Irish Goodbyes
& Advocating for Quality Time – Purity 768
Purity 768 06/27/2022 Purity 768 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a sunrise fisherman and the beauty of a
new day comes to us from a friend who currently resides near Sebastian Florida
and although retired is active in sharing the views that God puts before
Him.
Well, It’s Monday again, and after a “one day weekend”
caused by a shift tour in which I was scheduled to work on Saturday, which just
happened to be my 50th birthday, I am still rejoicing this morning
because it wasn’t the quantity of time off that I enjoyed on my single day off
yesterday that mattered, it was the quality of time that I enjoyed that has me
content beyond even my hopeful expectations.
Rather that “another case of the Mondays” – which is, I
believe, a euphemism for what is actually a concentrated campaign of the enemy
to steal our joy and peace by keeping us grounded in the belief that happiness
is only to be experienced when we are at rest and have manipulated all the
conditions just right, I have a “peaceful easy feeling” that comes from
rejoicing over my yesterdays and being thankful for what I have today.
Even though I had to work Saturday, the day was sunny and
bright and the evening was wonderful. Throughout the day I received birthday wishes
from a multitude of friends on social media and at night I received a massive
outpouring of love from my “wifey” TammyLyn in the form of a birthday dinner,
complete with decorations, gifts, and a cake.
And as for Sunday, my single day off, I enjoyed great worship and a great message on Psalm 121
at Starpoint Church and later enjoyed a well catered meeting with some Freedom
In Christ ministry friends, and I had my beloved TammyLyn by my side through it
all. Although the day was full of
activity and travel, it was quality time because my wife was with me and even
though we were fully immersed in our afternoon gathering, I made the executive
decision to leave at a time that would allow my wife and I to have time alone
with one another to end our day.
As much as I was excited to join with other brothers and
sisters in Christ to fellowship around a spread of barbeque and to share our
testimonies of our work and experiences with Freedom in Christ Ministries, I
kept an eye on the clock and made a rather abrupt exit when I realized that
staying any longer would reduce the time I could have alone with my wife before
having to separate again.
TammyLyn and I made the decision to love one another and
marry even though our situations are a “little complicated”. Due to our different
situations regarding our children and divorce agreements, we maintain separate households.
So when the weekend ends, I go back to my place down by the River. My time with my wife is precious and after
two hours at this friendly ministry gathering with no immediate end in site I had
to step out and advocate for the time with my wife.
Talk about awkward, in the midst of a group conversation with
many people I had only just met, at a slight pause, I had to interject and give
my regrets and announce our immediate departure, stating that due to our need
to departure we had to leave. While I
did my best to assure the group that we thoroughly enjoyed the gathering and would
welcome doing it again, I wished them well and left because I wanted to get my
wife back to her place and spend some time with her alone before I had to go
back to my place, to do laundry and prepare for the coming week.
So we went. I hugged the hosts and offered my best
encouragements to everyone gathered that the work they were doing with Freedom
in Christ ministries was good and important work and to keep it up, but we had
to go, as in now, as in do not pass go to collect your $200, as in we out of
here.
So we went and even though I was fully assured that what I
did was best for me and my wife, as I drove away, I started dealing with the
guilt over my “Irish goodbye”. Now it
wasn’t a true Irish goodbye, because I actually told people I was leaving, but
it was quick. For those who don’t know, an “Irish goodbye”
is leaving a gathering without telling anyone that you are departing. I have been known to employ the Irish goodbye
in my past. I don’t really do the Irish
goodbye anymore but I used to.
So why would you do that, anyway? Am I rude? Don’t you
love your friends and family?
I don’t know, I would say usually the Irish goodbye is employed
during gatherings that are attended by a large amount of people, are less than
enjoyable, or have run long. Or all of
the above.
It depends on the person and the situation of course, but
for me, I think my “Irish goodbyes” were born from my social awkwardness, low
self esteem, and my selfishness.
Back in the day, I cared about myself first and foremost.
I only cared about myself and didn’t care if what I did offended anyone and if
I wanted to leave, I would leave. Even today, for me when I get a feeling that “it’s
time to go, it’s time to go”. While I won’t
leave without saying goodbye anymore, don’t blink because you might miss
it.
Also, I sort of hate goodbyes. In my social awkwardness
and low self esteem, I preferred slipping out unnoticed rather than having make
a big deal about my leaving or have to deal with any objections or questions
about where I was going to.
My nervousness and social anxiety made my being at a
social gathering a little painful as I wouldn’t feel comfortable in my own skin
and don’t have a penchant for small talk.
So in the past, I would drink massive amounts of alcohol to get over my
inhibitions.
I don’t do that anymore. So even though I have made great
strides in being comfortable in myself and interacting with others, I still
dread those awkward moments when the conversations dry up or have a lull and I
don’t know what to do or say. At those
silent times beyond initial introductions, I don’t know where to look, if I
should talk, or if I should remain silent.
If I am among friends or am talking about the Lord or
ministry, I could talk all day long but if I sense that what I am saying isn’t
being received or understood, my tendency to talk will dry right up. I don’t watch
a lot of TV. I don’t follow politics, don’t watch the news, or have any clue
about what’s happening in sports these days so my material for small talk is
limited and frankly, because of my experiences with my relationship with God, I
don’t find many of those things interesting anymore and would rather hear about
what is happening with the people’s individual lives rather than current
events.
I love people’s stories not the news. I want to hear what has
happened in their lives not what they think about certain political stances. I
want to know about them and their relationship with God. If they don’t have one, I want to encourage
them that they can. I want to encourage
them to have “quality time” with their lives on the earth.
I don’t want them to be in bondage to the thing that don’t
matter but to have the peace that comes from knowing that although there are
big questions and concerns in this world, the Lord has answers to them all and
no matter whether or not situations in the world are going to be resolved as
they wish, they can have peace and joy when they let God into their lives.
Our lives are only so long. I don’t know where we are on
the end times timeline. I don’t know if Christ will come back before I
die.
But I can have peace knowing that no matter what comes
today, there is nothing that can separate me from His love and because of my
relationship with Him, through faith in Jesus Christ, there is nothing that He
and I can’t handle.
I also know that my time matters and I have to be wise in
how I use the little bit of it that isn’t scheduled. So, I make awkward
goodbyes and quick exits at gatherings I am thoroughly enjoying at times
because I know that when it’s all been said and done, I won’t regret not staying
at parties where I don’t know what to say or don’t know where to look, but I
might regret not spending time in the presence of my loved ones where there is no
awkwardness and I don’t have to worry about where I look or what I say.
In this life, being bold and courageous in our love for
one another, may require we go against the norm. It might mean we turn the conversations
we are in away from the trivial and ask the questions that really matter. It
might mean we decide to not worry about what others think, and be open and
honest with what we have come to know through our experiences with God and it
might mean, we advocate for our love relationships rather worrying about how we
are perceived by the crowd.
When we are free, we are free to leave and free to love.
So keep walking and talking with God, go where He leads you and if your heart
tells you its time to move along, get going. The Lord’s got places for us to
see and people for us to love, and we never regret the decision to pursue them.
______________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Jeremiah 17:7-8 (NLT2)
7 “But blessed are those who
trust in the LORD and have made
the LORD their hope and
confidence.
8 They are like trees planted
along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are
not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves
stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.
Today’s
Bible vuses an analogy of abundant vegetation to describe those who have their
hope and confidence in the Lord.
The
Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Life. God breathed eternal life into us the moment
we put our faith in Jesus Christ and when we are in Christ, we should not only
have the hope of heaven, we should have the confidence we are already
there.
In
yesterday’s abruptly left Freedom in Christ meeting, one of the guests, who
hadn’t been through a Freedom in Christ course or the Steps to Freedom in Christ
expressed his deep desire for understanding and experiencing his freedom in Christ
but confessed that he marveled over how he could be so consumed with the
problems of this world and be filled with doubts if he “really believed in Jesus
Christ, quoting the line in scripture that proclaims… “help my unbelief”.
While
I took a point in my hasty departure to personally encourage this man to “doubt
his doubts” and to get connected with a Freedom in Christ course, I could
totally relate to his situation. He was seeking
answers still but didn’t have the confidence and hope that comes from knowing
Christ personally and experientially. I
think this man had a measure of faith in Christ, but he still needed to trust
the Lord with more of his life.
Today’s
verse tells us that those who trust the Lord are blessed and have an abundant flourishing
life of hope and confidence.
We must
all answer Christ’s question in John 11: Do you believe this?
And
if we answer yes, we must trust the Lord to start living by what the word of God
says rather than what we have learned from our experiences in the world.
The
abundant life of hope and confidence comes from living out faith in all the
areas of our lives. It comes from a complete surrender to the Lordship of
Christ.
So
trust the Lord, show the Lord that you “do believe” with the way you live, and be
blessed with the life of hope and confidence He has for you
______________________________________________________________________
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 Clinton E. Arnold’s
“Powers of Darkness”
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Clinton Arnold’s books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $20.00.
Angelic Powers over the Nations
The
Old Testament gives yet another insight into the unseen realm of spirits and
angels by speaking of supernatural beings that are closely attached to all the
nations. The idea first appears in Deuteronomy 32:8–9: “When the Most High gave
to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed
the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his
allotted heritage” (RSV). The Greek version of the Old Testament interprets “the
sons of God” as angels and thus translates the key phrase “he fixed the bounds
of the peoples according to the number of the angels of God.” This passage is
best explained as teaching that “all the nations of the earth are given over
into the control of angelic powers.”13
Although the Old
Testament as a whole has little to say about this idea, the book of Daniel does
present us with the clearest picture of this Jewish belief. The book gives the
details of a vision that God granted to the prophet Daniel—a vision in which he
learns about the activities of the angels set over the nations of Persia,
Greece and even Israel. In fact, an angel mediated the vision to Daniel. The
one who appeared to Daniel is described as a man dressed in linen with a
dazzling appearance. The first part of the vision is taken up with descriptions
of angelic war and conflict. Yet this heavenly conflict was closely tied to the
fate of nations and peoples. Received during the third year of Cyrus, king of
Persia, the vision describes the position of Israel in relation to the Persian
and Greek empires. The angel said:
The
prince of the kingdom of Persia
withstood me twenty-one days; but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, so I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia and came
to make you understand what is to befall your people in the latter days.… But
now I will return to fight against the prince
of Persia; and when I am through with him, lo, the prince of Greece will come.… There is none who contends by my side
against these except Michael, your prince.
(Dan 10:13–14, 20–21 RSV, italics mine)
The
many references to princes are to
angelic powers. The title of authority probably indicates that these various
angelic princes are leading hosts of other angelic powers into battle.
The word prince in this passage is translated
from the word archōn in one of the
Greek versions of the book of Daniel. Archōn
is a word that all four of the Gospel writers and Paul later used either for
Satan or for evil spirit powers.
There appears to be a
direct correspondence between the outcome of the angelic battles and the
fortunes of the corresponding nations. This vision was not intended to lead
Daniel into a fatalistic resignation of life. Daniel himself could wield
influence over the unseen angelic powers. The angel who visited Daniel came in
response to his piety and prayer. The angelic messenger told Daniel: “Since the
first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself
before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them”
(Dan 10:12).
The vision functions
not only as a means of giving Daniel information about future events and
therefore hope, but also as a stimulus to continued godliness and prayer. God
directs his angels as a result of the prayer of his people.
Michael is the only
angel whose name is revealed in this passage. He is described as Israel’s
prince (10:21), the one who protects Israel (12:1).
While the book of
Daniel does not describe precisely how the angels exert their control over
nations, later Jewish tradition is more explicit. The ruling angels over
nations, other than Israel, function as deceiving angels. One Jewish text
teaches, “[there are] many nations and many people, and they all belong to him
[God], but over all of them he caused spirits to rule so that they might lead
them astray from following him” (Jubilees 15:31).
Increasing Jewish
Interest in the Spirit Realm
During
the two centuries leading up to the time of Jesus, a sharp increase of interest
in the realm of angels, spirits and demons is observable in Jewish literature.
This preoccupation with the spirit world can be traced in virtually all facets
of its literature—the Old Testament Apocryphal writings (especially Tobit), the
Qumran literature, the pseudepigraphal testamentary literature and particularly
in the Jewish apocalyptic writings.
Going far beyond what
was revealed in the Old Testament, the Jews of this period gave details of the
numbers of angels, their names and their hierarchies. Where the Old Testament
was silent about the rebellion of the evil angels, Jewish writings of the
second temple period provided a full account. There is also much discussion on
the nature of angelic influence over the destiny of nations as well as over the
daily life of the individual.
Much of this
burgeoning curiosity about the spirit realm can be attributed to a growing
tendency to distance God from direct involvement in daily life. His perceived
transcendence led many Jews to begin postulating the intermediary role of
angels. God was still in control and would bring history to a climax with the
destruction of evil, but he had entrusted the administration of the world to
angels, and many had gone astray. For the Jews of this period, this belief gave
perspective to the problem of their suffering. The illegitimate rule of
Palestine by Roman usurpers could now be explained from a demonological
perspective; the kingdom of Satan had gained a temporary victory.
The Qumran community,
which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, explained the prevailing political
situation in those terms. The community published a document, now known as the War Scroll (1QM), which describes an
impending battle between the “children of light” and the “children of
darkness.” On one level “the sons of darkness” are defined as the Romans (Kittim), but on another spiritual level
they are identified with Satan and the evil angelic forces of his kingdom (1QM
13.4–5). When the battle occurs, it would be decided by the direct intervention
of God, who would raise his hand “in an everlasting blow against Satan and all
the hosts of his kingdom” (1QM 18.1). The scroll sees the battle taking place
on two dimensions, with men fighting men and angels fighting angels. There is,
however, a crossover in which the good angels are portrayed as helping God’s
people and Satan’s hosts as helping the Roman soldiers.
Other segments of
Jewish literature show greater interest in exposing the influence of evil
spirits on the daily life of the individual. Reflecting popular belief, the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs give a demonic root to much moral
evil—people often succumb to the influence of evil spirits of deceit.
This literature is
extremely important when we approach the New Testament since it gives us a
glimpse into the Judaism of Jesus’ day and the time of Paul’s ministry. It
helps us see the teaching of Jesus and Paul on Satan’s kingdom with a new
freshness and vitality. Jewish demonology is also important for us because of
the significant formative influence it had on the development of
early-Christian angelology and demonology as seen by many of the church
fathers.[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
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My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via
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and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness:
Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters (Downers Grove,
IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 1992), 62–65.
