Sharing our Experience,
Sharing our Faith - Purity 802
Purity 802 08/05/2022 Purity 802 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the “Heavens over Castleton” comes to us
from yours truly as I was absolutely mesmerized by the skies on my commute home
yesterday as I drove out of the darkness of thunderstorms to the north of me to
arrive into a land untouched by the rain and illuminated by the bright lights
of heaven. My photos really can’t do
justice to what I saw yesterday but I shared the best one of to try to share my
experience and how I was filled with joy to leave the darkness and turmoil of
the storm behind.
Well, it's Friday again and I'm thanking God that we can
all leave behind the turmoil, and possible darkness, of our work week and we
can look forward to the brightness that will lie in the weekend ahead of us at
the end of the day.
Just like I tried to share my experience of leaving the
darkness of a thunderstorm behind and seeing the glorious light of the sun
illuminate the heavens, last night I was privileged to have the opportunity to
share my experience of my Christian walk as I hosted our weekly meeting of Freedom
in Christ Ministries’ “The Grace Course” on Zoom.
However, just like how my photo doesn’t adequately
describe my experience yesterday, sometimes I feel like my words and my
descriptions of how to walk in the Spirit pale in comparison to my actual
experience of walking in it. But then I
get some feedback from some of the guys that I meet with that tell me that they
have been deeply impacted by the material from the courses I've walked him
through and from my personal testimony.
Last night's lesson was called “Humble!” and this morning
I am greatly humbled because one of the guys reached out to me in an e-mail to
let me know that I really impacted his faith and his walk as a Christian. And that's all I want to do with
the rest of my life. That's my purpose: to glorify God and Jesus Christ and
show people what it means to be a disciple of Christ and how following Him leads
to the abundant life that Jesus told us about.
One of the pieces of evidence that I've had an impact in other
people’s lives is the fact that they try to tell other people about what
they've learned. The man who gave me praise yesterday is trying to tell his
friends and family about his freedom in Christ and what the gospel of grace is
all about.
This gentleman is a little older in age and has grown
children but their lives are not exactly faith filled but they see the change
in their father and have been talking about God with him.
This man has a son who's somewhat analytical and they have
discussed all the in's and outs of the claims of the Bible, the exclusivity of
Jesus Christ to save, and the meaning of life. They have had real discussions
about Christian faith and how it relates to “real life”. They are in the midst of an ongoing discussion
about theology and the different existential questions but the son isn’t exactly
running off to church thus far.
My friend also has a daughter who reportedly had “more
faith” than the son as a child but who married someone who doesn’t respect is
Christian upbringing and they are now practical atheists because they don’t go
to church or see any value in “religion”.
The daughter marriage and suffering through life has caused her once “childlike
faith to dissipate.
In his conversations with her, my friend has discovered
that she doesn’t want to talk about theology or doctrine. She wonders about
things like “why people have to die” or “why
do people have to suffer” and may see life as the time between life and death,
with little faith that there is anything beyond.
So what do you do with this you know?
Well, for the son, I recommended that my friend go to
check out crossexamined.org, Frank Turek’s
ministry on Christian apologetics. Frank Turek has written “I don't have enough
faith to be an atheist” and “Stealing from God”, among other books, that
intelligently address the concerns about the Christian faith, and demonstrates how
our faith lines up with science, logic,
and reason. Turek’s work shows how
Christianity can intelligently answers the big questions for people who want to
be assured they can have a reasonable faith and not just blind faith. So if you
know someone who wants to know about the ins and outs of the Christian faith in
a more analytical sense Frank Turek’s website and books are great place to
start.
But with that said, I did remind my friend that people who
ask questions and to want to debate issues generally don't want to believe in
God and that nothing we say to them will convince them.
As Frank Turek has taught, for many people having faith in
God is not an issue with the head as much as it is with the heart. If people
chose to believe that Jesus Christ was Lord it would mean that they would have
to change how they live, not be the boss of their own life, or to give up their
sins. So I advised my friend to press
towards his son’s heart as well as answering those questions that his mind
brings up. The arguments Christian apologists have are solid so at the end of
the day the question remains: “With all this evidence, will you believe and put
your faith in Christ?”
Now what do you say to the daughter, the one who doesn't
want to talk about science and faith? How do you talk about God to someone who's
more based in her emotions or the experience of life?
Well for someone like that I suggested that we keep our
talks basic.
If they have a Christian background, we want to press
towards things like Christmas and Easter and remind them of what they learned
as a child. We want to remind them that Christ came to save the world because
of God’s love for us. Jesus died for our sins and it was all done out of God's
love.
We really want to push grace with people like this. We
want them to know that the gospel actually means that we are saved by faith and
faith alone, not works.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) are you proof verses for this. They
say:
8 For by grace you have been
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should
boast.
The Christian faith, unlike what they may have learned in
their liturgical churches, is not about rules and regulations. The Christian faith is a relationship with God
that's based on faith alone, our simple acceptance of the work that Christ did
on the cross to save us. You want to remind them that God doesn't ask us to be
perfect. God asks us to simply turn to Him ask for His forgiveness and to be
accepted by Him because of your faith in Christ. These people need to hear that
they don't actually have to “do anything” to be a Christian but to have faith
in Jesus. And that all the “good works” that we do as Christians, flow out of
the love that we have for Jesus because he forgave us and gave us internal
life.
Good works are not the means of salvation, they are the
fruit of salvation.
As for suffering and death, we want to keep it real. We
want to acknowledge the reality of life and death and good and evil. But we
want to assure them that God has a plan for all of it: Jesus Christ.
The wicked will be punished and those who put their faith in
Christ will never die.
If somebody asks “why don't we live forever?” or “why do
we have to die at all?” , we can assure them that they will live forever,
through Christ, And to receive eternal life only requires that we humble ourselves,
make Jesus our Lord and Savior, and enter into God’s Kingdom by faith.
As for suffering, Christ came to tell us that our
suffering would not carry into His Kingdom. So, we want to point out that the
suffering on this planet is temporary and many of which are caused by the evil
of men's hearts.
Now for people like my friend’s daughter that might even
be too much “theology”
So what do you do?
I advised my friend that if that's the case he can just
back off, but that he can represent his Christian faith in his interactions
with his daughter by showing her love, and by talking about how God is good and
about all the things he's given us in our lives like:
· our
families, our friends
· the
love we've known
· the
good things we have experienced
· the
good in the world
and how all of those things were provided by God through
His creation. If people focus on the evil in the world, we want to focus on the
good and simple things like that.
We want to emphasize
the love of God because the love of God is real and the love of God can be
experienced if we simply turn towards Him.
So I don't know if that helps anyone who may have qestions
about how to deal with our unbelieving friends and family but I hope it does.
The key is to show him that you're not completely insane and that you care about them.
The Christian faith is reasonable and the only reason we want to share our
faith is because we love others and we care about them and we want them to find
the peace that we have found in our relationship with the Lord, through our faith
in Christ.
The fard fact of life is that this life will end no matter
what we think and no matter what we do but we don’t have to be afraid of
death. God has made a way to be forgiven
and to live with Him forever.
In Christ we have life everlasting, that starts now and a
good place prepared for us by him in eternity.
So we want to lovingly encourage the ones we love to find it.
As we enter the weekend let's rejoice for the time off and
use our time to enjoy our lives but while we do, let's thank the Lord for what
he's done and let's shine a light of God's love for everyone to see.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Matthew
25:21 (NLT2)
21 “The master was full of
praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in
handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities.
Let’s celebrate together!’
Today’s
verse comes from a parable of Jesus and encourages us to be faithful to use our
talents for good and to accept the responsibilities that the Lord gives us with
a spirit of celebration as our faithfulness will be rewarded.
Jesus’
“parables of the talents” basically encourages to be faithful stewards of what
God had given us with the assurance of rewards and a celebration when we see
Him face to face. As good as the news is
for the “good and faithful servant”, it also shows us that the one servant who
was afraid of the master and buried his talent instead of investing it was
considered “wicked”!
We
are not to be fearful and hide “our talents”. We are to use them for God’s
glory and if we do God will reward us and give us more to do for His kingdom.
Often
in life there is an escapist mentality where people just want to “do nothing”
but this parable exposes how the Lord views that stance. God gave us a life and he wants us to enjoy
it and to use it to do good and to give Him glory. When don’t do that, we waste
our lives and we encounter His wrath because we squandered our talents and hid
for Him rather than acting in faith by trying to “do something” for the
Lord.
Doing
nothing might be peaceful at times but our spirits will convict us about our
laziness and wasting our lives and we will be filled with anxiety, guilt, and
shame because we are not meeting our purpose and we have failed to have peace
with God.
So
responsibility is actually a good thing, and the Christian shouldn’t cower in
fear and avoid new challenges. The Christian should trust the Lord and accept
the challenges begore them, do the best with the talents given to them, and leave the results up to the Lord.
_____________________________________________________________________
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.
Spiritism in Ephesus
The
city of Ephesus was really not that different from any other city in the
Hellenistic world. It did, however, have quite a reputation for being a center
for magical practices. Luke reinforces that reputation by his account of the
burning of the enormous amount of magical books (Acts 19:13–20). As discussed
in chapter one, magic was concerned with manipulating the spirit world. It is
based on a world view that sees spirits, both good and evil, involved in
virtually every part of life.
Ephesus was also a
city famous for its patron deity, Artemis of Ephesus. The Ephesian Artemis was
worshiped as a goddess of the underworld. She was also believed to wield
effective power over the spirits in nature and wildlife. The signs of the
zodiac on her cultic image reassured her worshipers that she was a cosmic deity
who had influence over the astral spirits who controlled the unfolding of fate.
Ephesus was not only the city of Artemis; at least forty-four other deities
were worshiped in this city.
It was precisely
these kind of people—magical practitioners and worshipers of Artemis and
countless other gods—who were becoming Christians and joining the churches in
the area. It is too easy to read the book of Ephesians through our own cultural
lenses and fail to grasp the nature and magnitude of the issues facing these
young first-century Christians. Although they would have longed to give their
devotion to Christ, the pull to syncretize their Christianity with other
practices and beliefs would have been intense. With regard to the issue of the
demonic, the Ephesian readers had far more in common with non-Western cultures
than they do with those of us in the West.
Quite likely Paul
intended the epistle to the Ephesians to be read not only in Ephesus but also
in a number of churches in the western part of Asia Minor. Ephesus is a good
point of reference for us in looking at the Ephesians. It was the capital city
of the province with a population of at least a quarter million people. It was
a religious center and had strategic influence over all of Asia Minor. It had
also been Paul’s base of operation during his nearly three-year stay in the
province. The basic issues were the same throughout these western Asian
churches. These new believers needed help in developing a Christian world view.
They especially needed to know how to respond to the gods and goddesses they
had formerly worshiped and the various astral, terrestrial and underworld
spirits they had feared.
I have written a
book-length treatment on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where I contend that
this epistle is occasioned in part by Paul’s special concern to address the
needs of people coming to Christ from a background of what today we would call
“occultic” beliefs. This explains why the principalities and powers and the
theme of spiritual warfare receives more attention in Ephesians than in any of
his other letters. Ephesians then becomes the pivotal letter in comprehending
Paul’s thought on the issue of principalities and powers.
Christ, the Powers
and the Power of God
Paul
wanted his readers to entertain no doubt that Christ is superior to the powers
they feared and had once served. Knowing that his readers would be tempted to
doubt the superiority and all-sufficiency of Christ, Paul prayed that God would
open their eyes so they could see the incomparably great power of the God of
the Lord Jesus Christ. His prayer became an elaboration on the mighty power of
God: “That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in
Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the
heavenly realms.” Paul did not stop here. He went on to draw the implications
of the exaltation of Christ to the status of the powers. Christ is “far above
all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given,
not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” The powers are
especially in view when Paul says, “God placed all things under his feet and
appointed him to be head over everything for the church” (Eph 1:19–22).
Anticipating his
summons to spiritual warfare, Paul prayed for God’s strength to be imparted to
all of his believing readers. He prayed that “out of his glorious riches he may
strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Eph 3:16).
Having prayed for them, he can then admonish his readers at the end of the
letter to “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” (Eph 6:10). God’s
power is essential not only for resisting the influence of the powers of Satan,
but also for manifesting love in the Christian community and living according
to the ethical standards that Paul laid down.
The mighty
resurrection power of God is available to believers. Paul encouraged Christians
to draw on this power for daily living. In Asia Minor the believers had to
develop an entirely new perspective on divine power. Their perverted
understanding of the supernatural needed to be purified by growing in the
knowledge of the one true God and why he would impart his power to people.
First, the source of
this power is new. They have been reconciled to Yahweh, the “one God and Father
of all” (Eph 4:5). He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but also the God
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is supreme and has no competitors. All the former deities
they once served must be forsaken and regarded as the manifestations and work
of the evil principalities and powers.
Second, these
believers were directed to a new and unique means of access to divine power. A
magical formula or recipe will not manipulate God. He is a personal God who
communes with his people and seeks a relationship with his own. This fellowship
with God does not come through some mystical absorption into a deity and
through a mystery ritual or any other means. It comes by the access made to God
through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross (Eph 2:18). Believers have been
brought into a very close union with the Lord Jesus Christ, which Paul most
commonly refers to as being “in Christ.” Such is the closeness and solidarity
of this bond that believers can consider themselves to have been coresurrected
and coexalted with Christ (Eph 2:6). This is the basis for the new identity of
believers and the foundation for their sharing in Christ’s authority over the
powers of evil.
Third, there is a new
purpose for imparting divine power to people. No longer are believers to use
supernatural power to inflict harm or for self-centered ends. God’s power is
imparted to believers to enable them to lead selfless lives. Believers are
called to exercise the kind of sacrificial love that was modeled on the cross
(Eph 5:2). In the eyes of the world, this is impossible. And, although Satan
and his powers will seek to prevent it, God’s power strengthens believers even
to love selflessly.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
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at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple
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Encouragement for the Path of
Christian Discipleship
