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Showing posts with label Praise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Praise. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

The Essential Oil of Gladness - Purity 721


 The Essential Oil of Gladness - Purity 721

Purity 721 05/03/2022 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a stunning sunrise breaking through the clouds and blue sky of morning over the crashing surf on the shores of Vero Beach, Florida comes to us from a friend who visited the Treasure Shores State Park back on March 14th. This sight was so stunning it inspired are friend to not only share the photo on social media but as this short poem to accompany it: 

"A brand new day

Bout to begin

With salty air upon your skin

 

A new sunrise

invokes a feeling

It shines a light

sends darkness reeling

 

Increasing light

As day commences

A symphony

for all your senses"

 

I love the sentiments of light casting out the darkness and the hope of a new day that is invoked through my friend’s prose. I also love the sensory focus as our friend’s words indicate that this experience included different aspects that encompassed all of their senses and obviously inspired their imagination.  

Well, it’s Tuesday and as the light of a new day will bring us into the second day of the work week, for some of us anyway, I am reflecting on how our walk of faith is all encompassing and how the light that the Lord brings into our life can send the “darkness reeling” regardless of the sights, sounds, or feelings of our present circumstances.  

Recently, as I reflected on the amazing journey that the Lord has led me through in my life and how I had certain hopes and expectations that didn’t come true I remarked how I was SO GLAD, that the Lord had His will be done instead of my own.  

For example, I had originally planned to try to keep my former house, with its high mortgage, because let’s face it sometimes we would rather suffer through with what’s familiar rather than be forced to do something new. But due to an error in our calculations, that hope was dashed and can I tell you, I am SO GLAD that I had to move on because it resulted in my finding a new home of my own “down by The River” and everyday I look out and see the Hudson, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord has brought me here.  

Similarly, when I was newly divorced I had considered a couple of relationships with Christian women that I thought may be “wife material”. My loneliness and lack of insight even caused me to be a little obsessed with the idea of being with one particular person to the point that I even had dreams that we would be married and serving the Lord together. But in each instance those hopes and dreams turned out to be false visions as the Lord revealed to me that these women weren’t for me.  

For a while I was convinced that my lifestyle of Christian discipleship might require a life of monkhood but then through the Lord’s providence, TammyLyn came into my life out seemingly out of nowhere. Maybe out of the middle of nowhere anyway, as Easton NY is a little off the beaten track.  So again, even though my previous interests were dead ends and I was convinced I would be happy all by myself, I was SO GLAD that I was wrong and the Lord brought a Christian woman into my life who could love me for me, and for who I am in Christ, and the man I am trying to be as I seek out my purpose in God’s kingdom.

So yeah, we can be SO GLAD, over the prayers that aren’t answered sometimes because we don’t necessarily know what is best for us or what God has planned, or how He works all things, and I mean all things, as His word tells us, He works all thing together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  

So obviously with those various disappointments in my journey, I didn’t know what the Lord had in store for me and I could have been bitter over my misfortunes.  

But you know what? I wasn’t!  Why?  Because every day, I thanked the Lord for saving me and providing me with what I had.  Whether it was sunny and bright or snowy and dark, I put on the garment of praise and experienced the Lord’s presence with me on a continual basis as I prayed for strength, guidance, and to be used by Him for His kingdom cause whatever that would be.    

Isaiah 61:3 (NKJV) talks about how the Lord can console us, It says:
3  To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."

Putting on that “garment of praise” – the act of praising and thanking the Lord every day regardless of seasons or circumstances, will lift that “spirit of heaviness” and will give us “beauty for ashes” and give us joy even in the face of bitter disappointment and traumatic losses.   

For the Lord wants to show us that in Him we are never defeated and we are never alone. Standing on our identity in Christ and praising and thanking the Lord gives us the power overcome and when we walk in the Lord’s ways and are firmly rooted in His righteousness, in Christ and in holiness, we glorify the Lord through our faithfulness.  

Psalm 45:7 (NKJV) says
7  You love righteousness and hate wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.

 

Although this Psalm has messianic themes that point to Jesus, it also points to the fact that when we choose the Lord’s path of righteousness over the worldly ways of wickedness, we will be anointed with the oil of gladness” more than our worldly neighbors who don’t know the hope and joy that come through faith in Jesus Christ and through the process of growing in the fruit of the Spirt when we walk in the Spirit.   

 

Walking in the light in the company of our Lord is the Way that leads to an abundant life that will encompass and excite all of our senses and just happens to be the path that leads to life forevermore.    SO keep walking and talking with God, and one day regardless of times of trouble or days of disappointment  you will be SO GLAD to discover all the things the Lord has been working together for your good.  

______________________________________________________________

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 147:6 (NLT2)
6  The LORD supports the humble, but he brings the wicked down into the dust.

Today’s Bible verse reminds us of the support that the Lord has for the humble and the dusty demise that awaits the wicked.  

In this world, you may have heard the adage that “nice guys finish last” or “only the good die young”  and wonder what’s the point of trying to do the “right” thing when so many people benefit from following the world’s ways where the ends justify the means. 

Well, today’s verse assures us that we have the Lord’s support when we remain humble and that the ones who follow the wicked ways of the world will perish.  All the money, power, and posssions that we can accumulate through legitimate or illegitimate means will mean nothing when the Lord calls us to answer for our lives.  

Those who humble themselves, admit their sin, and surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ will be forgiven and welcomed into God’s kingdom but those who are wise in their own sight and think that their status in the world, their good works, or their worldly power and influence will deliver them into a state of grace will be sorely mistaken. As the Lord Jesus says of those who haven’t humbled themselves to His Lordship:

Matthew 7:23 (NKJV)
23  And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

So acknowledge the authority of the Lord and humbly follow His ways.  When we do that He will support us but when we cut corners or do things our way, we will be exposed for our wickedness and brough down lower than the dust.

 

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 John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.  

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $5.00.

5 - Risk Is Right—Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It

If our single, all-embracing passion is to make much of Christ in life and death, and if the life that magnifies him most is the life of costly love, then life is risk, and risk is right. To run from it is to waste your life.

What Is Risk?

I define risk very simply as an action that exposes you to the possibility of loss or injury. If you take a risk you can lose money, you can lose face, you can lose your health or even your life. And what’s worse, if you take a risk, you may endanger other people and not just yourself. Their lives may be at stake. Will a wise and loving person, then, ever take a risk? Is it wise to expose yourself to loss? Is it loving to endanger others? Is losing life the same as wasting it?

It depends. Of course you can throw your life away in a hundred sinful ways and die as a result. In that case, losing life and wasting it would be the same. But losing life is not always the same as wasting it. What if the circumstances are such that not taking a risk will result in loss and injury? It may not be wise to play it safe. And what if a successful risk would bring great benefit to many people, and its failure would bring harm only to yourself? It may not be loving to choose comfort or security when something great may be achieved for the cause of Christ and for the good of others.

Risk Is Woven into the Fabric of Our Finite Lives

Why is there such a thing as risk? Because there is such a thing as ignorance. If there were no ignorance there would be no risk. Risk is possible because we don’t know how things will turn out. This means that God can take no risks. He knows the outcome of all his choices before they happen. This is what it means to be God over against all the gods of the nations (Isaiah 41:23; 42:8–9; 44:6–8; 45:21; 46:8–11; 48:3). And since he knows the outcome of all his actions before they happen, he plans accordingly. His omniscience rules out the very possibility of taking risks.

But not so with us. We are not God; we are ignorant. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. God does not tell us in detail what he intends to do tomorrow or five years from now. Evidently God intends for us to live and act in ignorance and in uncertainty about the outcome of our actions.

He says to us, for example, in James 4:13–15:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

You don’t know if your heart will stop before you finish reading this page. You don’t know if some oncoming driver will swerve out of his lane and hit you head-on in the next week, or if the food in the restaurant may have some deadly virus in it, or if a stroke may paralyze you before the week is out, or if some man with a rifle will shoot you at the shopping center. We are not God. We do not know about tomorrow.

Exploding the Myth of Safety

Therefore risk is woven into the fabric of our finite lives. We cannot avoid risk even if we want to. Ignorance and uncertainty about tomorrow is our native air. All of our plans for tomorrow’s activities can be shattered by a thousand unknowns whether we stay at home under the covers or ride the freeways. One of my aims is to explode the myth of safety and to somehow deliver you from the enchantment of security. Because it’s a mirage. It doesn’t exist. Every direction you turn there are unknowns and things beyond your control.

The tragic hypocrisy is that the enchantment of security lets us take risks every day for ourselves but paralyzes us from taking risks for others on the Calvary road of love. We are deluded and think that it may jeopardize a security that in fact does not even exist. The way I hope to explode the myth of safety and to disenchant you with the mirage of security is simply to go to the Bible and show that it is right to risk for the cause of Christ, and not to is to waste your life.

“May the Lord Do What Seems Good to Him”

Consider the context of 2 Samuel 10. The Amalekites had shamed the messengers of Israel and made themselves odious in the sight of David. To protect themselves they had hired the Syrians to fight with them against the Israelites. Joab, the commander of Israel’s forces, found himself surrounded with Amalekites on one side and Syrians on the other. So he divided his troops, put his brother Abishai in charge of one troop of fighters, and led the other himself.

In verse 11 they pledged to help each other. Then comes this great word in verse 12: “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.” What do these last words mean, “May the Lord do what seems good to him”? It means that Joab had made a strategic decision for the cities of God, and he did not know how it would turn out. He had no special revelation from God on this issue. He had to make a decision on the basis of sanctified wisdom. He had to risk or run. He did not know how it would turn out. So he made his decision, and he handed the results over to God. And this was right.[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 on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

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] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 79–82.

Thursday, October 28, 2021

When Love Comes to Town - Company on the Path - Purity 561


When Love Comes to Town -  Company on the Path  - Purity 561

Purity 561 10/28/2021 Purity 561 Podcast

Good morning

Today’s photo somewhere along the Zim Smith Trail near the Shenantaha Creek Park in Malta NY comes to us from a friend’s hike last weekend. I am happy to report that this particular friend doesn’t just walk the trails where Fall has fallen but also is no stranger to the path of Christian discipleship. In their travels on the spiritual path that seeks to do the will of God, they made a commitment to the Lord and to themselves that they wouldn’t compromise in the area of dating. They prayed for a faithful Christian man to come along beside them and were determined to not settle for anything less even if it meant that they would have to suffer in loneliness.  

Instead of worrying about whether or not their prayer for a Christian mate would be answered or not they pressed in and sought to deepen their faith.  That’s where I got to know them.  There is a saying in spiritual circles that says, “when the student is ready the teacher will appear”. 

So after our one and only meeting, this “student” saw a teacher in me and chose to step out in faith and approached me, a perfect stranger, to be discipled.  Over the last 12 weeks or so, I have encouraged them through the Victory Over the Darkness Discipleship Class material that I taught in the spring and the interactions between us with that material as a backdrop has made us both grow in our faith and together as good friends as we have shared our testimonies of a life of struggle before and after coming to faith in Jesus Christ.  

In the course of those 12 weeks, I grew in my maturity and confirmed that TammyLyn Seguin, who had been my friend for several months, was the mighty woman of God that I would walk with through the rest of the days of my life as my wife. We are engaged and will marry on January 1st, Lord willing.

My friend rejoiced over our good news and as happy as I was for myself and TammyLyn, part of me was saddened that I had left my friend alone on the “singles” path of Christian Discipleship.  

However, much to my surprise and delight, I received news from my friend and fellow traveler on the path of Christian discipleship, they met someone. They also shared that they had been changed by the process of discipleship that they have walked out over the last several weeks and had started to “think outside of the box” in many ways including who they would consider as a suitable mate.   Instead of looking on the outside for attractive qualities of a mate, they seriously began to consider the importance of faith and character as what they wanted in their mate and had been praying for the Lord to bring someone like that in their lives for quite some time.

But even though they had been praying for a “Christian husband”, I think the Lord needed to transform the way my friend thought about who would fill that role.  

The word says that the Lord will give us the desires of our heart, but I know that sometimes the Lord has to work on our hearts to be more in line with the way He sees things.

The Holy Spirit reveals to us all truth and when we walk in the Spirit like my friend has been doing like at no other time in their life, the Holy Spirit will show you what really matters and will give us revelations to show us the truth behind how wrong we were in the ways we thought things “had to be”.  

Having walked in loneliness along the Christian disciple’s path myself for quite some time through seasons of suffering that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, I was hesitant to offer my friend any hope in regards to finding “a soul mate” but instead doggedly encouraged them to develop their relationship with the Lord and to find peace and joy in that relationship and in the progress they made along the way.  

To be honest, I never I thought I would find a Christian woman to fulfill my desires for a life mate, and no offense fellas, I really, really doubted that my sister in Christ would actually find a Christian man to be hers.   No offense to the world, but man oh man, even within the “church” there is a shocking lack of authentic mature Christian faith and that’s why my mission in life is to teach the reality of, and the benefits of, a discipled life of walking in the Spirit, the application of our Christian faith to all the areas of our lives.

So imagine my surprise to hear that my friend, my sister in Christ, who chose the hard road of Christian discipleship, has found someone.   As a skeptic I am wary to believe she has found a faithful Christian man,  but as someone who knows her and trusts her judgment I am thanking God for bringing someone into her life that she may be able to walk out the rest of her days with as she continuous to seek and do the Lord’s will for her life.  

Yeah, its Thursday, and I share today’s photo of a pathway to encourage people to step on to the path of Christian discipleship, and to remind people that I am teaching a Freedom in Christ class tonight at Rock Solid Church in Hudson.

But today I also rejoice because I have another testimony to share now of how the path of Christian discipleship, if walked out faithfully has the power to deepen your faith, change the way you think to be more in line with the will of God, and comes with benefits that simply do not end.  When you humble yourself and follow the Lord He will lift you up and as you continue to walk towards Him, he will give you company to join you in your travels.

So keep walking and talking with God. You may not always know “where all this is going” but, man, I can tell you with full assurance that it leads to something good!

 

Today’s Bible verses are drawn from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.  

This morning’s meditation verses are:

Psalm 42:7-8 (NLT2)
7  I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.
8  But each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.

Today’s verse reminds us of the unfailing love of God and encourages us to sing His songs and pray to the Lord even in the worst circumstances.  

The “tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me” doesn’t sound like a good thing.  Raging seas are destructive and whether these waves are figurative or real, they don’t describe a peaceful state. And amazingly, the psalmist seems to know that God’s sovereign hand is behind the things, good and bad, that happen in life.  

But what is his response to those “raging seas” and “surging tides” that are sweeping over him? 

He remembers the unfailing love that the Lord pours out upon him, and he sings!  And He recognizes that singing the Lord’s songs is a spiritual practice akin to prayer.  

Did you know that singing is a form of prayer? Apparently, according to the word of God, it is!  It makes sense.  Our hearts, minds, and voices are lifted up in praising and worshiping the Lord in song. That’s a spiritual form of communication. That’s prayer.  

And if you have ever had a “song stuck in your head”, we may even have a glimpse into how we can “pray without ceasing”.  Beyond our formal sessions of prayer in the morning, our turning to the Lord throughout the day in a continuous dialog,  our songs of praise to the Lord are another way that we can keep “walking and talking” with God. 

I teach that singing to the Lord is a:

-      gateway to a deeper relationship with God  

-      a form of prayer

-      a weapon for spiritual warfare

-      an invitation to the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit

-      a means to gaining an experiential or heart understanding of spiritual truth

So remember the unfailing love of God and you will be moved to sing “His songs” and pray to the One who gives you life.

 

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. 

 

Today we continue sharing from June Hunt’s Dating: Secrets to Great Relating When Dating  

 

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase June Hunt’s books for your own private study and to support her work. If you need this title you can find it online at several sites for less than $5.00:

IV. Steps to Solution

A man in a dating relationship who says, "I can't live without her.... I have to be with her," is also saying his whole identity is tied up in this woman. What happens if she suddenly dies? If his identity is totally wrapped up in her, then he's left not knowing who he is apart from her. He's left without his own identity.

You are not to lose your identity in someone else. You can be joined to another and still be a separate person. One is a whole number....You are one person because you are complete in Jesus Christ and His love is complete in you....

"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus." (1 John 4:15-17)

A. Key Verse to Memorize

Those who look to dating only as a way of finding a future life partner or of finding a present sex partner will likely miss God's provision altogether. Dating provides a venue for forming and growing a relationship with someone of the opposite sex who might not become your marriage partner but who can become your friend.

God's desire is that we relate to one another in ways that reflect the mind and heart of Christ. Spending designated time with another person allows for learning ways to connect mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and possibly even physically while not relating sexually. It is a forum for sharing goals, values, thoughts, feelings, strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes, struggles, victories, and more. It is basically designed for getting to know and value another person.

God clearly made us for relationships...both with Him and with one another....

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:5)

Biblical Counseling Keys: Dating: Secrets to Great Relating When Dating.

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

 

Join our “Victory over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” 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 on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

 

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship