Joy and Peace in the Great-in-Between - Purity 889
Purity 889 11/15/2022 Purity 889 Podcast
Purity 889 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a pair of trees under a blazing
late afternoon sun on the shores of the Niagara River comes to us from yours
truly as I made a point of stopping at Fort Schlosser, or the “Upper Niagara
Intake Observation Area” while departing Niagara Falls NY back on Thursday.
Well, there are two trees in this photo, so I guess
that makes it a natural selection to represent the second day of our work week,
Two for Tuesday? Anyway, I have been to Niagara Falls on a few other occasions in
the past but have never stopped at “Fort Schlosser” and so I made a point to do
so as the last stop, well almost, it should have been the last stop, before
going to my hostel accommodations in Buffalo.
I can understand why I never stopped at For Schlosser
before. After the grandeur of Niagara Falls, the Upper Niagara Intake
Observation Area can be a little underwhelming but in truth it is a beautiful
site, with wide open spaces to picnic and a long trail that runs parallel to
the Niagara Scenic Parkway along the Niagara River that if followed to the West
would lead you to the Falls, about 3 miles away, and if followed to the east
would lead you beneath the North Grand Island Bridge to Lasalle Riverfront Park,
two miles away. So Fort Schlosser may not seem like much to look at when you’re
driving past it after visiting the Falls, but it could be the starting point
for a great day of walking along the Niagara River.
And I guess depending on where you are in your walk
with the Lord, Fort Schlosser could represent where we find ourselves today, in
the “Great-in-Between”, between our pasts and the things waiting for us in the
future that could be many miles or even years away.
One destination in all of our future is Thanksgiving
and Christmas and New Years beyond. While
we may be looking ahead at those times
with joyful expectation or anxiety and dread, the important thing to remember
about our walk through life and specifically on the path of Christian discipleship
is to enjoy the present. Sure Fort Schlosser
may not be Niagara Falls, but its pretty nice there all the same and we shouldn’t
not appreciate it because we either have left the Falls behind or are looking
forward to the Falls in our future.
The enemy seeks to steal our peace by telling us two
equal and opposite lies.
1. Things were better in the past.
2. Things are better in the future.
Like any good lie, there is always a grain of truth
in them if the enemy is going to be successful in deceiving us.
Sure there were good things in our pasts, but there we
shouldn’t fall in the trap of living there because our nostalgic vision that
only highlights the positive or dwells on the pain, paints a picture that is
distorted, one way or the other. While
we could and should appreciate our pasts, for the bad and the good, we should
never let it disrupt the peace and joy that we can have today.
Likewise, we might be in some real present struggles
currently or we may have some really good things that are beyond the horizon in
our futures. But if we are focused on
the future so much that we are hating the gift of our present, the enemy has
won again.
So as we enter into the second day of the week,
submit to God and give Him thanks for the day He has made, today, and resist the devil who would like to
convince you that peace and joy exist only in our pasts or are far away in the
distant future.
Also, the enemy also likes to point out the things
we supposedly “lack”. He can do this
with a one-two punch.
He can stir pleasant thoughts and desire for things
that are good, tempting us with circumstantial happiness, with even positive
desires for family gatherings or doing acts of service to the Lord or kindness
to others.
But then after the enemy tempts you with “things
that would be nice”, he slams you with the facts of your current situation that
may make those things difficult to obtain.
Thus we are drawn into depression about the thing “we can’t do” and
discontentment with the way things are.
But the truth is, generally, that right now isn’t so
bad, in fact things may actually be better than how they were, but in pointing
out nice desires that we may not be able to do right now, our present becomes something
we don’t appreciate.
The kicker is usually these desires the enemy
presents also distract us from the problems we should be focused on
resolving. So we end up fantasizing
about “what if” rather than addressing the problems left on the back burner of
our lives. Instead of focusing on the “nice
things” we wish we had, we would be better served to develop a plan to address
the things that have been ignored that if resolved would increase our freedom
and peace.
So obviously, as we walk through this life we have
to be aware our current situations and appreciate where we are and rather than
fantasize and be disappointed about the things we “can’t have” now we should
instead find the joy and the peace that is available to us right here, and right
now, and we should not ignore the things that surround us that we could
resolve.
When we walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit will
lead us into all truth and the truth is there are good things in your life
right now that you can appreciate and have peace and joy about. There is also work to do to resolve past
problems that are still a part of your present and to prepare us for the future
that is always one day closer.
However, if we keep walking and talking with God, we
will know that we are never alone as we walk from here to there and we have Him
to help us and guide us in the way we should go.
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Romans
10:9 (NLT2)
9 If you confess with your
mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved.
Today’s
verse reminds us of all it is that we
must do in order to be saved.
We
must confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the
dead. That’s it.
But
as simple as that may sound, to just believe that!, the whole counsel of God
would cause us to understand that confessing Jesus as our Lord and Savior means
a lot.
The
implication of anyone being your lord is that you answer to them, and you obey
them. You follow their instructions and
call on your life.
And
so the great news is that we are saved by faith alone, however I would never
seek to mislead anyone into putting their faith in Christ is just a matter of “easy-believe-ism”.
Christ
warned His disciples that the world would hate them and that they would be
persecuted because of their faith in Him.
While
salvation is a free gift of grace from God, there is a cost of discipleship –
our very lives. God gives us eternal life through Christ and thus we are said
to die with Christ and are raised to new life with Him in His resurrection. Our
old self is dead, and our purpose is to discover and live our new life in
Christ.
We
are saved from God’s wrath and saved to become a part of His kingdom and to
represent Him by the way we live.
So
rejoice over your salvation, but never take it lightly or lead people to believe
that being a Christian is as simple as the faith it takes to become one.
___________________________________________
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
Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 7
The
Community of Disciples Is Set Apart
The
Disciple and the Unbelievers
“Do not judge, so that you may not be
judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you
give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s
eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your
neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own
eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
¶ “Do not give what
is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will
trample them under foot and turn and maul you.
¶ “Ask, and it will
be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for
you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for
everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if
your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish,
will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to
those who ask him! In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;
for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt. 7:1–12).
There is an essential
connection that leads from chapters 5 and 6 to these verses and then to the
great conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. The fifth chapter spoke of the
extraordinariness of discipleship (περισσόν), while the sixth
chapter spoke of the disciples’ hidden, simple righteousness (ὰπλο͂υζ).
In both aspects the disciples were separated from the community to which they
had previously belonged and bound solely to Jesus. The boundary became clearly
visible. This raises the question of the relationship between disciples and the
people around them. Did their being set apart give them special rights of their
own? Did they receive special powers, measuring standards, or talents, which
enabled them to assume a special authority toward others? This would have been
most likely if Jesus’ disciples had now separated themselves from their
environment by sharp, divisive judgments. People could even have come to think
that it was Jesus’ will that such divisive and condemnatory judgments were to
be made in the disciples’ daily dealings with others. Thus Jesus must make
clear that such misunderstandings seriously endanger discipleship. Disciples
are not to judge. If they do judge, then they themselves fall under God’s
judgment. They themselves will perish by the sword with which they judge
others. The gap which divides them from others, as the just from the unjust,
even divides them from Jesus.
Why is that so?
Disciples live completely out of the bond connecting them with Jesus Christ.
Their righteousness depends only on that bond and never apart from it.
Therefore, it can never become a standard which the disciples would own and
might use in any way they please. What makes them disciples is not a new
standard for their lives, but Jesus Christ alone, the mediator and Son of God
himself. The disciples’ own righteousness is thus hidden from them in their
communion with Jesus. They can no longer see, observe, and judge themselves;
they only see Jesus and are seen, judged, and justified by grace by Jesus
alone. No measuring standard for a righteous life stands between the disciples
and other people; but once again, only Jesus Christ himself stands in their
midst. The disciples view other people only as those to whom Jesus comes. They
encounter other people only because they approach them together with Jesus.
Jesus goes ahead of them to other people, and the disciples follow him. Thus an
encounter between a disciple and another person is never just a freely chosen
encounter between two people, confronting each other’s views, standards, and
judgments immediately. Disciples can encounter other people only as those to
whom Jesus himself comes. Jesus’ struggle for the other person, his call, his
love, his grace, his judgment are all that matters. Thus the disciples do not
stand in a position from which the other person is attacked. Instead, in the
truthfulness of Jesus’ love they approach the other person with an
unconditional offer of community.[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
(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available
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These teachings are also available on the
MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247
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
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), 169–170.
