountain to pray. In the
middle of the sea, the disciples encountered a storm: “Seeing them straining at
the oars, … He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by
them” (Mark 6:48).
I believe the Lord intends to pass by the
self-sufficient.
Go ahead and row against the storms of life. He will
let you row until your arms fall off, but those who call upon the name of the
Lord will be saved.
The only answer the world has for those who are
caught in the storms of life is “Row harder, or give in to the pressure and
learn to live at sea!”
The devil says, “You can do it by yourself; but if
you need a little extra power, I can arrange that for a small price.”
Pride says, “I think I can get out of this by
myself. All it requires is a lot of hard work, human ingenuity and maybe a
little luck.”
God says, “I won’t interfere with your plans. If you
want to try to save yourself, solve your own problems or meet your own needs,
you have My permission.
But you won’t be able to because in the final
analysis, you absolutely need Me, and you necessarily need each other.”
Fallen humanity is on a sinking ship that is going
nowhere without God.” (Anderson, Dr. Neil T.. Discipleship Counseling (p. 295).
Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)
So stop working so hard, we are going nowhere without
God. We can’t save ourselves so why would we think we could change ourselves in
any worthwhile way, without Him. You can
be the most physically fit, intellectually smart, kind and caring person you
want to be, – but without God -, all
your accomplishments go to nothing, and your pride will send you straight to
hell. We need God, period. He determines our destiny, here on earth and
in heaven. So ask Him to save you and to help you to change. He is good and
faithful to do both when you keep on walking and talking with Him.
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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 Comfort.
John 10:14-15 (ESV)
14 I
am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
15 just
as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the
sheep.
Today’s verses are the second
of three passages of scripture that fall under the 10th point of our counseling
reference guide resource’s section on Comfort.
10. Jesus, the good shepherd, died for his sheep; he knows, leads, and protects each one; he gives us eternal security.
Today’s verses remind us that God – Jesus – the Good Shepherd KNOWS US and if we are really His we know Him. God is all-knowing – He created everything and moves things forward through time and space according to His sovereign will. So He knows when we were born and when we will die. He knows our thoughts and our heart’s intentions. He knows who has trusted in Jesus and who will be saved and spend eternity in His kingdom.
But this passage also says that His own know Him too. If you truly know God, you love Him and you seek to know Him more. Christ says those who love Him obey His commandments – so they know what the word of God says, and they respect the author of scripture enough to value what it says and to apply it to their lives.
So be encouraged that The
Lord knows you, cares about you, and loves you but be inspired to show Him that
you know Him and love Him too by reflecting His light and love with the way you
live.
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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 are sharing from “God is in the Manger-
Reflections on Advent and Christmas” – By Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.
God is in the Manger – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS AND EPIPHANY
JANUARY
4
For
Everything There Is a Season
For those who find and give thanks to God in
their earthly fortune, God will give them times in which to remember that all
things on earth are only temporary, and that it is good to set one’s heart on
eternity.… All things have their time, and the main thing is to stay in step
with God and not always be hurrying a few steps ahead or falling behind. To
want everything all at once is to be overanxious. “For everything there is a
season … to weep, and … to laugh; … to embrace, and … to refrain from
embracing; … to tear, and … to sew …” (Eccl. 3:1a, 4a, 5b, 7a), “and God seeks
out what has gone by” (3:15b). Yet this last part must mean that nothing past
is lost, that with us God again seeks out the past that belongs to us. So when
the longing for something past overtakes us—and this happens at completely
unpredictable times—then we can know that this is only one of the many “times”
that God makes available to us. And then we should not proceed on our own but
seek out the past once again with God.
Dear Mother, I want you to know that I am
constantly thinking of you and Father every day, and that I thank God for all
that you are to me and the whole family. I know you’ve always lived for us and
haven’t lived a life of your own.… Thank you for all the love that has come to
me in my cell from you during the past year, and has made every day easier for
me. I think these hard years have brought us closer together than ever we were
before. My wish for you and Father and Maria and for us all is that the New Year
may bring us at least an occasional glimmer of light, and that we may once more
have the opportunity of being together. May God keep you both well.
Birthday letter to Bonhoeffer’s mother
from prison, December 28, 1944
For everything there is a season, and a time for
every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is
planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather
stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from
embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1–8[1]
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Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”,
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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]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the
Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, ed. Jana Riess,
trans. O. C. Dean Jr., First edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2010), 86–87.
