Roughing it Through - Purity 906
Purity 906 12/05/2022 Purity 906 Podcast
Purity 906 On YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo comfy beach furniture in the foreground
of palm trees, blue skies, and the blue water of the Caribbean Sea comes to us
from a friend who is “roughing it for a bit” while on a December vacation at
the Westin Cozumel in San de Miguel de Cozumel, Mexico. Looking at this scene, I can almost feel the
warm Caribbean breeze coming off of the water and can imagine the smell of
coconuts or pineapple from suntan oil or a virgin Pina Colada.
But to paraphrase a line from the rapper, ICE-T from
the intro of his song Body Count: “Stuff ain’t like that! It’s real messed up”!
Yup, It’s Monday and the 5th day of
December in Upstate NY and while I am going to delight over the fact that there
is no snow in the forecast in my neck of the woods, I’m not on vacation in the Caribbean,
so it’s back to work and I can only expect to be enjoying the brisk air of the
great outdoors with a current temperature of 22 degrees, and an expected high
of 44 degrees, and sunny skies!
But seriously, the joy of the Lord is my strength,
and because of Him I can simultaneously have joy for my friend in the Caribbean,
not envy, and actually find joy on Monday morning for the relative “goodness”
of my forecast because I know it could always be worse! For December in NY, I’ll
take it!
I am well rested this Monday morning after a weekend
with my wife at our countryside home and am filled with the joy and
anticipation of my own Christmas vacation that is only a couple of weeks
away.
So to remind you all of a couple of the letters on
our Joy finding acronym, MT has found
joy this morning in 4 out of the 5 letters of “GAMES” -
1 – G – Gratitude - for right now – feeling good
physically, emotionally, and spiritually at this present moment while writing,
thank you very much
2 – A- Anticipation – looking forward to things in the future, like the
temperature rising today, and my Christmas vacation in a couple of weeks!
3 – M – Memories – reflecting on good things in the
past, like my past weekend with my wife!
4 – E- Experience – I have joy in the experience of writing and
recording this journal/ blog/podcast entry! and can plan other experiences that give me joy!
The “S” is singing – and I will spare you that, I
guess, but I will probably do that on the drive to work!
No wonder why my life is filled with joy! But as I
stated, while anyone can work “GAMES” to get joy out of their experience of
life, when you have a relationship with the Lord, through faith in Jesus Christ,
you have the joy of the Lord and the peace that goes beyond all understanding
because YOU KNOW – you are forgiven, you are loved, and YOU’RE “GONNA LIVE FOREVER….
Gonna Live For Ever” Okay got the singing
out of the way too!
And speaking of getting things out of the way….
I know… what about those times in life when people,
things, or circumstance are “rough”, and it is difficult to find joy? When “stuff ain’t like that” when they are “real
messed up”? When are people, places
,or things blocking your goals?
Well,
James 1:2-5 (NLT2) tells us
2 Dear brothers and sisters,
when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is
tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.
4 So let it grow, for when
your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing
nothing.
5 If you need wisdom, ask our
generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.
The joy of trials of course can only be experienced when
you go through them with God, when you ask Him to give you strength and wisdom,
He will help you either to overcome or to endure them and sometimes it’s a
little bit of both.
On Saturday, my wife, stepdaughter, and I faced the “negative
circumstances” of a rainy day, blocking our goal, to enjoy some time doing some
holiday themed outdoor activities. But
when that negative circumstance faced us, I recalled the indoor holiday
splendor of Yankee Candle Village in South Deerfield Massachusetts and suddenly
we were on a road trip and was pleasantly surprised to watch my wife and
stepdaughter who are “not into candles” have their minds changed by the quality
scents that they discovered at Yankee Candle Village! Afterwards, we stopped at
Friendly’s and overindulged with food and ice cream. So although we faced the negative
circumstances, we discovered something spontaneous that salvaged the day but as
the darkness fell, we were ready get home to relax.
Unfortunately, however, we weren’t done with facing
obstacles to our “goals”. With thoughts
of “That was fun, but I just want to go home” dancing in our heads we began our
return trip, getting on MA 112, where we
discovered a tree in the middle of the road blocking our way!
I don’t know if you are familiar with travelling
through Massachusetts and Vermont in the Green Mountain Area of New England,
but it probably won’t surprise you that there are not a whole lot of options
for alternate routes. But when we saw that
we couldn’t go forward my wife did the best that she could to navigate using my
phone to find us a way around the blocked road.
SO we back tracked a way and started taking side
roads that quickly turned into winding dirt roads! But the GPS eventually self-corrected
and announced that it found a way! So we followed it and reemerged on MA 112,
hoping we were past the obstacle we encountered.
But the first road sign I saw was very familiar and
the next one confirmed to me that we were going right back to where we started!
So with no confidence that we would find
a way around the tree I just drove towards it hoping that someone had called
the county or state to remove it.
But it hadn’t been that long, and cars were lined up
on either side of the tree. Unbelievably,
I just started responding, by putting on a head lamp I keep in my car and
leaving the car and walking up the hill to “go help”!
As I walked up, the person in the car ahead of me,
said “If they need help moving things, let me know!” “Okay…” I thought… focusing on the massive
trees that had fallen in the road.
I was member of the line crew for a few years and
did “pole break” callouts at night before so I guess this wasn’t my first rodeo
with picking up the broken things before and I as I walked up to the scene
decided to take of my glasses, as I wasn’t going to be doing any reading, and I
didn’t think it would fill the men I encountered with confidence when “Jerry
Lewis” or “Poindexter” showed up to help!
When I got on the scene one man was standing
watching as another man was struggling to pull his chainsaw out of the huge tree
in which it was stuck. In fact there were 2 chainsaws stuck in the tree, the second
chainsaw guy had apparently left to go get chains or a bigger saw or something,
leaving a bystander to watch this other chainsaw guy to struggle.
I just started to “do what I could” to “get the stuff
out of my way”. So I just started
grabbing tree limbs and broken off sections of trees and throwing them into the
darkness on the side of the road. The
bystander immediately got the idea to do the same. So while chainsaw guy was playing tug of war
with tree to get his saw free we were able to clear a quarter of the road on
the left side. Another guy showed up
stating he had a truck and a chain that could be used to pull the tree and left
to go get it and bring it up. While truck
guy was gone, other men showed up to clear branches, and thank God – chainsaw guy
got his saw loose and revved it up and used better tactics to make “big tree”
into smaller pieces.
Truck guy showed up and even though we didn’t end up
using his truck or chain it was a good thing that he did. Chain saw guy was making good progress but there
was a huge branch of the tree still overhead and he wasn’t clearly. While the
other men were either just standing around or were clearing branches, I and
truck guy voiced our concerns that chainsaw guy was about to risk injury by not
thinking and just cutting. Luckily he
listened to “truck guy’s” suggestion to “Cut it from the other side” because he was planning to cut by reaching up –
something you shouldn’t do. So he got
safely out of his own way and with a decisive cut, the overhead tree like branch
came safely crashing down!
Chainsaw guy just had to do one more cut and I and
one of the first guys on the scene who had helped me move a few other sections
of tree prior to this were able to lift up the last piece and clear the road. Throughout,
I just kept working and throwing everything into the project, clearing
everything from mini trees to twigs off the road and encouraging the other men,
with a “That’s it brother” or a “Way to
go” where appropriate.
With the road cleared, we all celebrated for a second and then we
were off to our vehicles, an impromptu band of brothers had “got ‘er done” with
never introducing ourselves or knowing where we were from. As I ran back to my car, “Truck guy” gave me
a hearty “Good job” and other motorists shouted their “thanks”. I was pumped by the adrenaline of the moment
and just very satisfied with my efforts and by the fact that we could get out
of there.
So in life, you may run into obstacles that you can
get around. We avoided a rainy day by
finding something indoors to do. But
even though we tried to get around that
tree, there was no way to go but to go through it.
And that’s life, we face life head on, and we use our
wisdom and abilities to deal it with the best we can. I know that this story sounds like a great
tale of men overcoming the elements, but I won’t beat my chest and say, “we did
it”. Because I know the One who is really
in charge, and I know that He was with us.
Nobody got hurt. Believe me, people could have. While “Truck guy” didn’t get to use his truck
or chain, God put him there to speak wisdom into the situation.
While I was, saying “Yo! Brother, watch you’re back!’,
truck guy’s experience and direction gave chainsaw guy a moment to think and to
be safe. As chainsaw saw guy took his
instructions, and the other men just stood around at a distance, truck guy and
I looked at each other and smiled and shook our heads, knowing that we just
might have been instrumental in saving chainsaw guy embarrassment or injury.
So while some people, may doubt that God had
anything to do with this situation, I point out our safety and success here all
under His watch and he was instrumental in bringing all of these men together
to “do good” for others.
So, I know it’s Monday and we may have to “rough it
for a bit”, for real, but let’s remember that “all we can do is all we can do “and
no matter what we face, when we keep walking and talking with God, we can
endure or overcome whatever obstacles we face in life, and we can do it with
joy!
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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:
Hebrews
6:10-12 (NLT2)
10 For God is not unjust. He
will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your
love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do.
11 Our great desire is that
you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain
that what you hope for will come true.
12 Then you will not become
spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those
who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance.
Today’s verses encourage us
because it points out the fact that “GOD knows, and He will not forget” how
hard we work and how we love and care for others.
Often in life, we can feel that nobody appreciates what we do, how
hard we work or how much we do to take care of others. Those feelings of not
being appreciated can make us feel like we are being taken for granted and cause
us to become depressed.
But today’s verses tell us that God sees what we do, that He will
not forget our efforts to work and love others, and that we should continue to “keep
doing what we are doing” because He sees it and will reward us. We will inherit
the promise of God because of our faith and endurance.
So have faith, endure all things on your plate, and keep working
and keep loving others because its’ the right thing to do, according to God,
and because we can trust that God won’t forget it and will lead us to “good
things” in His kingdom, forever and always.
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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 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
Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship
Chapter Nine
Baptism
In the Synoptic Gospels the concept of discipleship can
express almost the full breadth and content of relations between the disciple
and Jesus Christ. In the Pauline texts, however, this concept recedes almost
completely into the background. Paul’s primary concern is not to proclaim the
story of the Lord’s earthly life to us, but rather his presence as the risen
and glorified Lord, and his work for us. This requires him to develop a new and
distinctive terminology. Paul derives this new terminology from the special
nature of his subject matter; its purpose is to capture what unites the
proclamation of the one Lord who lived, died, and rose again. To express the
full witness of Christ requires more than a single set of terms. Paul’s
terminology thus confirms that of the Synoptic Gospels, and vice versa. Neither
terminology is intrinsically preferable to the other. After all, we do not
“belong to Paul, or to Apollos, or to Cephas, or to Christ”; instead, our faith
rests on the unity of the scriptural testimony to Christ. If we hold that the
Christ Paul proclaims is still present to us in the same way, whereas the
Synoptic Gospels testify to a presence of Christ which we no longer know, we
break up the unity of scripture.[2] True, many regard the use of
such language as reflecting thought that is grounded in history and in keeping
with the Reformation. But in fact, it is just the opposite, namely, religious
enthusiasm of the most dangerous kind. For how do we know that Christ is still
present with us today in the way that Paul proclaims? How else, but from
scripture itself? Or should this perhaps be the place to talk about an
experience of Christ’s presence and reality that would be free and independent
of the word of scripture? But if it is indeed scripture alone that assures us
of Christ’s presence, then it must be scripture as a whole, the scripture which
also testifies to the ongoing presence of the synoptic Jesus Christ. The
synoptic Christ is neither more nor less distant from us than the Christ of
Paul. The Christ who is present with us is the Christ to whom the whole of
scripture testifies. He is the incarnate, crucified, risen, and glorified
Christ; and he encounters us in his word. The different terminology with which
the Synoptic Gospels and Paul communicate this message does not undermine the
unity of the scriptural testimony.
What the Synoptics
describe as hearing and following the call to discipleship, Paul expresses with
the concept of baptism.
Baptism is not
something we offer to God. It is, rather, something Jesus Christ offers to us. It is grounded solely in the will of
Jesus Christ, as expressed in his gracious call. Baptism is essentially a
paradoxically passive action; it means being baptized, suffering Christ’s call.
In baptism we become Christ’s possession. The name of Jesus Christ is spoken
over baptismal candidates, they gain a share in that name; they are baptized
“into Jesus Christ” (είζ, Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27; Matt. 28:19).
They now belong to Jesus Christ. Having been rescued from the rule of this
world, they now have become Christ’s own.
Baptism thus implies
a break. Christ invades the realm of
Satan and lays hold of those who belong to him, thereby creating his
church-community [Gemeinde]. Past and present are thus torn asunder. The old
has passed away, everything has become new. The break does not come about by
our breaking our chains out of an unquenchable thirst to see our life and all
things ordered in a new and free way. Long ago, Christ himself had already
brought about that break. In baptism this break now also takes effect in my own
life. I am deprived of my immediate relationship to the given realities of the
world, since Christ the mediator and Lord has stepped in between me and the
world. Those who are baptized no longer belong to the world, no longer serve
the world, and are no longer subject to it. They belong to Christ alone, and
relate to the world only through Christ.
The break with the
world is absolute. It requires and causes our death. In baptism we die together with our old world. This death
must be understood in the strictest sense as an event that is suffered. It is
not as if we were asked to bring about this death ourselves through various
kinds of sacrifice and renunciation. That would be an impossible attempt. Such
a death would never be the death of the old self which Christ demands. The old
self cannot kill itself. It cannot will its own death. We die in Christ alone;
we die through Christ and with Christ. Christ is our death. It is for the sake
of community with Christ, and only in that community, that we die. In baptism
we receive both community with Christ and our death as a gift of grace.[12]
This death is a gift of grace which we can never create for ourselves. True, in
this death judgment is passed on the old self and its sin. But out of this
judgment rises the new self which has died to the world and to sin. This death
is thus not the final, angry rejection of the creature by its creator but
rather the gracious acceptance of the creature by the creator. This death
taking place in baptism is the gracious death which is ours through the death
of Christ. It is the death in the power and community of the cross of Christ.
Those who become Christ’s own must come under his cross. They must suffer and
die with him. Those who are granted community with Christ must die the
grace-filled death of baptism. That is the rule of the cross of Christ under which
Jesus places his disciples. Christ’s death and cross were cruel and hard;
however, because of our community with him, the yoke of our cross is easy and
light.[15] The cross of Christ is the gracious death, which we die
once and for all in our baptism; the cross to which we are called is our daily
dying in the power of the death accomplished by Christ. Baptism thus means to
be received into the community of the cross of Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:3ff.; Col.
2:12). The believer is placed under the cross of Christ.[1]
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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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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 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), 205–209.