Purity 284: Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

Purity 284 12/07/2020 

Good morning!

Today’s photo comes from a friend’s recent hike to Harrier Hill park in
Hudson NY.  I share it because it’s December
and blue skies with clouds and sunshine are becoming rare. 

Lately, I have been thinking of that Counting Crows song: “A Long
December”, as a week ago I asked for prayers for healing for my Mother and
Father, Kathy and Matt, as they both have Covid-19.  My father has had mild symptoms and remains
home, relatively well, and my mother is hospitalized, receiving treatment and reports
that she is improving and hopes to come home some time this week.  We are praying for complete healing for both
and for mom to return home.  I deeply
appreciate all the prayers and messages of concern for my parents. Thank You.

I recently read that the Christian discipleship process is both
Bible-based and forward looking. 

The Bible tells me God is in charge and He is the creator and healer. So
we will trust in Him, knowing that all outcomes are in His hands and that He is
good. 

And as we enter into a new week, we won’t lament over disappointments in
the past, but we will look ahead with hope and expectancy, planning and
preparing for what the Lord has for us this week.     

(There is More at
the restricted blog). Follow me on Twitter, MeWe, or Parler for easy
access.  Blog M T 4 Christ dot org – This
is where the Facebook post ends.)

This morning’s
meditation verses were:

Psalm 109:30-31 (NLT2)
³⁰ But I will give repeated thanks
to the LORD, praising him to
everyone.
³¹ For he stands beside the needy, ready
to save them from those who condemn them.

 I love today’s verses because they point to two
core truths of how we are to practice our faith as Christians: we are to give “repeated
thanks to the Lord” and let others know about His goodness.  Our thanks are to be a repeated practice
because if we don’t repeatedly thank the Lord for what He has provided, and how
He continues to provide for us, we can forget about the blessings we enjoy and
become dissatisfied and discontented with the “wonderful life” that we
have.  

 Our relationships suffer when we take people for
granted and our relationship with the Lord is no different. He has loved us,
and we are to love Him right back. 

 While it is a good practice to daily thank the Lord
for what He is doing in your life, the practice is even more effective when we
share our hope with others. By telling others about the Lord, we become a beacon
of hope in what can seem to be a hopeless world. We not only assure and
encourage others by telling of the goodness of God and His plan for all of us,
we also encourage ourselves and confirm that we really are children of God
because we are not just telling people facts about the Lord, we are telling
people about the reality of our relationship with the Lord and how He has
interacted with us by bringing us out of our own personal darkness and blessed
us in ways that we never saw coming. 

 Verse 31 also speaks of how He stands beside us and
saves us from those who would condemn us. 
Our relationship with God means even more in times of need and when we
are persecuted by the world. 

 God always meets our needs because our biggest need
is Him. His presence in our lives is a never-ending comfort at all times.  He also defines who we are as the truth of
God’s word tells us that we are loved, significant, and accepted even when the
rest of the world condemns us.  But the
key to receiving the benefits of our faith is believing the truth of God’s eternal
word over the temporary circumstances that surround us and the opinions of the
world that is lost.  

 So keep thanking God, telling others about Him, and
believing what He says about you!    

 Today we continue chapter 5 of Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope
Again, where the authors discuss how our primary protection from depression is
the truth of God’s word and how it reveals our identity in Christ.  I encourage those who read this look up the
referenced Bible verses and put them on index cards or in a notebook in order
to meditate on them to reinforce your identity in Christ and to renew your mind
to this truth.

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Anderson’s books for your own private study and to
support his work:

The
Primary Protection: Established in Truth

The “heavenly places” (NIV “realms”)
are a present reality. The phrase does not refer to heaven where God has His
throne, nor does it refer to some physical planet such as Pluto or Mars that
exists in the natural realm. It refers to the spiritual world or atmosphere in
which we live. The god (ruler) of this world, “your enemy the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8, NIV).

John says, “We know that we are of
God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).
Herein lies the problem and the answer in one verse. People are kept in
spiritual bondage because of the lies they believe about God and themselves,
and Satan is the father of lies (see John 8:44).

Jesus is the truth (see John 14:17), and
the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He will guide you into all truth (see John 16:13), and
that truth will set you free (see John 8:32). That
is possible because we are children of God.

Every defeated Christian we have worked
with, regardless of their presenting problem, had one thing in common. None of
them knew who they were in Christ, nor understood what it meant to be a child
of God. Almost all of them were questioning their salvation. If the Holy Spirit
is bearing “witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16), then
why weren’t they sensing it? “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! [or] Father!” (Galatians 4:6).
Where is the “Abba! Father!” in the depth of depression? He is there,
but depressed people often don’t sense His presence because of ignorance or
lack of genuine repentance.

The
Primary Issue: Our Identity and Position in Christ

The
devil does not want you to know that you are a child of God and seated with
Christ in heavenly places (see Ephes. 2:6). From
that position in Christ, we have authority over the kingdom of darkness. Every
believer is alive in Christ and therefore united with Him:

Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression

——————————more
tomorrow————————–

God bless
you all!