Purity 844 09/23/2022
Good morning,
Today’s video of the view from my home “down by The
River” comes to us from yours truly and September 24, 2021, the day after
TammyLyn Sequin agreed to be my girlfriend.
I don’t remember recording this but I find the fact that the perspective
goes “sideways” is rather fitting and may have been a prophetic indicator of the seismic shift that
was happening in my life when TammyLyn and I decide to be more than
friends.
On this day, the 23rd of September, a
year ago I realized, and the Holy Spirit may have woke me up to this fact, that
the “there was no other” for me. TammyLyn was the faithful Christian woman of God
that I had been praying for and despite the uncertainty of how our lives could
come together as one, I asked her to marry her, via FB messenger, in a
text.
She said no! So I asked if she would be my
girlfriend, via text, and she indicated I had to ask her in person. So although FB messengers video conferencing
feature was somewhat alien to me, I immediately sent her a video call and to my
delight she answered and said yes to my request to be my “girlfriend”. Two weeks later, we were engaged and a few
months later on January 1st, 2022 we were married. So today is the one year anniversary of our
being a couple of being more than friends!
And what a year it has been! When I reflect on all
the changes that have come to pass since last year I am overwhelmed. Not only do I have the love of my life as my
wife and a new extended family in the Seguins and those Pinter kids, I have a
new church in Starpoint Church in Clifton Park, and it was after TammyLyn and I
got together that the opportunity to teach the Freedom in Christ Course online nationwide,
to men that span from, New York, to Florida, to California for Freedom in Christ
ministries came about. I even got a new
car!
TammyLyn’s journey over the last year was just as
eventful but I will leave that to her to share on her Ask Seek Knock Podcast,
which she started in the last year.
When I reflect on how we have both been blessed by
the Lord with each other and everything that has happened since we got together
it reminds me of the Big Daddy Weave Song “Overwhelmed”. The Lyrics say”
“I see the work of Your Hands
Galaxies spin in a Heavenly dance oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming
I hear the sound of Your Voice
All at once it's a gentle and thundering noise oh God
All that You are is so overwhelming
I delight myself in You
Captivated by Your beauty
I'm overwhelmed, I'm overwhelmed by You
God, I run into Your arms
Unashamed because of mercy
I'm overwhelmed, I'm overwhelmed by You”
Today’s
Friday guys, and if you are not overwhelmed by the goodness of God in your life
let me encourage you to be “more than friends” with the Lord. Let me encourage you to make a commitment to
surrender to His will, to become a living member of His Church, to become the
Bride of Christ.”
If you
are just “playing house with God” by limiting your relationship with Him by
just visiting with Him at a church service for an hour a week, it is no
surprise to me that your faith life may be a bit underwhelming.
When
Christ called you to place your faith in Him, He wants all of you. And unfortunately
because of fear or the opinion of others, or ourselves, sometimes Christians
hold back on fulfilling the “marriage vows” that come with being the Church,
the Bride of Christ. We may love and
honor Jesus but we fail to obey His call to abide in Him and to be conformed to
His image.
Hey no
condemnation for those in Christ Jesus right.
But let me encourage that while we thank Him today for another end of
another work week, let’s consider “popping the question” and asking God about
His will for our lives and choosing to follow where He leads, as a faithful
bride follows her husband.
Since
coming to faith in Christ and making the decision to follow Him with the way I
live by repenting of my old worldly ways, my life has been transformed and I am
continually overwhelmed by the goodness of God in the land of the living. So as I celebrate the first year with the
love of my life, let me encourage you to love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all you mind, and with all your strength as you continuall walk and
talk with Him.
---------
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm
32:7 (NLT2)
7 For you are my hiding
place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.
Today’s Bible verse assures us that
the Lord protects us from trouble and He surrounds us with songs of
victory.
Oh Lord, from today’s verse I
remember the Iron Bell Song - The God
that Saves – That Chris Manchuck used to sing when I was teaching at my old
church’s recovery ministry, Celebrate Freedom.
The lyrics say:
This
soul once torn and beaten
Left
without reason to move on
Then
You reached down and brought me
Up
from the valley of dry bones
You
are the God that saves
You
are the One that rescues me
You
rescue me
You
are the God that saves
You
call me from the grave
You
rescue me
Ransomed
out of the wreckage
Pulled
from the ashes of sin's hold
Hope
is flowing through these veins
Life
born from grace, grace alone
You
are the God that saves
You
are the One that rescues me
You
rescue me
You
are the God that saves
You
call me from the grave
You
rescue me
Oh,
You rescue me, Lord!
You
rescue me
I
hear the song, I hear the song
Of
victory ring over me
Yes I am overwhelmed today because of the God who
saves. Because like the psalmist, I know He protects us and surrounds us with Songs
of victory.
_____________________________________________
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.
Chapter Three
Simple
Obedience
When Jesus demanded voluntary poverty of the rich young man, the
young man knew that his only choices were obedience or disobedience. When Levi
was called from tax collecting and Peter from his nets, there was no doubt that
Jesus was serious about those calls. They were supposed to leave everything and
follow him. When Peter was called to step out onto the stormy sea, he had to
get up and risk taking the step. Only one thing was demanded in each of these
cases. That was their entrusting themselves to the word of Jesus Christ,
believing it to be a stronger foundation than all the securities of the world.
The forces that wanted to get between the word of Jesus and obedience were just
as great back then as they are today. Reason objected; Conscience,
responsibility, piety, even the law and the principle of Scripture intervened
to inhibit this most extreme, this lawless “enthusiasm.” Jesus’ call broke
through all of this and mandated obedience. It was God’s own word. Simple
obedience was required.
If Jesus Christ were
to speak this way to one of us today through the Holy Scripture, then we would
probably argue thus: Jesus is making a specific commandment; that’s true. But
when Jesus commands, then I should know that he never demands legalistic
obedience. Instead, he has only one expectation of me, namely, that I believe.
My faith, however, is not tied to poverty or wealth or some such thing. On the
contrary, in faith I can be both—rich and poor. The main concern is not whether
or not I have any worldly goods, but that I should possess goods as if I did
not possess them, and inwardly I should be free of them. I should not set my
heart on my possessions. Thus, Jesus says, “Sell your possessions!” But what he
intends is that it is not important if you actually do this literally, outwardly.
You are free to keep your possessions, but have them as if you did not have
them. Do not set your heart on your possessions. Our obedience to Jesus’ word
would then consist in our rejecting simple obedience as legalistic obedience,
in order to be obedient “in faith.” This is the difference between us and the
rich young man. In his sadness, he is not able to calm himself by saying to
himself, “In spite of Jesus’ word, I want to remain rich, but I will become
inwardly free from my riches and comfort my inadequacy with the forgiveness of
sins and be in communion with Jesus by faith.” Instead, he went away sadly[6]
and, in rejecting obedience, lost his chance to have faith. The young man was
sincere in going away. He parted from Jesus, and this sincerity surely had more
promise than a false communion with Jesus based on disobedience. Apparently
Jesus thought that the young man was unable to free himself inwardly from his
wealth. Probably the young man, as a serious and ambitious person, had tried to
do it himself a thousand times. The fact that at the decisive moment he was
unable to obey the word of Jesus shows that he failed. The young man was
sincere in parting from Jesus. By the way we argue, we distance ourselves
fundamentally from a biblical hearer of Jesus’ word. If Jesus said: leave
everything else behind and follow me, leave your profession, your family, your
people, and your father’s house, then the biblical hearer knew that the only
answer to this call is simple obedience, because the promise of community with
Jesus is given to this obedience. But we would say: Jesus’ call is to be taken
“absolutely seriously,” but true obedience to it consists of my staying in my
profession and in my family and serving him there, in true inner freedom. Thus,
Jesus would call: come out!—but we would understand that he actually meant:
stay in!—of course, as one who has inwardly come out.[8] Or Jesus
would say, do not worry; but we would understand: of course we should worry and
work for our families and ourselves.[10] Anything else would be
irresponsible. But inwardly we should be free of such worry. Jesus would say:
if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. But we would
understand: it is precisely in fighting, in striking back, that genuine fraternal
love grows large. Jesus would say: strive first for the kingdom of God.[12]
We would understand: of course, we should first strive for all sorts of other
things. How else should we survive? What he really meant was that final inner
willingness to invest everything for the kingdom of God. Everywhere it is the
same—the deliberate avoidance of simple, literal obedience.[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]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,
ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 77–79.