To Be With Jesus – The Chosen Season 3 Purity 893

 

To Be With Jesus – The Chosen Season 3  Purity 893         

Purity 893 11/19/2022 Purity 893 Podcast

Purity 893 on YouTube:  

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the silhouettes of an Autumn Stripped tree line against the backdrop of ethereal sunset sky comes to us from my beloved wife, TammyLyn Clark, who captured this heavenly scene back on November 11^th when she decided to take her youngest children and our canine pal, Harley, to Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville for an impromptu walk.  When we get to see scenes like this, I think we get a small idea of the beauty of heaven, and it makes me yearn for the days when we get to see God’s kingdom and Jesus face to face.  

Well, it is the weekend, and it is my prayer that all who hear or see this message have a wonderful weekend and will consider my recommendation to go and see The Chosen, Season Three Episodes 1 & 2 in a theatre near you. 

The only thing I was disappointed in at last night’s viewing of The Chosen, Season 3’s premier was my decision to fall in my patterned behavior of getting that large popcorn and soda. I know “say it isn’t so….” As I have said in the past, there is grace for our weaknesses and ours is a walk of progress and not perfection. 

Paradoxically,  part of my failure in the decision to indulge in the popcorn and soda (zero sugar – okay) was the result of a decision to get serious about my health goal. Say what?   

Yesterday, I was either the victim of click bait or genuinely resolved to get help by seeking the advice of experts in the field of fitness, as I purchased a fitness plan that is bold in its claims to help people transform their bodies.

After the bliss of my courtship and wedding to TammyLyn, I had let my health goal slip in 2022 but recently made steps to right the ship and have made progress. But after Halloween’s Harvest Fest candy indulgences and other slips, I have seen my progress stall.  Mercifully, I have more or less plateaued, with only gaining a pound or two back from my recent progress to reclaim the ground I had lost. So with the knowledge that I had to do something to start heading in the right direction again, I was open to suggestions. 

So I signed up for V-Shred, yup the “swipe up and take my fitness quiz”-guy, Vince Sant, that you have most likely seen on YouTube or Instagram plugging his Fat Loss Extreme Program.  So I intend to change my normal workout routine on Monday and trust this program and my personal trainer’s recommendations to “get shredded” or at least get headed in the right direction to accomplish my health goal of being in the normal BMI range for my height. 

So last night due to the excitement of going out on a Friday night, and like the alcoholic who gets drunk one last time before going to rehab, I gave into my patterned behavior of getting a large popcorn and soda, and of course had to get the refills, AND also got Cookie Dough Pieces! So, I look forward to my first V-Shred workouts Monday morning so I can atone for this latest failure.  

But, hey, speaking of atonement, I have been forgiven, right? Because of Jesus Christ, I have been forgiven of all my sins and have been delivered from condemnation, so I acknowledge my weaknesses, am seeking help and accountability, and will not beat myself up about failure 1,999.643 or whatever number this one was, and instead will repent and will press into my health goal with a new resolve on Monday.  

And that’s something I think that we should all remember,  just because we fail in achieving our goals in life doesn’t mean we should just abandon them.

This is a tough thing to discern of course because sometimes our goals can seem unrealistic, or they may indeed be impossible, and sometimes we have to give them up.

But in this area, our physical health, I believe that the Lord would encourage us to seek to be good steward of our bodies, the temples of the Holy Spirit, and would prefer that we didn’t suffer because our lack of discipline.

Gluttony is not a virtue and Obesity is its bad fruit.  Scripture doesn’t have good things to say about gluttony and there are verses to tell us to take care of our bodies. If you don’t believe me or need some verses to build a stronghold buster for you health goal, I am including links to openbible.ifo’s 100 Bible verses about gluttony (https://www.openbible.info/topics/gluttony)   and physical fitness (https://www.openbible.info/topics/physical_fitness) on the blog today.  

You see my health goal is not about vanity. I’m not looking to impress other people; I’m looking to be as healthy as I can be as I move into the last years of my life because I want to live as I can to continue to encourage other people to see what the Lord can do with your life when you follow Him. And in this latest chapter of the battle of the bulge, which has admittedly been a lifelong struggle, I hope to utilize the self-control that the Holy Spirit has brought to my life to accomplish what just about everyone says is impossible: to be a healthy, or “normal”, weight; to be strong, in the body as well as in the mind and spirit.

Guys like Vince Sant know that, with proper diet, exercise, motivation, and discipline people can transform their bodies to be healthy.  So why not me?  I have already made great strides in my physical health so why not keep going until “it is finished”?  I have already renewed my mind about my eating habits and altered my diet to have success, so why not be focused to strengthen my body and further undo the excesses of the past?  That’s what I hope to do, and I know that the Lord will be with me.  

And speaking of the Lord being with me, I have to tell you that the first two episodes of The Chosen Season Three were fantastic!  I won’t give you any spoilers, but I positively loved the interactions of Christ and His Apostles and the supporting characters in these first two episodes.  Forgiveness, the determination of Discipleship and the acceptance of some hard truths were major themes in last night’s drama, and they cause me to appreciate The Chosen with new zeal.  

Previously, I watched the show with a love/hate mentality born from my love for the Bible and the Lord. The Chosen builds a drama based on scripture and sometimes I have liked what they have done and other times I have cringed over certain moments where I thought their artistic license went too far, didn’t go far enough, or took me in a direction I didn’t expect. Admittedly, I still carry a bit of theological baggage from my long road to freedom in Christ, and sometimes my objections are born more from my personal history than what the creators of The Chosen have done.  I have issues… 

But, except for a couple of minor moments of critical scrutiny in the beginning moments of last night’s premiere, I didn’t have any issues with what the creators of The Chosen did with episodes one and two of Season 3.   Quite the contrary, I was moved to tears more than once at the unfolding drama. I was particularly moved by a realization that I, like the Apostles, would one day SEE JESUS, and just that simple thought set my heart ablaze with love and a yearning to continue to be faithful to follow Him, as I had the absurd but accurate thought that “Jesus was a really cool guy.”   

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean any disrespect by that statement. I have deep love, awe and reverence for Jesus and understand that He is fully God and Man, but The Chosen gives us an opportunity to imagine what it would be like to be with Him, to be in His physical presence, to talk with Him face to face, and to hear His voice. 

I think as Christians, we don’t think about Jesus as a Man that we could hang out with and The Chosen Season Three episodes one and two made me desire the contact that the Apostles enjoyed.  

So as we keep stumbling along in life, don’t give up on your dreams and don’t forget that Jesus walked on this earth and showed His love to others personally and as strange as it may sound He knows us and one day we will see Him. 

 

 

 

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

This morning’s meditation verse are:

Romans 6:6-8 (NLT2)
⁶  We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.
⁷  For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.
⁸  And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.

Today’s verses remind us that when we put our faith in Him, we died with Christ and were free from the power of sin, and now live with Him.  

When we know that Christ is for us, it doesn’t matter who comes against us. 

In terms of Spiritual warfare, when our Big Brother, Jesus, is with us, we receive all His power and Authority to cast out the spiritual forces of darkness.   We can utilize his authority to set ourselves and others free from demonic oppression.  

And in today’s verse, Paul reminds us that Christ also gives us power to say no to our personal demons of temptation and sin but the key point that Paul makes here is that we live with Christ, that we follow Him.  

If we just continue in our worldly ways, resting on the forgiveness we have received, we may be relieved and find comfort from knowing God won’t hold our sins against us.   But that doesn’t make us free.  And even worse, our continued sins will cause disharmony in our relationship with God as we will persist in living against His word and apart from His wisdom. When we willfully persist in sin, we deny our identity in Christ and reject the truth of what God has done in our lives.  

Through Christ we have been made new creations, but when we choose to sin we deny that we have been made new and our decisions reveal that we either don’t believe that God’s ways are best or that we have not een given the power that the word of God tells us we have.  

“You are always going to sin!” is a phrase that is true, but the Lord gives us power to decrease the number and to change the quality of our sins if we ask the Lord for the ability to repent and to overcome the sins that beset us.   You might need the help of others. You need to renew you mind with the word of God.   And you might need to try, try, try again but if we lean on the Lord’s strength and power, we can make a change. We may never be sin ess, but we can sin less, and the quality of our sins can change.

But first we need to believe it. Believe these verses, have faith in the word, and show your faith by demonstrating you believe with the way you live.  Victory, peace, and joy come from living with Christ, so never leave His side.

 

___________________________________________

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 7

The Community of Disciples Is Set Apart

The Great Separation

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

¶ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

¶ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evil-doers’ ” (Matt. 7:13–23).

The faith-community of Jesus cannot arbitrarily separate itself from the community of those who do not hear Jesus’ call. The faith community is called to discipleship by their Lord’s promise and commandment. That must suffice for them. They submit every judgment and separation to the one who has chosen them in predestination, not by the merits of their deeds, but by grace. It is not the faith community which separates itself from others, yet this separation necessarily takes place in the call by the Word.

The call separates a small group, those who follow, from the great mass of the people. The disciples are few and will always be only a few. This word of Jesus cuts off any false hope of their effectiveness. Disciples should never invest their trust in numbers. “There are few of them …,” but there are, and always will be, many others who go to their destruction. What can console disciples experiencing this, except the fact that life is promised to them, the eternal communion with Jesus?^[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

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^[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), 175–176.

Living a Lie – Traditions of Deception and Patterned Responses - Purity 892

Living a Lie – Traditions of Deception and Patterned Responses  -  Purity 892   

Purity 892 11/18/2022      Purity 892 Podcast

Purity 892 on YouTube :  

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a tree stripped bare of its leaves on a green roadside under pleasant skies comes to us from our brother in Christ, Arthur Cincotti who captured this scene while travelling through “Amish Country” on Wednesday.  Arthur and his wife, Suzanna are travelling south to spend time with family over the next week but they are taking the time to enjoy the journey as Arthur has sent me a few photos of scenes along the way that indicate to me that while their final destination is determined they are not so focused on the end that they aren’t enjoying the process of getting there. Yeah when you walk in the Spirit, the Lord will call you to go places and as I was reminded last week, sometimes there is more to the trip than what you will do when you get there. Every aspect of our travels with the Lord is noteworthy and can be a place where the Lord has something to tell us. 

 I especially like Arthur’s photo because it caught the reflections of window and “I don’t know what”, but it reminds me of imagery from Stephen King’s “The Drawing of the Three” where the hero was traveling through the countryside and was destined to encounter and go through doors that were just hanging in space with the cryptic titles on each indicating what would be found on the other side.   I researched it this morning and was reminded those doors were labeled “The Pusher” “The Prisoner” & “The Lady of Shadows”.  No spoilers from me but I particular lylike that book, of Mr. King’s in my youth.

Anyway it also reminds me of a particular meditation session I had back in my Buddhist days when I was seriously practicing and trying “to break on through to the other side”. I remember that I was doing a practice where you just meditate and look at the sky and you just rest, watching the clouds move and being open to the experience of the present moment.

 Well, in my efforts to see “beyond” to see things as they really were, I was staring at that daytime sky with such intensity and the focus to see something that I contemplated the fact that beyond the light of day, the cold dark blackness of space existed just beyond the window of my perception.  And while I couldn’t see the blackness of space, I knew it was there and when I thought of that I realized in a way the day time sky was a lie.  It was an illusion caused by the conditions of the sun illuminating our atmosphere. With that realization, I imagined that the sky was like a hologram and composed of individual tiles, that if focused on and broken, that if I focused on the sky long enough my effort would “break the sky”.  Okay, pretty crazy huh?

But the revelation of this experience pointed out the illusory nature of our lives here on earth and that two things that are seemingly the opposite of one another could exist simultaneously even though I could “see” only one.   The cold dark expanses of space were out there. The blue sky was there.  Both were true, but I could only see one. But as time would progress, things would change and one would “disappear” to reveal the other.

Likewise our world of flesh and blood is all that some people can see.  Meanwhile there is the unseen spiritual realm that exists with angelic and demonic entities.  Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.   Just because we can’t see God doesn’t mean that He isn’t there.  And just like how the day dissipates and allows us to see into the far reaches of space at night,  as time progress the spiritual world will be revealed, one way or another, to all of us.  Just wait for it!

So what should we do to prepare for that day? Well, Christ didn’t come to earth and die on the cross for nothing.  He came to reveal that which was hidden and shrouded in mystery. He came to let us know what God’s word really meant and to offer us a way to have peace with the Father, to place our faith in Him.  So do that, and read the Bible to renew your mind with God’s truth so you can expose the world’s lies and live in harmony with God.

Lies are so ingrained in our world system and crafted by our experiences in it that sometimes we don’t even know how pervasive the lies are and how they continue to imprison us with patterned responses for living.  

Addicts believe the lie that their drug of choice is “GOOD” in spite of the facts that they often experience negative consequences through its use and that the thing that gives them “PEACE” causes a lot of disruption in their lives.   

Some believe the lie that they are men trapped in a woman’s body, or women trapped in a man’s body.  This belief or feeling was once classified as a mental illness because biology, your chromosomes, indicate that however compelling those feelings may be that you are in the wrong body, that they are wrong. Biology would indicate that you are not in the wrong body, you are in the wrong mind.  Unfortunately those who believe this lie were influenced by various experiences, dysfunctions, and traumas, and possibly demonic encouragements to believe they were not the people that God created them to be.

These are easy examples of deceptions though, although there may be nothing easy about being set free from these lies.  

No, what I have come to see more and more, especially through some of the dialogs I have had through this latest Freedom in Christ course, is that we can have ingrained beliefs that just aren’t true that deeply affect how we live, sometimes in subtle or even benign ways that aren’t necessarily harmful but which cause us to remain “stuck” in the same patterns of thoughts and behaviors.  

“I’ll always be depressed”

“Celebrations always involve overindulging in alcohol or in food.”

“I am a night owl. I don’t go to bed before 11 pm” 

These are some examples of statements that are not true, or don’t have to be true, that I encountered recently that revealed to me the subtle way we can develop “traditions of deception” that keep us locked in patterned responses that go against what we would desire for our lives.   

If you believe you’ll always be depressed, you will be.  If you believe celebrations always involve overindulging in alcohol or food, you will continue to overindulge. If you believe you are a night owl you will rarely go to bed early.   

So what’s wrong with that?  Nothing…, or possibly everything.  These beliefs or other ones like them can cause us to stay where we are and not experience the abundant life God wants us to have.  

Part of the process of repentance is to change our minds to align with God’s word but in order to do that we have to break the chains of patterned thoughts and behaviors and consider alternate ways, Godlike ways, of thinking and behaving.  

If we want to receive the healing and abundant life that God has for us, we have to abandon what we know and surrender to His wisdom and adapt His ways. Part of the process of repentance is revelation.  

You don’t have to celebrate by overindulging in alcohol and food. “Everybody is doing it” is lie.  Look around some people don’t, thus you can be like them.  

I will always be depressed. You don’t have to be if you understand the magnificent gift that the Lord has given you in your salvation and if you turn from your sinful patterns of thinking and behaving.   God said:

Genesis 4:6-7 (NLT2)
⁶  “Why are you so angry?” the LORD asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected?
⁷  You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”

Right from the beginning God encouraged us to do what was right, to cure our mental disturbances and to keep us free from the disruptive influences of sin.  

As for the night owl, that may be harmless, although children of God are to be in the light, I suppose the night time hours could meet the needs for solitude and silence to commune with the Lord in Bible study and prayer. 

But as a former night owl, I know that rarely are any spiritual practices the activities of night owls. Usually the nighttime is the time to indulge in selfish pursuits that are independent of God. However, they could be used for God so there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with staying up late.  

But what could be a major obstacle to our freedom is the proclamations that identify ourselves by certain activities and cause us to remain in patterned thinking.  

“I am”, I can’t, “I don’t”, “I never”, “I always”, and “I don’t want to” statements are all possible ways that we limit our freedom and keep ourselves in chains.  

All of this came about this morning because I am going to the movies this evening and my wife reminded me that I will have “my soda and popcorn”.  

I have been subject to my own lie or “tradition” that could be expressed in one of two ways: 

I always have soda and popcorn at the movies. 

Or

I can’t go to the movies without having soda and popcorn. 

And unfortunately, as it applies to me, my statement would have to include the word “large” – as in “I must have the large popcorn and soda” AND take advantage of the free refills at Regal Cinemas!”   

So apparently the Lord is revealing this lie to me, because as I was working out this morning I considered it and realize that I have been living in a “tradition of deception” that runs contrary to my health goals. So I intend to break the chain of large popcorn and soda tonight.

So as we go into the weekend I wish everyone a Happy Friday, would encourage you to thank the Lord, and to examine your life to see what traditions of deception that you might have.   

The Lord came to set us free and sometimes He came to set us free from the chains we willingly put on time and time again. So keep walking and talking with God and seek to discover the freedom and peace 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 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 7

The Community of Disciples Is Set Apart

The Disciple and the Unbelievers Concludes

What should the disciples do in the face of hardened hearts? When their approach to others is unsuccessful? They should recognize that they have no right or power over others at all, and that they have no sort of immediate access to others. The only way open to them is the way to the one in whose hand they themselves are kept, just like those others. This is what the following section is talking about. The disciples are called to prayer. They are told that no other way leads to their neighbor except prayer to God. Judgment and forgiveness remain in God’s hand. God holds the key. Disciples are to request, seek, knock, and God will hear them. Disciples should know that their worry and concern about others must lead them to prayer. The promise given to their prayer is the greatest power they have.

The fact that disciples know what they are seeking distinguishes their searching from the nonbelievers’ search for God. Only those who already know God can seek God. How could they seek what they do not know? How can they find, if they do not know what they are looking for? Thus disciples seek God, whom they have found in the promise Jesus Christ gave them.

In summary, it has become clear that in dealing with other people, the disciples do not possess any special right or power of their own. They live completely out of the power of communion with Jesus Christ. Jesus gives the disciples a simple rule, by which even the most simpleminded can evaluate whether their dealings with others are right or wrong: they need only reverse the I and the You in the relationship. They need only put themselves in the other’s place and the other in their own. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” At that moment the disciples lose any claim of special rights toward other people. They cannot excuse in themselves what they condemn in others. Now they are as tough on the evil in themselves as they used to be on the evil in others, and as considerate of evil in others as they are of themselves. For our evil is no different than the evil in the others. There is one judgment, one law, one grace. So disciples will always encounter other people only as those whose sins are forgiven and who from now on live solely from God’s love. “That is the law and the prophets”—for it is nothing other than the greatest commandment itself: love God above all things, and your neighbor as yourself.^[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

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^[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), 173–175.

Bonhoeffer's Discipleship - Lesson 11: Set Apart: The Community of Disciples The Disciples and Unbelievers & The Great Divide

I am happy to announce that I have completed and uploaded  Lesson 11 of “Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship” : an informal study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship – with Lesson  11  – The Disciples and Unbelievers, The Great Divide, & The Conclusion  

 

Here is a link to the audio podcast: Lesson 11 - Audio Podcast

Here is a link to the video on the MT4Christ247 YouTube Channel:  

 

 

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  

 

 

This is US! - Purity 891

 

This is US!  -  Purity 891   

Purity 891 11/17/2022 Purity 891 Podcast

Purity 891 On YouTube:  

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the pathway to the marker at the end of the at the Irondequoit Bay Outlet Pier under blue & cirrus cloud filled skies comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene during my recent road trip to Buffalo. I’m including a selfie of myself on the blog to prove to myself, and anyone else who would doubt it, that I was there.  

Well, It’s Thursday again and as I share today’s photo of a pathway to that red and white marker as my subtle encouragement to anyone who should see or hear this message to stay on, or to get on, the path of Christian Discipleship.  

Whoever thinks that our Christian faith, our life in Christ, is boring undoubtedly has bought into the lies, or the limited view that God is continued to the pages of scripture or within the four walls of a church building, or even worse that He doesn’t intervene in the lives of men and has not decided to seek the Lord and His will for our lives.  

Our faith is a living relationship with the God of all creation who graciously gave us a “heads up” and revealed the truth of His plan of redemption, to put our faith in Jesus Christ alone, and who invites us to follow Him to discover our purpose in His kingdom.  

Ours is a personal God and before you start thinking that your purpose in Christ is to do a whole lot of good works for His glory, make sure you understand that our relationship with God is like any other relationship and that the main point of it is to spend time with one another, to spend “quality time” with God.  

While I am a big proponent of developing a daily spiritual practice of prayer and Bible Study, I also want to echo the sentiments of Dallas Willard from his book, Divine Conspiracy, where he said that our relationship to our Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, with God benefits from “quality time”, where we seek to know the Lord and be in His presence with great intensity where we spend extended periods of time in silence and solitude and in the disciplines of prayer, bible Study, service, or worship.

My trip to Buffalo was a mini mission trip with a set destination and purpose but during the trip I followed the Lord’s call of where to pull over and spend some time with Him.  I left the road periodically take walks, see the sights, and appreciate what I was experiencing and thanked God for bringing me where I was and thanked Him for being with me.  

I gloried over the magnificence of His creation and reflected on all the people, places, and things that we have encountered since “we got together”. The change in my life has been so significant since that day I said “Yes” to Jesus that sometimes I am simply overwhelmed and have to remind myself, “Yup, that happened. I was there and You were with me. We did that!  This is me! This is US! ”  And I am not ashamed to say it, I absolutely love what God has done with my life. 

Although I am sure that I may be considered strange by some, I don’t care. The story God has written in my life since that day my idea to mock a Christian message got turned on its head and resulted in my tearful proclamation of Jesus as my Lord and Savior, is simply amazing and perhaps the most surprising thing about it is that the tale of my new life in Christ simply does not end.  

It's one thing to another to another when you are walking in the Spirit and while everyday may not be filled with travelling adventures to distant lands, because I seeking to know Him and His presence, in prayer and Bible study or in just meditating, thinking about Him, there are always moments where I have joy or peace because I literally keep walking and talking with God through my day.  

Before Christ, I used to talk to myself, sometimes out loud, and would just think about what I wanted to do or what the grand exalted “I” thought about life.  My internal dialog and external musings were always focused on the small world of “Me-ville”.  What do I want? What did they do to ME? How dare they get in MY WAY. Or Why don’t they leave ME alone. Or I hate them!”

Like I used to say in recovery ministry, before Christ we are all opera singers: “ME, ME, ME, ME!” Passionate, self-obsessed, overly dramatic opera singers!

Okay I am sure there are some of you out there who are thinking this doesn’t apply to you. You are thinking that you don’t think too highly of yourselves and that you aren’t so vain as that.  But the bad news is that pride is a stick with two ends, if we don’t think highly of ourselves, we are holding the opposite end of the “pride stick”  “Nobody loves ME” I’M no good. Nobody helps ME.   SO for you although your voice may be low, you are also singing “me, me, me”, maybe just in lower case letters and a whispering tone.  

But when you put your faith in Christ, if you know who you are in Christ and realize that the Holy Spirit dwells in you,  you are no longer an “I” or a “ME”, capital or lower case letters.   

In Christ we become an “US”,  it’s not longer “ME against the world”, Tupac. When you make peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord is with you! He will never leave you or forsake you and because He is omnipresent, He is with you and available to you no matter where you go!  

Christianity is the story of US, You and God, and all the rest of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  While we might not always seem to be “in this together” on the human realm with the church and all of its expressions, if we are indeed in Christ, we are in this all together,  but the most important aspect of our new life in Christ is our direct and personal relationship with God.  

A lot of people point to the unity of the body of believers to be the most important thing or that loving others is the end all of what we are to do as Christians, and in many ways it is, but how do you “get there”.   

Christ directs us to love God first, and then love our neighbors as ourselves.  

So we have to first develop our love for God otherwise our love for our neighbors will just be some act, some duty to perform that we would rather not do.  

But when we love the Father, Jesus, & the Holy Spirit, when we love God, He gives us His eyes and His heart.   We  can be kind, forgiving, compassionate, and loving to others because we have received God’s abundant love and when we know it that love can pour out on others.  

So get intense about your relationship with the Lord. Spend some quality time with Him. Press into your spiritual practices to know the Lord more and to give Him and opportunity to change your heart and mind.  Keep walking and talking with God and one day you will be utterly amazed at where you have gone together and what you have experienced together.  One day you will see the changes He has done in you, and you will be thrilled to say “This really is me! This is what God has done in my life! This is US!”

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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:

John 3:16 (NLT2)
¹⁶  “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Today’s verse is one of if not the most popular verses in scripture because it speaks the truth of who Jesus is and what happens when we believe in Him.  

Jesus is the Son of God, His One and Only Son, and He came to earth to teach about God’s kingdom and to command us to repent and to put our faith in Him.  

And as today’s verse tells us, when we put our faith in Christ we will not perish but will have eternal life.  

In this one verse, Jesus confirms Himself as God and He confirms the spiritual destiny for all mankind.  If we believe in Him, we have eternal life. If we don’t, we perish in places he described as dark and painful.

So let this good news be something to give you assurance, if you have faith in Christ, that you will live with Him forever,  And also let it encourage you to share this good news and bad news to warn those that don’t know Jesus so they can be saved and not perish.    

 

 

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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.

Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $20.00.

The Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 7

The Community of Disciples Is Set Apart

The Disciple and the Unbelievers Continues

When we judge, we encounter other people from the distance of observation and reflection. But love does not allot time and space to do that. For those who love, other people can never become an object for spectators to observe. Instead, they are always a living claim on my love and my service. But doesn’t the evil in other people necessarily force me to pass judgment on them, just for their own sake and because of our love for them? We recognize how sharply the boundary is drawn. Love for a sinner, if misunderstood, is frightfully close to love for the sin. But Christ’s love for the sinner is itself the condemnation of sin; it is the sharpest expression of hatred against sin. It is that unconditional love, in which Jesus’ disciples should live in following him, that achieves what their own disunited love, offered according to their own discretion and conditions, could never achieve, namely, the radical condemnation of evil.

If the disciples judge, then they are erecting standards to measure good and evil. But Jesus Christ is not a standard by which I can measure others. It is he who judges me and reveals what according to my own judgment is good to be thoroughly evil. This prohibits me from applying a standard to others which is not valid for me. When I judge, deciding what is good or evil, I affirm the evil in other persons, because they, too, judge according to good and evil. But they do not know that what they consider good is evil. Instead, they justify themselves in it. If I judge their evil, that will affirm their good, which is never the goodness of Jesus Christ. They are withdrawn from Christ’s judgment and subjected to human judgment. But I myself invoke God’s judgment on myself, because I am no longer living out of the grace of Jesus Christ, but out of a knowledge of good and evil. I become subject to that judgment which I think valid. For all persons, God is a person’s God in the way the person believes God to be.

Judging is the forbidden evaluation of other persons. It corrodes simple love. Love does not prohibit my having my own thoughts about others or my perceiving their sin, but both thoughts and perceptions are liberated from evaluating them. They thereby become only an occasion for that forgiveness and unconditional love Jesus gives me. My refraining from judgment of others does not validate tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner; it does not concede that the other person is somehow right after all. Neither I nor the other person is right. God alone, God’s grace and judgment is proclaimed to be right.

Judging others makes us blind, but love gives us sight. When I judge, I am blind to my own evil and to the grace granted the other person. But in the love of Christ, disciples know about every imaginable kind of guilt and sin, because they know of the suffering of Jesus Christ. At the same time, love recognizes the other person to be one who received forgiveness under the cross. Love sees the other person under the cross, and that is what enables it to have true sight. If my intent in passing judgment were really to destroy evil, then I would seek evil where it really threatens me, namely, in myself. But the fact that I seek evil in another person reveals that in such judgments I am really seeking to be right myself, that I want to avoid punishment for my own evil by judging another person. All judging presupposes the most dangerous self-deception, namely, that the word of God applies differently to me than it does to my neighbor. I claim an exceptional right in that I say: forgiveness applies to me, but condemnation applies to the other person. Judgment as arrogation of false justice about one’s neighbor is totally forbidden to the disciples. They did not receive special rights for themselves from Jesus, which they ought to claim before others. All they receive is communion with him.

But it is not only judging words which are forbidden to the disciples. Proclaiming salvific words of forgiveness to others also has its limits. Jesus’ disciples do not have the power and the right to force them on anyone at any time. All our urging, running after people, proselytizing, every attempt to accomplish something in another person by our own power is in vain and dangerous. In vain—because swine do not recognize the pearls thrown before them; dangerous—because not only does this defile words of forgiveness, not only does it make the other person I am to serve into a sinner against holy gifts, but even the disciples who are preaching are in danger of being needlessly and pointlessly harmed by the blind fury of hardened and darkened hearts. Squandering cheap grace disgusts the world. Then the world will turn violently on those who want to force on it what it does not desire. This signifies for the disciples a serious limitation on their work. It agrees with the directive in Matthew 10 to shake from their feet the dust of any place that does not hear the word of peace. The driving restlessness of the group of disciples, who do not want to accept any limitation on their effectiveness, and their zeal, which does not respect resistance, confuses the word of the gospel with a conquering idea. An idea requires fanatics, who neither know nor respect resistance. The idea is strong. But the Word of God is so weak that it suffers to be despised and rejected by people. For the Word, there are such things as hardened hearts and locked doors. The Word accepts the resistance it encounters and bears it. It is a cruel insight: nothing is impossible for the idea, but for the gospel there are impossibilities. The Word is weaker than the idea. Likewise, the witnesses to the Word are weaker than the propagandists of an idea. But this weakness liberates them from the sick restlessness of a fanatic; they suffer with the Word. Disciples may retreat, or even flee, as long as they are retreating and fleeing with the Word,^[224] as long as their weakness is the weakness of the Word itself, as long as they do not abandon the Word in their flight. They are nothing but servants and tools of the Word, and should not want to be strong when the Word is weak. If they wanted to force the Word onto the world by all means, then they would make the living Word of God into an idea, and the world will justifiably fight back against an idea which cannot help it at all. But it is as weak witnesses that they do not flee, but remain—to be sure, only where the Word is. Disciples who would know nothing about this weakness of the Word would not have come to know the secret of God’s lowliness. This weak Word, which suffers contradiction by sinners, is the only strong, merciful Word, that can make sinners repent from the bottom of their hearts. The Word’s power is veiled in weakness. If the Word came in full, unveiled power, that would be the final judgment day. The great task of recognizing the limits of their mission is given to the disciples. But when the Word is misused, it will turn against them.^[1]

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Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

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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

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^[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), 170–173.