Step into New Things: I’ve Been to the Mountain Top! – Purity 1055
Purity 1055 05/30/2023 Purity 1055 Podcast
Purity 1055 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo
of the tree at the 2nd lookout site of Mount Antone, overlooking great
views of farmland and the southern Vermont Mountains comes to us from yours
truly as my wife, TammyLyn, and I ascended the 2600 feet to the summit of the tallest
peak on the Merck Forest & Farmland Center’s property in Rupert Vermont.
Mount Antone is officially part of the Northern Taconic Mountain Range and
although reaching its summit wasn’t too challenging, it was a definite high
point of our Memorial Day Weekend backpacking adventure that had us away from
many of the modern conveniences that we take for granted.
Our cabin was
dead ended towards the rear end of the preserve’s property and didn’t have
electricity or indoor plumbing and as no one was renting any of the nearest
lean-tos or cabins, TammyLyn and I had at approximately ½ mile distance to our
nearest neighbors. I didn’t hear a lawnmower, weed whacker, or even a chainsaw all
weekend and it was only on our way to
Mount Antone and Clark’s Clearing did we see any other living souls.
Seclusion can
be a little unsettling at times but when you realize that you are relatively safe
and secure in your accommodations, and that the Lord is with you wherever you
go, you can really enjoy the peace and tranquility of God’s creation without
fear and just bask in the goodness of just “being”.
Of course,
just because we were “roughing it” didn’t mean that my wife and I decided to
take a vacation from our faith. Even
though we both enjoyed “getting away from it all”, we didn’t want to get away
from God. We maintained our regular Bible study and enjoyed our own personal
studies as TammyLyn revisited a book she had read years earlier, Made to Crave –
By Lysa TerKeuest, et all – on satisfying our deepest desires with God, not
food ( might have to check that out) – and I was able to complete Volume 1 –
The Essentials of Dr. Karl Payne’s “Transferrable Cross Training” on Discipleship
as well as get most of the way through “The True Works of the Holy Spirit”, a
booklet by John MacArthur. So in many
ways – probably just because of the decision we’ve made to keep God at the
center of our lives and marriage – our vacation was a spiritual retreat as
well. But please don’t imagine some
hyper spiritual posturing on our part, we were just enjoying each other’s
company and giving each other space to seek the Lord’s peace and guidance
without getting in each other’s way. Our
faith should never feel forced, demanding, or complicated and so it wasn’t.
Although, we
were “out there” in the woods, we weren’t too far gone and actually had enough
cell reception to be able to receive and send messages from family. I don’t think
I would have necessarily known this as I had assumed that we wouldn’t have had
reception and only brought my three cell phones (1 work, 1 personal, and 1 old)
as media devices for Bible Study (you
have got to love Logos Bible Software)
and for listening to a Christian audiobook or “soothing sounds” to sleep by. But
TammyLyn tested the reception as soon as we got there and assured her children and
both our mothers that we had arrived safely! You can take a mother of 5 into
the woods but you can’t take the mother out of her, I guess.
Anyway, no
matter how much I may have been a little disappointed in not being completely
off the grid and unreachable when we arrived on Saturday, I was rejoicing over
the fact we weren’t completely cut off on Sunday as we were able to “stream church”
via Facebook. So even though we were in a cabin in Vermont with no electricity,
we sang along with and listened to our church’s Sunday service live from
Clifton Park! And although it was
Sunday, the wife and I decided to worship the Lord by getting out in His
creation with the trek to the top of Mount Antone and a hike to Clark’s Clearing
(That’s my last name – we had to go there) before we returned to the cabin for
a Sabbath’s rest.
Overall, it
was a wonderful trip and it taught me to keep following where the Lord leads me
and to try new things. Although we
struggled mightily on the journey into the woods with our fully packed
backpacks, yesterday’s excursion out took half the time as we were less
burdened (without the weight of 2 days water supply) and were more experienced,
wiser, and stronger from what we had learned and done just a day or two
before.
And that’s a
great analogy of our faith, we can get
stronger in our faith when we step out into it and test ourselves. The growth that TammyLyn and I experienced as
hikers and backpackers in a relatively short time would have never been
realized if we had never “gone there”. Before
this trip, neither one of us had any real backpacking experience and could have
easily dismissed the idea altogether.
But after
our previous visit to the Merck Forest Center’s Gallup Road – and it was a long
rather challenging day of hiking - and
with a few days off for Memorial Day, something inside me inspired me to step
out in faith and “book it”. And TammyLyn, who had never backpacked –
immediately – went about making sure that we were adequately equipped to
go. I may have “set the course” but
TammyLyn really made sure we could “make our way”. So not only did we learn and experience
something new in backpacking, but we also used it to draw closer to God and one
another. But none of this would have
been known, if we didn’t choose to follow the “call” and support one another
along the way.
Well, it’s
Tuesday and even though TammyLyn is back to work, I have the day off and will
use it to finish off that booklet on the true work of the Holy Spirit and to
prepare for tomorrow evening’s meeting of Celebrate Freedom – the recovery/discipleship
growth group at my local church – where I will be sure to do my best to
encourage those gathered to step out in faith and to trust the Lord to move
them into a deeper knowledge and experience of their freedom in Christ as they
have decided to trust and follow the Lord to help them walk away from the “hurts,
habits, and hang ups” they wish to leave behind as they pursue the meaning and
purpose that God has for them.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity
than my simple apologetic will provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s
website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
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Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.
This
morning’s meditation verses are:
Romans
15:3-4 (NLT2)
3 For even Christ didn’t live
to please himself. As the Scriptures say, “The insults of those who insult you,
O God, have fallen on me.”
4 Such things were written in
the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and
encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.
Today’s verses encourage us to wait patiently as the Lord fulfills His promises in our lives and to realize that this walk of faith isn’t necessarily just about pleasing ourselves.
Christ’s example shows us that just because you decided to follow and do the Lord’s will, it doesn’t mean that people will applaud you for it. In fact when you decide to follow the Lord, you can expect to be insulted as Jesus was insulted, and persecuted as He stated that the world would hate His disciples, just as it hated Him.
But today’s verses remind us that The Bible – the Scriptures – never promised us a rose garden – a life without suffering – but it does promise all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ a place in God’s family and kingdom in eternity. The word tells us of the true story of hardships that the prophets, apostles, and Jesus Himself suffered before us to encourage us that those who went before us faced trials and death secure in the knowledge that God was in control and would save us even when it looked like all was lost.
Christ’s death and
resurrection proved that our worst case scenario was something that we would overcome. Worst case – we die – but when we are in
Christ we have not lost hope because at moment of our earthly death we will go on
and live with God in eternity, and then one day return with Jesus to rule and
reign over earth, before the new heaven and earth!
So, wait for it! – God’s
got a LOT MORE in STORE for us, and He is faithful to fulfill all of His
promises – that assure us of place in His kingdom forever and a purpose that
goes beyond this life.
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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 continue sharing from The Holy Spirit By A.W. Pink.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for $0.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Arthur-Pink-Collection-ebook/dp/B008CM5292/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AHKAQOM39CTN&keywords=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit&qid=1684376225&sprefix=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit+%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-3)
A.W. Pink’s The Holy Spirit
5 - The
Covenant-Offices of the Holy Spirit
The
Spirit’s Covenant-Office: Sanctification
Now the “office-work” of the Holy Spirit in
connection with this “everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure” (2
Sam. 23:5), may be summed up in a single word, sanctification. The Third Person of the Holy Trinity agreed to
sanctify, the objects of the Father’s eternal choice, and of the Son’s
redemptive satisfaction. The Spirit’s work of sanctification was just as
needful, yea, as indispensable for the church’s salvation, as was the obedience
and blood-shedding of Christ. Adam’s fall plunged the church into immeasurable
depths of woe and wretchedness. The image of God in which her members had been
created was defaced. Sin, like a loathsome leprosy, infected them to the very
heart’s core. Spiritual death spread itself with fatal effect over her every
faculty. But the gracious Holy Spirit pledged Himself to sanctify such
wretches, and frame and fit them to be partakers of holiness, and live forever
in God’s spotless presence.
Without the Spirit’s
sanctification the redemption of Christ would avail no man. True, a perfect
atonement was made by Him and a perfect righteousness brought in, and so the
persons of the elect are legally reconciled to God. But Jehovah is holy as well
as just, and the employments and enjoyment of His dwelling-place are holy too.
Holy angels there minister whose unceasing cry is, “Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:3). How then could unholy, unregenerated, unsanctified
sinners dwell in that ineffable place into which “there shall in no way enter
anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a
lie” (Rev. 21:27)? But O the wonder of covenant grace and covenant love! The
vilest of sinners, the worst of wretches, the basest of mortals, can and will
enter through the gates into the Holy City: “And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye
are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
From what has been
said in the last paragraph it should be clear that sanctification is as
indispensable as justification. Now there are many phases presented in
Scripture of this important Truth of sanctification, into which we cannot here
enter. Suffice it to say that aspect of it which is now before us is the blessed
work of the Spirit upon the soul, whereby He internally makes the saints meet
for their inheritance in the light (Col. 1:12): without this miracle of grace
none can enter Heaven. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh” (1 John 3:6):
no matter how it be educated and refined, no matter how disguised by religious
ornamentation, it remains still flesh. It is like everything else which earth
produces: no manipulation of art can change the original nature of the raw
material.
No process of
manufacture can transmute cotton into wool, or flax into silk: draw, twist,
spin or weave, bleach and surface all we may, its nature remains the same. So
men-made preachers and the whole corps of creature religionists may toil night
and day to change flesh into spirit, they may work from the cradle to the grave
to fit people for Heaven, but after all their labors to wash the Ethiopian
white and to rub the spots out of the leopard, flesh is flesh still and cannot
by any possibility enter the kingdom of God. Nothing but the supernatural operations of the Holy
Spirit will avail. Not only is man polluted to the very core by sin original
and actual, but there is in him an absolute incapability to understand, embrace
or enjoy spiritual things (1 Cor. 2:14).
The imperative necessity,
then, of the Spirit’s work of sanctification lies not only in the sinfulness of
man, but in the state of spiritual death whereby he is as unable to live,
breathe, and act Godward as the corpse in the graveyard is unable to leave the
silent tomb and move among the busy haunts of men. We indeed know little of the
Word of God and little of our own hearts if we need proof of a fact which meets
us at every turn; the vileness of our nature and the thorough deathliness of
our carnal heart are so daily and hourly forced upon us that they are a such a
matter of painful consciousness to the Christian, as if we should see the
sickening sight of a slaughterhouse, or smell the death taint of a corpse.
Suppose a man is born
blind: he has a natural incapacity of sight. No arguments, biddings, threats,
or promises can make him see. But let the miracle be wrought: let the Lord
touch the eyes with His Divine hand; he sees at once. Though he cannot explain
how or why, he can say to all objectors, “One thing I know, that whereas I was
blind, now I see” (John 9:25). And thus it is in the Spirit’s work of
sanctification, begun at regeneration, when a new life is given, a new capacity
imparted, a new desire awakened. It is carried forward in his daily renewing (2
Cor. 4:16) and is completed at glorification. What we would specially emphasize
is that whether the Spirit is convicting us, working repentance in us,
breathing upon us the spirit of prayer, or taking of the things of Christ and
showing them unto our joyful hearts, He is discharging His covenant-offices.
May we render unto Him the praise and worship which is His due.
For most of the above
we are indebted to some articles by the late J. C. Philpot.[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
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 Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ), 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)
For those who require the assistance of a Deeper
Walk International Prayer Minister to experience healing or your freedom in
Christ, I highly recommend Christy Edge’s Life on the Edge Freedom Prayer
Ministry. You can schedule a session by going to : https://cedge216.wixsite.com/life-on-the-edge
“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]
Arthur Walkington Pink, The Holy Spirit
(Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, n.d.).
