Labels

Friday, November 4, 2022

Don’t Fear the Reaper - A Harvest of Repentance - Purity 880

 

Don’t Fear the Reaper - A Harvest of Repentance  Purity 880

Purity 880 11/04/2022 Purity 880 Podcast

Purity 880 on YouTube: 



Good morning,

Today’s rather dark photo of a recently harvest cornfield set against the contrast of the thriving green of what I believe to be “winter wheat” comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene while out for walk along Waite Rd in Easton yesterday as the sun was dipping into the horizon.   

Well, it is Friday, so Thanks God, and rejoice over the last day of the normal work week, if that applies to you, and for all that the Lord has done to make your lives new. While today’s photo isn’t particularly spectalur I thought it was a good visual representation of us transitioning into the “life of the weekend” and because I will be leading another man through the Steps to Freedom in Christ today and I hope to see the Holy Spirit reap a harvest of repentance as we meet later this morning in prayer.   

For those who follow the blog, you may remember I already shared a photo of this field and the contrast of corn ready for harvest and the humble beginnings of the sprouting winter wheat.  But yesterday I saw that the farmers had completely cleared the corn field of its harvest and I am sharing this photo today because it reminds me of what the Lord can do with the unruling overgrown messes of our pasts.   

Just like that cornfield, our pasts can be a substantial unruly mess and the sheer volume of it and all its accumulated trauma, sin, and bitterness can seem like its just too much to deal with and it is something that we should just ignore and keep walking past.   But just like that cornfield, if we don’t clear the land of our pasts and use the things in it to nourish us, its just a waste.  And we can’t just pick and choose the good things of our pasts to be able to walk free of it. Just like the reaper took the ears of corn and all the stalks, leaves, and ripped out the roots, in order to adequately be free of the pain of our pasts and to be able to grow anew, we have to take all of our pasts and give them to the Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to process it all to make us grow.  

With the Lord’s help we can acknowledge it all. All of that did happen to me. Some of it was good. But some of it was bad. Some of it just wasn’t right.  The things I did weren’t right! The things others did to me weren’t right. And some things that happened to my friends and family, or by my friends and family weren’t right!   

While the world would suggest either to move on from your past by just forgetting about it or by settling scores by getting even, The Lord wants you to processour past, your old life, by living the new one He has for you.  

And the new life that the Lord has for you commands that you enact the Lord’s solution for your problems, past and present.  His solution is forgiveness and repentance and the Holy Spirit in every Christian, is the One who can help us reap all of our spiritual and personal conflicts according to God’s wisdom and love, to clear the land and allow you to sow the seeds of a new life that won’t be choked out by the weeds of your past.  

Going to the Lord and confessing your sins and then making the decision to live for Him and according to His way, to learn who you are in Christ and to follow the example of Jesus, is the way to the new life.  It is a process of prayer, faith , and action. 

We can’t just reap our own harvest. Repentance is granted by the Holy Spirit alone and it is with and through Him that we can be healed of our hurts and give the power to transform our lives.  

So for those who have already had the Lord clear the fields of your pasts, rejoice! Your victory and freedom need never end, as long as you keep on walking and talking with God.  

As for those whose pasts still have a tendency to loom over you,  I suggest you go to the Lord and ask Him to help you to clear your field. The Steps to Freedom in Christ is one way you can do it.  The Steps guide people to pray to the Lord and to ask Him to help them repent and deal with the hurts of the past.  The steps are just a road map but you invite the Lord to walk through them together, in faith, the Lord has been known to use them to set people free.  I have seen it happen to others and I have seen the Lord do it for me.  

But hey, I’m just suggesting one path of many right? I guess that’s true but just like our pasts are filled with choices to many paths we wish we never took, sometimes we know there really is only one RIGHT thing we should do and I pray that the Lord reveals the truth of THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE, of Jesus, to you. 

The Lord is patient and loving and He won’t force us to do anything but, man, if you accept Jesus’ invitation to Follow Him, you will discover just how good walking and talking with God can be.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Romans 12:20 (NLT2)
20  Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.”

Today's Bible verse encourages us to show love to those who would despitefully use us, to put into practice Christ’s command to love our enemies with the expectation that love can conquer hate.  

I have to thank God for the godly men that He has put on my path of Christian growth.  While some “Christians” are known to quote Bible verses, chapter and verse, some of these zealots give Christianity a bad name because while they can accurately state the word of God and obviously have it in their heads, there unfortunately seems to be a disconnect with the hearts as they use the word of God to chastise, criticize, manipulate, and control others, they haven’t allowed it to produce the spiritual fruit of love in their lives.   And in some cases, the knowledge of the word is only a sheep’s covering that is used to conceal secret sins and a hidden agenda.  

But then there are those Christians who not only know the word of God but seek to understand it and apply it to their lives and how they interact with others.  

Today’s verse reminds me of my mentor Pastor Bob Costello and our days serving together in Celebrate Freedom, the now disbanded recovery ministry at my former church.  In the early days of that ministry, a homeless veteran of the Gulf War with physical, mental, and spiritual problems came to our church’s attention and Pastor Bob was given the task of trying to help this troubled man. Although this man served our country and professed to be a Christian, he also served his flesh and didn’t always express gratitude for Bob’s companionship and efforts to help.  The veteran had addiction issues, physical disabilities, and a history of prison time so like a wounded dog, he would often bite the hand that literally fed him and would periodically run free and make a mess of things.  

I know Pastor Bob to be a man of great patience but this man’s ungrateful attitude and unrighteous antics test his limits, so much so that he took his concerns to the senior pastor who suggested that Bob apply Romans 12:20 to the situation.  

As much as Bob wanted to complain about this man and wanted to just shake the dust off his feet and walk away from the whole situation, the word of God convicted Bob to forgive much because he himself had been “trouble” in his youthful days back in the Bronx and had been forgiven much by the Lord and other Christians.  

And the word of God, really did a work on Bob. He didn’t just begrudgingly keep on trucking along out of some sense that was what He was supposed to, He applied that verse to His heart and it changed everything.  Instead of seeing this troubled vet as a big problem, Bob started to see Him as one of God’s children that needed love. 

So Bob just kept serving him and showing him compassion until something amazing happened, things got better.  The Vet entered into our recovery ministry and resisted the real and present danger to relapse.  Bob and the church eventually connected him to resources and provided him with financial assistance to get him his own apartment. After a while this vet was actually walking in sobriety and was so grateful that he decided to lead worship at our recovery ministry with a soulful rendition of Christ Tomlin: “You’re a good, good father.”   The heaping coals of kindness on this man’s head had worked.  The love that Bob and those at the church had given this man had “shamed” the evil in him and caused him to repent and start walking in the way the Father would have him go.  

This man had been a hostile combatant against the world for the pain he had suffered but the love he received caused him to literally sing the Lord’s praises.  

So feed your enemies, if they are thirsty given them something to drink, because love is great than hate, good is better than evil, and the light of God’s love that we allow to shine through us will dispel the darkness. 

___________________________________________

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 Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 6

On the Hidden Nature of the Christian Life

Hidden Righteousness concludes

Second, we ask: what in the content of the act of following Christ constitutes the union of the visible and the hidden? How can the same thing be simultaneously visible and hidden? To answer we need only to turn back to the result of chapter 5. What is extraordinary and visible is the cross of Christ, beneath which the disciples stand. The cross is at once what is necessary and hidden, and what is visible and extraordinary.

Third, we ask: how can the paradox between the fifth and sixth chapters be resolved? The concept of discipleship itself provides the resolution. It is exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. Disciples always look only to their Lord and follow him. If they were to see the extraordinariness itself, then they would no longer stand in discipleship. In simple obedience disciples do the will of the Lord who bids them do something extraordinary, and they know in everything only that they can do nothing else, that they are, therefore, doing what is simply a matter of course.

The only required reflection for disciples is to be completely oblivious, completely unreflective in obedience, in discipleship, in love. If you do good, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. You should not know your own goodness.[170] Otherwise it will really be your goodness, and not the goodness of Christ. The goodness of Christ, the goodness of discipleship takes place without awareness. The genuine deed of love is always a deed hidden to myself. Pay heed that you do not know it. Only in this way is it the goodness of God. If I want to know my own goodness and my own love, then it is no longer love. Even the extraordinary love of enemies remains hidden to disciples. When they love their enemies, then they no longer view them as enemies. This blindness of the disciples, or rather this vision enlightened by Christ, is what makes them certain. The hiddenness of their lives from themselves is their promise.

The other side of hiddenness is its being in the open. There is nothing hidden which will not be revealed. That is how God made things to be, before whom everything hidden is already revealed. God wants to show us what is hidden. God will make it visible. Being revealed in public is the reward ordained by God for hiddenness. The question is only where and from whom people receive this reward of public recognition. If they long for it to be in sight of other people, then they will have had their reward as soon as they get such publicity. There is no difference whether they seek it in the cruder form, in the presence of others, or in the more subtle form, in the presence of themselves. Whenever the left hand knows what the right is doing, whenever I myself become aware of my own hidden goodness, whenever I want to know about my own goodness, then I have already prepared for myself the public reward which God intended to store up for me. I am the one who revealed my own hiddenness to myself. I do not wait for God to show it to me. So I have gotten my reward. But those who remain hidden even from themselves until the end[173] will receive from God the reward of being revealed. But who can live in such a way as to do the extraordinary in secret? Who can prevent the left hand from knowing what the right hand is doing? What sort of love is that which does not know of itself, but can remain hidden from itself until the last day? It is clear that because it is hidden love, it cannot be a visible virtue, a human habitus [attitude]. Beware—it says—that you do not mistake genuine love for the virtue of kindness or for a human “quality”! It is self-forgetting love in the most genuine sense of the word. In this self-forgetting love, however, the old self must die with all its virtues and qualities. The old Adam dies in the disciples’ love, which is oblivious of the self and bound solely to Christ. The death of the old Adam is proclaimed in the sentence: “Let not your left hand know what your right is doing.” Once again, who can live so that chapters 5 and 6 are one? None except those whose old self has died in Christ and who have found a new life in Christ’s community of discipleship. Love as the deed of simple obedience is death to the old self and the self’s discovery to exist now in the righteousness of Christ and in one’s brothers and sisters. Then the old self is no longer alive, but Christ is alive in the person. The love of Christ the Crucified, who leads the old self in us to death, is what lives in Christ’s follower. Disciples find themselves only in Christ and in their brothers and sisters.[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 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), 150–152.


Bonhoeffer's Discipleship - Lesson 9: The Hidden Righteousness & The Hiddenness of Prayer

 



I am happy to announce that I have completed and uploaded  Lesson 9 of “Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship” : an informal study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship – with Lesson  9 – The Hidden Righteousness & The Hiddenness of Prayer   

Here is a link to the audio podcast: Lesson 9 Podcast

Here is a link to the video on YouTube: 



It is my prayer that this series will encourage people to read Bonhoeffer’s work but more importantly I hope the lessons encourage people to deepen their faith in Christ by pursuing a life of Christian Discipleship. 

God bless you all. 

 

M. T. Clark  


Thursday, November 3, 2022

That All You Got? Freedom from Unforgiveness - The Lord Has More for You - Purity 879

 

That All You Got?  Freedom from Unforgiveness - The Lord Has More for You - Purity 879

Purity 879 11/03/2022 Purity 879 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the of the clear still waters of Queechy lake comes to us from a friend or share this photo on social media from what they think may be their last paddle of the season on Saturday October 29th.  however in the comments of the photo’s post a friend playfully challenged our paddling enthusiast, asking the question “That all you got?”

Well is it?  knowing the weather in upstate New York, the challenger may have a point. While we are in November now and can reasonably expect anything from snow to near 70 degree temperatures, like today, we don't know always know what the future will hold and what we will be capable of unless we challenge ourselves to stretch and the see just what it is we can do. Rather than looking at the limitations on our lives we should ask the question can I do this?

well it's Thursday again and I share this photo of a kayak on a lake as another visual example of a pathway of sorts to encourage my friends to get on or keep walking on the path of Christian discipleship because while things may be impossible for man Christ said that all things are possible with God and while we think we might not be able to do something in our own strength, if it is in His will, God will help us to accomplish things we never dreamed of being possible.

Last night I led one of the men the from the Freedom in Christ course through the Steps to Freedom in Christ and while he admitted to having thoughts that denied that the process of going through the steps in repentance would be successful, a funny thing happened. After he forgave all the people in his life for all the offenses they have ever done to him, those condemning and doubting voices were silenced.

I have to admit that for a second there I thought I was going to have to square off against  manifestation of the enemy but together we prayed, stood in the authority that we had in Jesus Christ and after the step on forgiveness the rest of the process was relatively peaceful as this man confessed rebellion, pride, and all the known sins in his life, renounced and broke spiritual soul ties to people in his sexual past, and cancelled any generational sins of his ancestors.   The work of repentance of the Holy Spirit and this man's faith brought to the table was mighty to behold and at the end of the process when I asked him to listen in an extended moment of silence, he reported that things were quiet in his mind, and he had an abiding sense of peace.

Unforgiveness can be a real stronghold that can keep us in bondage to bitterness and to the literal spiritual forces of darkness.

So which was it? Was it demons, the hardness of this man's heart, or the baggage of a past filled with abuse that kept him from knowing peace?

The answer to that question might be only known by the Lord himself but the good news is that when we come before the Lord and forgive those who have offended us, the bondage of bitterness is broken. Something that many people would consider impossible: to forgive.

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin and to guide us in the way we should go. But the Lord is gracious and allows us to have free will, to freely choose what path will take in life. We can choose to live life like we've always had before coming to Christ, according to the worlds and our own wisdom, or we can listen to the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of the word of God to know and experience the abundant life that Christ has for us.

This life of Christian discipleship is counterintuitive to how we've been conditioned to live without God, but it is possible. With God, we can turn from the world's ways, and we can be transformed. We can have peace, joy, love, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self-control. The fruit of the spirit grows in our lives when we walk in the spirit and when we confess our sins and renounce the way we used to live we remove all the limits on what God can do for us.

So as we draw into the 4th day of the work week remember to ask yourself from time to time: that all you got?

The world, the flesh, and the devil will tell you that it's all over, that it's best to just pack it in and not try anything new, to just play it safe and stay safe in the shadows of what you're familiar with.

But Jesus Christ invites us to: “come and see”.

The Holy Spirit invites us to know what faith is and to experience his power to transform us and to give us a life of meaning and purpose that few in this world know of.

God the Father has made you for a purpose and He wants to have peace with you, through faith in Jesus Christ, and for you to be conformed in his image, to be the person that He created you to be.

So let go of the sins of the past, in Christ you're forgiven, and because you've received God's forgiveness, cast off the burden of bitterness that comes from holding on to offences against others by forgiving everyone for everything from the heart, as the Lord commands you.  

God doesn't want us to suffer anymore from the things that people have done against us. The solution to our problem of bitterness is forgiveness: to set the captive free and to realize it was you.

So keep walking and talking with God then follow the word of the Lord and the Holy Spirit, and you will discover that you have a lot more life to live, a lot more things to do, and a lot more hearts to touch then you thought you could.  with the Lord you'll discover they got a lot more of life left in store.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Romans 12:9 (NLT2)
9  Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.

Today's Bible verse encourages us to not be a pretender to really love others, to hate what is wrong, and to hold tightly to what is good.

One of the biggest drawbacks to pursuing a life of faith in Christendom is the perception that the people in the church are a bunch of phonies. Unfortunately, our experience may actually bear out that perception as our past relationships in the hallowed halls of the buildings called churches may have been plagued by hypocrisy and quite possibly abuse.

Some people say they don't want to be a part of a church because of the hypocrites in the church. Unfortunately, the truth is there's hypocrisy in everyone's lives. No one lives perfectly according to the standards that they would like to hold themselves to. No one. The only perfect person was Jesus Christ. And while we are called as Christians to follow Jesus the word of God clearly points out that we will not be able to perfectly live like Jesus did. That's why we need Jesus!

So what do we do with this hypocrisy? We won't be able to be perfect but today's verse I think is calling us to try to be genuine in our faith: to really love others, hate what is evil, and to hold on to what is good.

If you don't like the phonies in the church, don't be one by having the heartfelt intention to love our neighbors as ourselves and to love the Lord God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

___________________________________________

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 Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 6

On the Hidden Nature of the Christian Life

Hidden Righteousness continues

What does Jesus say about all that? He says: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them.” The call to be extraordinary is the great, inevitable danger of discipleship. Therefore, beware of this extraordinariness, of the way that discipleship becomes visible. Jesus calls a halt to our thoughtless, unbroken, simple joy in what is visible. He gives a sting to the extraordinary. Jesus calls us to reflection.

The disciples should have this extraordinariness only by way of reflection. They should heed it, watch out for it. The extraordinary is not supposed to happen in order to be seen. This means that the extraordinary deed should not be done for the sake of its being extraordinary. And it should not be seen just for the sake of being seen. The better righteousness of the disciples should not be an end in itself. Of course, what is extraordinary does have to become visible, it does have to happen, but—beware that you do not do it in order for it to become visible. Although the visibility of discipleship does have a necessary reason, which is the call of Jesus Christ, it is never a goal in itself. If it were, then the focus would no longer be on discipleship itself; then a moment of repose would occur, our following would be interrupted, and we would not be able to take it up again at the point where we had stopped to rest. We would immediately be sent back to begin all over again. We would have to take note that we are no longer disciples. So something has to become visible, but—paradoxically: beware that it does not happen for the sake of being seen by people. “Let your light shine before the people …” (5:16), but: pay attention to the hiddenness! Chapters 5 and 6 collide hard against each other. What is visible should be hidden at the same time; at the same time both visible and not to be seen. The reflection we have mentioned, thus, needs to be guided so that we do not stray into reflection about our extraordinariness. Our paying attention to our righteousness is supposed to support our not paying attention to our righteousness. Otherwise extraordinariness is no longer the extraordinariness of discipleship, but the extraordinariness of our own will and desire.

How are we to understand this contradiction? First, we ask: from whom should the visibility of discipleship be hidden? Not from the other people, for they are to see the light of Jesus’ disciples shining. Rather it should be hidden to those doing the visible deed of discipleship. They should keep on following Jesus, and should keep looking forward to him who is going before them, but not at themselves and what they are doing. The righteousness of the disciples is hidden from themselves. Of course, they, too, can see the extraordinariness, but not themselves in it; they remain hidden from themselves. They see the extraordinary only when they look at Jesus, and in him they do not see it as extraordinary, but as something obvious and normal. So what is visible really is hidden from them, in obedience to the word of Jesus. If the extraordinariness were important to them because it is extraordinary, then they would act like enthusiasts, out of their own power, out of the flesh. But because Jesus’ disciples act in simple obedience to their Lord, they view the extraordinary as only the normal act of obedience. According to Jesus’ word, the disciples can do nothing else but be the light that shines. They do not do anything to accomplish this; they are the light while following Christ, looking only to their Lord. Precisely because what is Christian is necessarily extraordinary, that is, in the indicative form [“you are”], it is at the same time normal and hidden. Otherwise it is not Christian, it is not obedience to the will of Jesus Christ.[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), 148–150.


Wednesday, November 2, 2022

I Love It! – GAMES On - Practicing Appreciation - Purity 878

I Love It! – GAMES On - Practicing Appreciation  - Purity 878

Purity 878 11/02/2022 Purity 878 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the sparkling sunshine pathway to the “hump” of Magdalen Island on the Hudson River beneath a blue sky decorated with a collection of wispy cirrus clouds comes to us from my brother in law who shared this scene on social media two days ago commenting: “When this view is down the road from your home, how can you not take advantage of day like today.”  How indeed?  While my brother’s wife’s brother didn’t share the location of this sight, as the former mayor of Tivoli, NY tipped his hand by including the hashtag “#ilovit” which is Tivoli backwards, and a google map search later led me to conclude that if this view was from Tivoli, it had to be in the southernly direction of the Hudson River, because there are no islands to the north. 

When we share our “views” on life, while we may not know all that is happening in someone’s circumstances, we can get a pretty good idea where they are coming from and when someone is pointing others to the beauty that surrounds them I believe it can be a reflection of the state of their lives. If someone is taking time to appreciate the good things around them and share them with others, I believe that they are far from God because they are not only finding moments of peace and beauty for themselves but they are trying to share the moment with us and perhaps unwittingly sharing themselves. In sharing a photo, we are telling people: here I am, at this day and time, I was here and I was well, and whether we have a deep personal connection with the person or not, we can share in their joy.   

Well, it’s Wednesday, and that “hump” of Magdalen Island sitting in the Hudson has been shared to reflect my brother in law’s appreciation for his place in life and as a visual reminder that we have reached the midpoint of another work week.  While Wednesdays can be pretty blah and matter of fact because we are find ourselves in between the joy of the weekend past and the weekend yet to come, I hope to remind all of us connected to God through our faith in Jesus Christ, that while we might only be able to find the happiness in positive circumstance, like a weekend’s rest or enjoying a good view, the Christian disciple has no limits on the joy they can experience as our relationship with God transcends our physical location and the circumstances of our current situation.  

The joy of the Lord is our strength! When we put our faith in Christ, we have peace with God. We are forgiven. We are secure in His love and assured of good outcomes, ultimately if not in the here and now.  

While I certainly encourage all my friends to seize the day and practice appreciation for the things we encounter and to give thanks to God for those things, I also am quick to point out that our relationship with God is enough to give us a continual sense of peace and subsequently fill us with joy.

Marcus Warner and Stefanie Hinman, in their book “Building Bounce:  describe a way of practicing appreciation with the acronym: GAMES, so let’s play ball and see how we can practice appreciation to help us be emotionally resilient, to continually find our way back to joy.

G – is for Gratitude.  That’s right, It’s November, so let’s give thanks! But in this instance, Warner and Hinman recognize that there is a lot to be grateful for so in their acronym, their instruction is highly specific. For the first step to play this GAME of appreciation, Warner and Hinman directs us to find something we can have gratitude for RIGHT NOW, in our present moment.  This brings us into the moment of our lives, connecting us to our bodies and our present experience, a checkup of sorts, and directs us to see a positive light in our lives right now as we live and breathe.  This can be the fact that I am alive, I am breathing, I am relatively well and free of pain.  I have warm clothes on, I am comfortable. I have electricity. I have a lot of things in my life, right now, that I can appreciate and be thankful for.

A – is for Anticipation, where we reflect on something in the Future I can appreciate.  For example, we can appreciate that this workday will come to a conclusion, and we can enjoy our time at home later. We can appreciate that we will see our friends at work. Or that we will be able to have a nice dinner later.  IF there is much we can appreciate in the present, this just naturally carries into our Futures. If now is good so will our future. 

M – is for Memories, where we can appreciate things in our Pasts.  This can be memories of good things and times, our it can even be a memory of not so good tings and times that we no longer are experiencing.  Our memories can be used to appreciate all that we have encountered that have made us grow and to bring us to where we are now.

E – is for Experiences – where we can plan to do things that we can appreciate and appreciate the fact that we can plan them!  Making plans or reflecting on something we can do that gives us some circumstantial happiness can give us joy.  Or we can just do them – If there is an experience that will give us happiness, but will not have resultant guilt or shame, we should do it and appreciate the experience.

S – for Singing, yup, there is some wisdom to the old adage to whistle while we work! The act of singing can lift our spirits and give us joy. I personally recommend getting into Christian worship music and singing songs of praise that simultaneously connect  us to the Lord and encourage us about our relationship with Him and all He has done for us. 

So, as we walk through another Wednesday, remember to get your GAMES on and practice appreciation.  When we do that, we discover that it really is a wonderful life and when we know the Author of Life, The Lord, we can experience a relational joy to God from knowing that He personally directed our lives and provides us with all there is to appreciate.

So appreciate all you have and all that God has done, is doing, and will do for you when you keep walking and talking with Him.

     

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 112:5-9 (NLT2)
5  Good comes to those who lend money generously and conduct their business fairly.
6  Such people will not be overcome by evil. Those who are righteous will be long remembered.
7  They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the LORD to care for them.
8  They are confident and fearless and can face their foes triumphantly.
9  They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor.

Today’s Bible verses encourage us to be generous and to live righteously as a result of our relationship with God, indicating that when we do this we can rise above the challenges of this life and leave a legacy behind that will be worthy of honor and that could influence others.  

The NLT promise book for Men only shared, verse 6 and 9 of these verses, with the emphasis of being remembered for the good we do, I guess,  but I decided to share the others verses to show that our lives are a little more than what we will be remembered for, that we are living this life now, and not just looking forward to positive testimonies about us at the hour of our deaths.  

The emphasis from our resource was “when you want to earn the respect of others”… which quite frankly as I see as a less than respectable motivation for living righteously. And without the surrounding context that tells us that these people are “confidently trusting the Lord” seems like a “do good to look good” instruction.   

So as much as it is nice to be respected, to be honored, and influence others, our aim as disciples of Christ is to be pleasing to the Lord.  Those other benefits are bonuses. 

Christ basically teaches us in Matthew 5 & 6 not to do things for the crowd, before men, so be generous, live righteously because it is what Lord would direct you to do and if you should gain the respect of others try to influence them by directing them to Jesus. 

 

___________________________________________

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 Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 6

On the Hidden Nature of the Christian Life

Hidden Righteousness

Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

¶ “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:1–4).

The fifth chapter spoke of the visibility of the disciples’ community and culminated in the περισσόν, requiring us to understand that what is characteristically Christian is that which steps away from the world, rises above the world, is extraordinary. Then the next chapter links up with this περισσόν and reveals its ambiguity. The danger is great that the disciples will completely misunderstand this as a command to start building a heavenly kingdom on earth, despising and destroying the world order. The danger is great that in enthusiasts’ indifference to this age they will think it their duty now to achieve and make visible the extraordinariness of this new world, separating themselves from the world radically and with no willingness to compromise, in order to force into being what is Christian, what is appropriate to discipleship, what is extraordinary. It was too easy to mistake this for the preaching of another pious style and way of life, even if it was a free, new, inspiring one. And one’s pious flesh would be so willing to accept this extraordinariness, poverty, truthfulness, suffering, or even to seek it out, if only doing so would satisfy the heart’s longing to actually see something with one’s own eyes[161] and not merely to believe. One would surely be willing to nudge the boundaries of a pious lifestyle and obedience to the word, until they move more closely together, and are finally no longer distinguishable from each other. It would only be for the one goal of finally achieving the extraordinary.

On the other hand, those would gather on the battlefield who had only been waiting for Jesus to speak about the extraordinary so that they could attack him with even more rage. Proclaiming the extraordinary unmasked Jesus as an enthusiast, a revolutionary extremist who wanted to turn the world upside down, who instructs his disciples to leave the world and build a new world. Is that still obedience to Old Testament scripture? Is it not a thoroughly self-selected personal righteousness that is being proposed here?[163] Doesn’t Jesus know about the sin of the world that will wreck anything he commands? Doesn’t he know anything about God’s revealed commandments, which are given to ward off sin? Isn’t this extraordinariness he is demanding proof of a spiritual arrogance, which is the beginning of all enthusiasm? No, not the extraordinary, but rather the completely ordinary, everyday, regular, unobtrusive behavior is the sign of genuine obedience and genuine humility. If Jesus had sent his disciples to their people, to their vocations, their responsibilities, their obedience to the law as the scribes interpreted it to the people, then he would have shown himself to be pious, truly humble, and obedient. He would have inspired people to more serious piety and stricter obedience. He would have taught what the scribes already knew, but what they liked to hear preached again with emphasis, that true piety and righteousness consist of not only the external deed, but also of one’s heartfelt intentions, and not only of intentions, but also of the deed. That would really be “better righteousness” the way the people needed it, the way no one could have avoided it. But now all of that was shattered. Instead of the humble teacher of the law, they recognized an arrogant enthusiast. Of course, in all ages the preaching of enthusiasts has been able to inspire the human heart, indeed, even the noble human heart. But didn’t the teachers of the law know that the voice of the flesh was speaking from this heart in all its goodness and nobility? Didn’t they themselves know the power the pious flesh had over people? Jesus sacrificed the best sons of the country, the honorably pious ones useless in a struggle for a chimera. The extraordinary—that was the works of a pious person, done quite voluntarily, springing from one’s own heart. It was the triumphant insistence on human freedom against simple obedience to God’s commandment. It was forbidden human self-righteousness, which the law never permitted. It was lawless self-sanctification, which had to be rejected by the law. It was the free works which established themselves in opposition to unfree obedience. It was the destruction of God’s community, the denial of faith; it was blasphemy against the law, blasphemy against God. Assessed by the law, the extraordinariness Jesus taught was deserving of the death penalty.[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), 146–148.

 

Tuesday, November 1, 2022

What Your Mercy Did For Me! – It Ain’t All Sinner’s Day! - Purity 877


What Your Mercy Did For Me!  – It Ain’t All Sinner’s Day!  - Purity 877

Purity 877 11/01/2022 Purity 877 POdcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a solitary flower in full bloom declaring new life after it was mercilessly mowed down comes to us from yours truly as I took the time to document this object lesson of hope and determination that I witnessed on my property Down By the River on Sunday afternoon.     

Well, it may be the second day of the work week but it’s the first day on a new month in which everyone in our country will be called to give thanks and it just happens to also be the day when the body of Christ is called to remember the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ that have gone before us and for us to give thanks to God that we will be in that number when the saints go marching in! Happy All Saints Day.  

That’s right ALL SAINTS, as in every man, woman, and child who has ever “bowed the knee” in humble surrender and made Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior of their lives.  And while anyone could read this message, I have to believe that YOU and ME!

We may have been sinners saved by grace when we heard the call to repent and trust in Jesus, and we will always be less than Christ’s sinless perfection,  but after we placed our faith in Jesus, we were adopted into God’s royal family, and should thus claim and declare our identity as saints.  

While yesterday’s Halloween Celebrations unwittingly gave homage to the spiritual forces of darkness, today, along with every other day, is a day that we should celebrate the fact that of all the people in the world, the Creator of the universe chose us to know the truth about life and death, sin and forgiveness, heaven and hell, and called us to life through faith in His Son!  

This morning during my work out Micah Tyler’s What Mercy Did for Me came on and I have to tell you the words penetrated to my heart as I remembered once again that I was once lost in darkness when the Lord called me to know His love and His light and to experience a new life in Him!  

The chorus to that song says:  

“Lord you found me

You healed me

You called me from the grave

You gave me your real love

I thank you Jesus

You washed my sins away

Oh now I'm living like I'm forgiven

You came and set me free

That's what your mercy did for me”



God’s mercy and grace gave me forgiveness, love, and a new life filled with meaning and purpose.   And the gift of His mercy and grace continues to shape and transform my life and the lives of others that I encounter as I keep on walking and talking with God. 

Tonight I host the Freedom  in Christ Course on Zoom and the lesson is all about renewing the mind and breaking strongholds, a lesson that reminds Christians that Christ came to set us free and to destroy the works of the enemy. It’s a sad truth that many Christians have great joy at their salvation but stay locked in chains by believing the lies that the world, the flesh, and the devil have set up in their minds.  

The course teaches that just because we believed lies in the past doesn’t mean we have to live according to them now that we are in Christ. God has given us the Holy Spirit and His Word to use to overcome all the strongholds in our lives that have given the enemy a foothold and kept us from living the life of freedom and victory that the Lord has called us to.   

Just like the flower in today’s photo , that was dead, cut off mercilessly by my lawn mower, we can grow into the life God has for us. Because there was life in it that plant, unseen in the dirt, it was able to rise above its brokenness and fulfill its purpose to give God glory for the life He had given it by rising up and blooming by reaching for the light of the sun.  We too can rise up and if we abide in the Light of the Son of God and the truth of His Word, we can grow out of our brokenness and give God the glory for the life He has put in us.  

That’s what His mercy can do for all of us, so keep on reaching out for the Lord, that’s right keep on walking and talking with God because He has transformed us from sinners into saints and all we have to do is believe it to receive it, by living it.

  

     

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 33:18 (NLT2)
18  But the LORD watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love.

Today’s Bible verse reminds us that the Lord watches out for those who fear Him and rely on His unfailing love.  

And as a reminder, we should fear the Lord. His righteousness and holiness calls us to repentance and if we don’t make peace with Him there will be hell to pay.  

But if we put our faith Jesus, we don’t have to be afraid of Him anymore and our fear should be changed to an awe and respect that causes us to obey Him and to rely on His unfailing love.  

And this is a huge step that we have to make sure that we make after we put our faith in Jesus. We have to develop our love relationship with God.  We have to interact with Him relationally. We do that by thanking Him continually for the life He has given us, for all He has provided for us, and for all that He is and for all that He has done.  

Today’s the first day of November, the month we celebrate Thanksgiving, so if you aren’t already practicing gratitude and appreciation for the Lord, give it a try.  When we live a life of thankfulness to God, out love for Him grows and we can get past any false beliefs we may have had about Him as an angry judge and we can see Him as just, holy, good, loving heavenly Father that made a way to save us when He didn’t have to.  

Start the practice of relying on God’s unfailing love today by respecting Him enough to give Him your thanks and praise and by letting Him know that you love Him for what He has done for you and for who He is.  “I love you Lord” is probably the most appropriate thing we can say to One who made us and who saved us. God is good and if you know it you should remind yourself by relying on the love that never fails.

___________________________________________

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 Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5

On theExtraordinaryof Christian Life

The Enemy—the “Extraordinary” concludes

“Pray for those who abuse and persecute you.” That is the most extreme. In prayer we go to our enemies, to stand at their side. We are with them, near them, for them before God. Jesus does not promise us that the enemy we love, we bless, to whom we do good, will not abuse and persecute us. They will do so. But even in doing so, they cannot harm and conquer us if we take this last step to them in intercessory prayer. Now we are taking up their neediness and poverty, their being guilty and lost, and interceding for them before God. We are doing for them in vicarious representative action what they cannot do for themselves. Every insult from our enemy will only bind us closer to God and to our enemy. Every persecution can only serve to bring the enemy closer to reconciliation with God, to make love more unconquerable.

How does love become unconquerable? By never asking what the enemy is doing to it, and only asking what Jesus has done. Loving one’s enemies leads disciples to the way of the cross and into communion with the crucified one. But the more the disciples are certain to have been forced onto this path, the greater the certainty that their love remains unconquered, that love overcomes the hatred of the enemy; for it is not their own love. It is solely the love of Jesus Christ, who went to the cross for his enemies and prayed on the cross for them. Faced with the way of the cross of Jesus Christ, however, the disciples themselves recognize that they were among the enemies of Jesus who have been conquered by his love. This love makes the disciples able to see, so that they can recognize an enemy as a sister or brother and behave toward that person as they would toward a sister or brother. Why? Because they live only from the love of him who behaved toward them as toward brothers and sisters, who accepted them when they were his enemies and brought them into communion with him as his neighbors. That is how love makes disciples able to see, so that they can see the enemies included in God’s love, that they can see the enemies under the cross of Jesus Christ. God did not ask me about good and evil, because before God even my good was godless. God’s love seeks the enemy who needs it, whom God considers to be worthy of it. In the enemy, God magnifies divine love. Disciples know that. They have participated in that love through Jesus. For God lets the sun shine and the rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. It is not only the earth’s sun and earthly rain which descend on good and evil, but it is also the “sun of righteousness,” Jesus Christ himself, and the rain of God’s word, which reveal the grace of his Father in heaven toward sinners. Undivided, perfect love is the act of the Father; it is also the act of the children of their Father in heaven, just as it was the deed of God’s only begotten Son.

“The prayers of neighborly love and of nonrevenge will be especially important in the struggle fought by God toward which we are moving, and in which to some extent we have already been engaged for years. On one side, hatred is fighting, and on the other, love. Every Christian soul must seriously prepare for this. The time is coming in which everyone who confesses the living God will become, for the sake of that confession, not only an object of hatred and fury. Indeed, already we are nearly that far along now. The time is coming when Christians, for the sake of their confession, will be excluded from ‘human society,’ as it is called, hounded from place to place, subjected to physical attack, abused, and under some circumstances even killed. The time of a widespread persecution of Christians is coming, and that is actually the real meaning of all the movements and struggles of our time. Those opponents intent upon destroying the Christian church and Christian faith cannot live together with us, because they see in all of our words and all of our actions that their own words and deeds are condemned, even if ours are not directed against them. And they are not wrong in seeing this and feeling that we are indifferent to their condemnation of us. They have to admit that their condemnation is completely powerless and negligible. They sense that we do not relate to them at all, as would be quite all right with them, on the basis of mutual blaming and quarreling. And how are we supposed to fight this fight? The time is approaching when we—no longer as isolated individuals, but together as congregations, as the church—shall lift our hands in prayer. The time is coming when we—as crowds of people, even if they are relatively small crowds among the many thousands-times-thousands of people who have fallen away—will loudly confess and praise the crucified and resurrected Lord, and his coming again. And what prayer, what confession, what song of praise is this? It is a prayer of most intimate love for those who are lost, who stand around us and glare at us with eyes rolling with hatred, some of whom have already even conspired to kill us. It is a prayer for peace for these distraught and shaken, disturbed and destroyed souls, a prayer for the same love and peace that we ourselves enjoy. It is a prayer which will penetrate deeply into their souls and will tug at their hearts with a much stronger grip than they can manage to tug at our hearts, despite their strongest efforts to hate. Yes, the church which is truly waiting for its Lord, which really grasps the signs of the time of final separation, such a church must fling itself into this prayer of love, using all the powers of its soul and the total powers of its holy life” (A. F. C. Vilmar, 1880).

What is undivided love? Love which does not show special favor to those who return our love with their own. In loving those who love us, our kindred, our people, our friends, yes, even our Christian community, we are no different than the Gentiles and the tax collectors. That kind of love is self-evident, regular, natural, but not distinctly Christian. Yes, in this case it really is “the same” thing that non-Christians[151] and Christians do. Loving those who belong to me through blood, history, or friendship is the same for non-Christians and Christians. Jesus does not have a lot to say about that kind of love. People know all by themselves what it is. He does not need to light its flame, to emphasize it or exalt it. Natural circumstances alone force it to be recognized, for non-Christians and for Christians. Jesus does not need to say that people should love their sisters and brothers, their people, their friends. That goes without saying. But by simply acknowledging that and not wasting any further words on it, and, in contrast to all that, commanding only love for enemies, he shows what he means by love and what they are to think about the other sort of love.

How are disciples different from nonbelievers? What does “being Christian” consist of? At this point the word appears toward which the whole fifth chapter is pointed, in which everything already said is summarized: what is Christian is what is “peculiar,” περισσόν, the extraordinary, irregular, not self-evident. This is the “better righteousness” which “outdoes” that of the Pharisees, towers over them, that which is more, beyond all else. What is natural is τὸ αύτὸ (one and the same) for non-Christians and Christians. What is distinctly Christian begins with the περισσόν, and that is what finally places what is natural in the proper light. When this specialness, this extraordinariness, is absent, then what is Christian is absent. What is Christian does not take place in naturally given circumstances, but in stepping beyond them. The περισσόν never dissolves into τὸ αύτὸ. It is the great mistake of a false Protestant ethic to assume that loving Christ can be the same as loving one’s native country, or friendship or profession, that the better righteousness and justitia civilis are the same. Jesus does not talk that way. What is Christian depends on the “extraordinary.” That is why Christians cannot conform to the world, because their concern is the περισσόν.

What does the περισσόν, the extraordinary, consist of? It is the existence of those blessed in the Beatitudes, the life of the disciples. It is the shining light, the city on the hill. It is the way of self-denial, perfect love, perfect purity, perfect truthfulness, perfect nonviolence. Here is undivided love for one’s enemies, loving those who love no one and whom no one loves. It is love for one’s religious, political, or personal enemy. In all of this it is the way which found its fulfillment in the cross of Jesus Christ. What is the περισσόν? It is the love of Jesus Christ himself, who goes to the cross in suffering and obedience. It is the cross. What is unique in Christianity is the cross, which allows Christians to step beyond the world in order to receive victory over the world. The passio in the love of the crucified one—that is the “extraordinary” mark of Christian existence.

The extraordinary is doubtless that which is visible, which magnifies the Father in heaven. It cannot remain hidden. The people have to see it. The community of Jesus’ disciples, the community of better righteousness, is the visible community, that took the step beyond the orders of the world. It has left everything behind to gain the cross of Christ.

What are you doing that is special? The extraordinary—and that is what is most offensive—is a deed the disciples do. It has to be done—like the better righteousness—and done visibly! Not in ethical rigor, not in the eccentricity of Christian ways of life, but in the simplicity of Christian obedience to the will of Jesus. This deed will prove to be what is “special” by leading Christians to the passio of Christ. Such action itself is continuous suffering. In this action Christ is his disciples’ passio. If it is not that, then this is not the deed which Jesus intends.

The περισσόν is, thus, the fulfillment of the law, the keeping of the commandments. In Christ the Crucified and his community, the “extraordinary” occurs.

Here are those who are perfect, perfect in undivided love, just as their Father in heaven is. It was the undivided, perfect love of the Father which gave the divine Son up to die on the cross for us. Likewise, the passio of the communion with this cross is the perfection of the followers of Jesus. The perfect are none other than those who, in the Beatitudes, are called blessed.[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), 140–145.