Happy St. Patrick’s Day! –The
Disobedient Cannot Believe – Lent with Bonhoeffer Day 21– Purity 993
Purity 993 03/16/2023 Purity 993 Podcast
Purity 993 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of green grass and autumn denuded trees
on the shores of Lake Ontario comes to us from yours truly as I captured this
green scene at B. Forman Park in Williamson NY back on November 10 of 2022
while I was headed west on my pilgrimage to serve as a volunteer at the “An
Evening with David Jerimiah” event in Buffalo.
Well, It’s Friday – thank God – and it’s St. Patrick’s
Day – So “Erin Go Bragh” which means Ireland Forever- or Top of the Morning to You
– which means the “best of the morning to you” or “Good Morning” although some
sources state that it has nothing to do with the time of the day and is simply
a greeting that one would use to wish them a good day.
So I specifically chose today’s “green photo”
because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and because I’m half Irish, and because I am
praying to see more green as the temperature rose to 50 degrees yesterday
causing people in upstate NY to do some spring time activities, like jogging in
shorts and standing in line for ice cream cones – one guy in line was wearing
heavy winter bib overalls - I kid you
not, in spite of the piles of melting snow that the storm of only a few days
ago poured upon us that wanted to declare that “it is still winter”. And it is, until Monday, that’s right Jack
Frost your days are numbered and even though you threw us for a loop the other
day, we know that spring is coming.
And likewise, even though Satan would rejoice
because of the evil in the world, we know that His days are numbered too. Jesus
is coming back to rule and reign. And
even though we can’t be certain that the Ireland we know will last forever,
there is going to be a new earth after all, we can be certain that the Irish,
like St. Patrick, who put their faith in
Jesus as Lord and Savior will last forever in God’s kingdom no matter what the
shape of the new creation that is promised in Revelation 21.
While our various national heritages may give us a
sense of pride and identity, the only thing about us that will matter in the
end is whether we are citizens of heaven, whether or not we have become children
of God through faith in Christ the Lord.
So if you are Irish enjoy the day by remembering
your Irish ancestors and by partaking in some corned beef and cabbage, but remember
it is “St. Patrick’s Day” – not Irish day – and we should remember the man who
was faithful to teach the Irish about the trinity with a clover. St. Patrick wouldn’t
want us to celebrate his day with drunken revelry but would undoubtedly prefer
us to celebrate it in humble reverence of the God who is faithful to forgive
and save us when we put our faith in His Son, Jesus.
So let’s celebrate the faithful saints, like St. Patrick,
that inspire us to be faithful by drawing
close to God as we continue our journey of repentance with the 21st
day of Lent and our current series as we continue on the 40 Day Journey with
Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
As a reminder, and as we will say each day of this
journey, we take this path to mark the season of Lent and to draw closer to God
in anticipation of the celebration of Easter, knowing that if we take this
journey of repentance seriously, we will not only see the days and seasons
change, the Lord will use it to change us too.
You can sign up to get this devotional yourself by
going to the Biblegateway link on the blog ((https://www.biblegateway.com/devotionals/40-Day-Journey-Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/today)) .
Day 21
Bonhoeffer writes:
“You complain that you cannot believe?
No one should be surprised that they cannot come to
believe so long as, in deliberate disobedience, they flee or reject some aspect
of Jesus’ commandment.
You do not want to subject some sinful passion, an enmity,
a hope, your life plan, or your reason to Jesus’ commandment?
Do not be surprised that you do not receive the Holy
Spirit, that you cannot pray, that your prayer for faith remains empty!
Instead, go and be reconciled with your sister or brother;
let go of the sin which keeps you captive; and you will be able to believe
again!
If you reject God’s commanding word, you will not receive
God’s gracious word. How would you expect to find community while you
intentionally withdraw from it at some point?
The disobedient cannot believe; only the obedient believe.”
Biblical Wisdom
What good
is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say that you have faith but do not have
works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily
food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,”
and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So
faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James 2:14-17
Questions to Ponder
- Jesus’ commandment is that we love God
who made us and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. How does
obedience to this commandment nurture and nourish true faith?
M.T.
Clark: If we obey these commandments of Jesus, our faith is nurtured and
nourish as we would love the Lord with all of our hearts, minds, and strength
which would cause us to abide in His word and in His presence which would empower
us to repent and to seek to share God’s love with others. It would cause us to abandon our personal
sins and seek to serve the Lord as witnesses to God’s love and power by sharing
the gospel not only with words but how we live our lives.
- Why does rejecting “God’s commanding
word” keep us from receiving “God’s gracious word”?
M.T.
Clark: Rejecting “God’s commanding word” keeps us from receiving God’s gracious
word, in that if we refuse to obey what God’s word says it shows that we don’t
believe it. If we don’t believe it is God’s “commanding” word that exhorts us
to repent and serve God’s kingdom, we can’t really say that we have faith in
Jesus because we are refusing to do what the He is telling us to do. When come to Christ in faith, we make Him
Lord as well as Savior, and that means we become His slaves. He’s the master,
we are to do what He says. So if we don’t come under His Lordship, we can’t receive
His grace.
- What is it about rejecting God’s
commanding word that takes us out of community?
M.T.
Clark: Rejecting God’s commanding word also takes us out of community with the
body of Christ because our actions and behaviors will be significantly
different from those who are faithfully trying to align their lives with what
God’s word would have us do. “I don’t
believe that.” “I’m not going to do that.” – will separate us from the ones who
do and most importantly will eventually reveal that we are separated from God
who will declare to the disbelieving and disobedient: “I never knew you.”
Psalm Fragment
Then they
despised the pleasant land,
having no faith in his promise.
They grumbled in their tents,
and did not obey the voice of the Lord. Psalm 106:24-25
Journal Reflections
- Write in your journal about a practical
experience of how your obedience to Jesus’ commandment has nurtured and
nourished your faith.
M.T.
Clark: The best example from my life about the way obedience nourished my faith
would have to be when I decided to trust the Lord with my addictions by going
into a Christian Recovery group. The word
of God convicted me that “drunkenness” was not something that described people
in a state of grace. It described people who didn’t know God, or who didn’t obey
Him. And because I had a real sense of
God’s love and forgiveness, I realized I couldn’t continue in the drunkenness
that was a persistent part of my life for 20 years. So I obeyed, I repented and crucified the
flesh. I agreed with what the word of God said about those who are “in Christ”
and the Lord was faithful to lead me out of the darkness to the point that my drunken
ways were a part of somebody else’s life, and it was. I died with Christ and
was raised to new life with Him but I never would have known it if I didn’t answer
His call to obedience.
- Write about your experiences of
Christian community. Reflect on both good and bad experiences. What is the
difference between them?
M.T.
Clark: I have had so many good
experiences in the body of Christ of fellowship and camaraderie as I have walked
and served with so many faithful Christians through the years. I have grown
because I have seen what the Lord has done in others lives and because faithful
men and women came along beside me to teach and encourage me to follow the
Lord. Mission trips, serving in the local church, taking the gospel to the
streets, and just getting together to read His word has given me joy on so many
occasions.
As for
the bad, I won’t go into specifics, but the bad experiences would all involve
people walking away from God or the church community, or showing that their
faith was more of a façade or that they held alterior motives or manipulative ways
– basically the bad experiences were when people either walked away from the
faith or when they were shown not to be in accord with it.
The
difference between the two is authenticity. Are you for real? Then let’s follow
the Lord and be as real as we can be as Christians by walking according to His
ways and obeying what He would have us do.
Intercessions
Pray for your family and spiritual
friends (and for all Christians) that they would continuously experience
community grounded in love.
M.T.
Clark: Lord,
We pray
for our family, spiritual friends and for all Christians that thye would
continuously experience community grounded in love by obeying your commandments
to love one another, treat one another as they would want to be treated, and by
forgiving one another. If we do all of those things Lord we will truly know
what a community ground in love is. So help us Father.
In Jesus’s
Name, I pray. Amen.
Prayer for Today
Lord, help me to see where I am
rejecting some aspect of your will for me. Help me to obey and believe, believe
and obey.
M.T. Clark: In Jesus Name, I
pray, Amen.
(40-Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Copyright © 2007
Augsburg Books, imprint of Augsburg Fortress.)
***As we are being
provided with Bible verses from the 40 Day Journey with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we
will are taking a break from sharing a verse of the day from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”. We plan on
resuming that normal installment of the blog following Easter.***
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase A.W. Pink’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 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By
ARTHUR W. PINK
CHAPTER TEN
OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD HIS SOVEREIGNTY
What then ought to be our attitude toward the Supreme
Sovereign? We reply,
1.
One of godly fear
Why is it that, today, the masses are so
utterly unconcerned about spiritual and eternal things, and that they are
lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God? Why is it that even on the
battlefields multitudes were so indifferent to their soul’s welfare? Why is it
that defiance of heaven is becoming more open, more blatant, more daring? The
answer is, Because “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18).
Again; why is it that the authority of the Scriptures has been lowered so sadly
of late? Why is it that even among those who profess to be the Lord’s people
there is so little real subjection to His Word, and that its precepts are so
lightly esteemed and so readily set aside? Ah! what needs to be stressed today
is that God is a God to be feared.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom” (Prov. 1:7). Happy the soul that has been awed by a view of God’s
majesty, that has had a vision of God’s awful greatness, His ineffable
holiness, His perfect righteousness, His irresistible power, His sovereign
grace. Does someone say, “But it is only the unsaved, those outside of Christ, who need to fear
God”? Then the sufficient answer is that the saved, those who are in Christ, are admonished to work out
their own salvation with “fear and trembling.” Time was when it was the general
custom to speak of a believer as a “God-fearing man”—that such an appellation
has become nearly extinct only serves to show whither we have drifted.
Nevertheless, it still stands written “Like as a father pitieth his children, so
the Lord pitieth them that fear Him”
(Psa. 103:13)!
When we speak of
godly fear, of course, we do not mean a servile fear, such as prevails among
the heathen in connection with their gods. No; we mean that spirit which
Jehovah is pledged to bless, that spirit to which the prophet referred when he
said “To this man will I (the Lord) look, even to him that is poor and of a
contrite spirit, and trembleth at My Word”
(Isa. 66:2). It was this the apostle had in view when he wrote, “Honor all men.
Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor
the king” (1 Pet. 2:17). And nothing will foster this godly fear like a
recognition of the sovereign Majesty of God.
What ought to be our
attitude toward the Sovereignty of God? We answer again,[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/@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)
“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
