Gratitude on a Monday?
Purity 450 06/21/2021 Purity 450 Podcast
Today’s photo of a boy a top a corkscrew slide in the splendor of a June
afternoon comes to us from a friend who decided to take his four kids to his
childhood playground in Millbrook NY.
That slide has reportedly been there for more than forty years, and it
was undoubtedly a father’s delight to share the joy of surrendering to it to
his children. This photo serves as a
testament to an earthly father’s love for his children underneath the pristine
blue skies provided by the Heavenly Father above and is a fitting postscript
for Father’s Day weekend.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the Hallmark Holidays that compel us
to make gestures of love and gratitude. On
one hand, I don’t like the arbitrariness of a specific day that is dedicated to
the purpose of making us express our emotions. Frankly, it feels like a big
guilt trip and money-making scheme by the greeting card industry but unfortunately
whatever angst or resistance we may have regarding these holidays is rooted in
selfishness, although I do acknowledge some disdain for these holidays is also
caused by the grief of loss or the bitterness over hurt feelings and broken
relationships.
No matter how annoyed we may be at the
compulsory show of love and gratitude towards our parents that these holidays
demand, we don’t have a leg to stand on. Honoring our mother and father is a
commandment of God and even if we try to distance ourselves from the Old
Testament law, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. So
spending some money on cards and gifts and spending some time with your family,
is the right thig to do and really is the least we could do for the people who gave
us life, right?
For those who disagree, don’t worry, we made it
through. You don’t have to worry about
these holidays again until next year!
As for me I am filled with gratitude this Monday
morning because of the wonderful weekend that has passed. Saturday, I got some much-needed rest before
I spent the evening dancing to the musical stylings of Evolution Funk at the
Saratoga Winery with some new friends, proving to me once again that the Lord has
set me free to live the abundant life that He promised and that there will be
no limits on where I can go to express the joy I have in Him.
And Sunday, I enjoyed a fantastic Father’s Day
service at Rock Solid Church followed by a pleasant lunch with most of my
family at Frank Guido’s Port of Call in Catskill. While at lunch we were all reminded of the
fact that these times of gathering are precious and that we should enjoy them
as we never know when the Lord will call some of us home.
But we are all here now. So, don’t forget to be
bold in expressing your love and gratitude for all the people, friends, and
family, that love and support you. The
love we have for one another is valuable and we should let others know that they
are appreciated.
And of course, we should also let our Father in
Heaven know that we are thankful for all the people and things that He has
provided in our lives. A life full of
gratitude is a life full of love and peace and when we include God in our lives
it can be a life of peace that goes beyond all understanding: a peace that can
even transcend the weekend and carry us into the work week ahead.
This morning’s meditation
verse is:
Psalm 100:4 (NKJV)
4 Enter into His gates with
thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and
bless His name.
Today’s verse is a
command to give thanks and praise to the Lord our God. If you need a psalm to take you out of a “case
of the Mondays”, Psalm 100 may be the psalm for you. It’s short and its sweet and is full of encouragement.
Verse four tells us
to enter His gates with thankfulness and into His courts with praise. We could take this command to refer to the
gates to the local church and the courts of the inner sanctuary there and that
would be good, but I tend to think of our God as the sovereign king over all of
creation and would suggest that His gates and courts are wherever we decide to
acknowledge His presence on earth with thankfulness and praise.
That’s why I say
keep walking and talking with God, because He is with us and His gates could be
the entrance to our place of work, a local business, or of our homes. Quite frankly, I have been to some
impoverished areas on the earth, and we should be thankful for the structures and
building that our society enjoys.
Some of the
buildings we walk or drive by every day are architectural marvels that display
the creative design talents and the ability of man to build that God put into
us. Others may not have the creative beauty that we would submit to architectural
digest, but their familiarity and function are ingrained into the fabric of our
lives. We only notice this fact when businesses shut down or are torn down due
to age or to make room for something new.
These buildings,
common or beautiful, are the settings of our lives and when we take this
perspective of seeing what lies before us with wonder, we can enter any place
with thankfulness and praise.
Why do you think
George Bailey was running down main street of Bedford Falls screaming out greetings
to “the Emporium” and to the other places of business along the way? He did
that because all those buildings played a part of his experience of the life that
God had given him.
So wherever the day
takes you, look at those gates and courts with the realization that they are
all part of God’s plan. When you do enter them, do it with thanksgiving and
praise and bless the Lord’s holy name because every day He is with us. And if we open our hearts and minds, we can
be filled with joy like George Bailey and we know that God really has given us all
a wonderful life.
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with
their walk.
Today we continue with Dr. Neil Anderson’s Victory
Over the Darkness, beginning Chapter 4.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase Dr. Anderson’s books for your own private study
and to support His work. If you need this title you can find it online at several
sites for less than $15.00:
Chapter
4
Something
Old, Something New
Attend any Bible-believing church and ask the
congregation, “How many believe that you are a sinner?” They will all
raise their hands. Then ask, “How many believe you are a saint?” Few
if any would raise their hands. Why is that? Some have never been taught
differently. Others think it would be prideful to identity themselves as saints.
Many believe the label “sinner” best fits their present condition.
They sin so they must be sinners. Even if you told them they are both saint and
sinner, they will believe the latter and probably not the former because of
their experiences.
Being a saint who is alive and free in
Christ does not mean spiritual maturity or sinlessness, but it does provide the
basis for hope and future growth. Despite God’s provision for us in Christ, we
are still far less than perfect. We are saints who sin. Our position in Christ
is settled, but our daily performance is often marked by personal failure and
disobedience that disappoints us and disrupts the harmony of our relationship
with God. We groan with the apostle Paul: “For the good that I wish, I do
not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. Wretched man that I
am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:19, 24).
In our attempts to understand the
failure that often disturbs our sense of sainthood, we struggle with such
biblical terms as flesh, nature and old man (self). What do these terms really
mean? Are they distinct in themselves or interchangeable elements of the same
problem? Defining these terms becomes even more difficult when the editorial
teams of some modern Bibles translate “flesh” (sarx) as old
nature or sin nature.
Admittedly, this is a difficult
theological area. Bible scholars have wrestled with these questions for
centuries and I don’t in any way pretend to have the final answers. In this
chapter, however, I want to explore some of these terms that often confuse
Christians who are attempting to understand the sinful side of their sainthood.
I believe a clearer biblical grasp of these terms will further assist you in
understanding who you are and pave the way for greater spiritual maturity.
The Nature
of the Problem
The Bible says we were dead in our “trespasses and
sins” (Ephes.
2:1) and “were by nature children of wrath” (Ephes. 2:3,
emphasis added). In other words, we were born physically alive but spiritually
dead. We had neither the presence of God in our lives nor the knowledge of His
ways. Consequently, we all learned to live our lives independently of God. This
learned independence is one of the chief characteristics of the flesh.
“For the flesh sets its desire
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in
opposition to one another” (Galatians 5:17).
They are in opposition because the Holy Spirit, like Jesus, will not operate
independently of our heavenly Father, but the flesh does. The flesh may be
defined as existence apart from God—a life dominated by sin or a drive opposed
to God. The flesh is self-reliant rather than God-dependent; it is self-centered
rather than Christ-centered.
Such is the state of fallen humankind:
sinful by nature and spiritually dead (i.e., separated from God). In addition,
the heart, which is the center of our being, “is more deceitful than all
else and is desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Paul says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Fallen humankind live their lives “in the flesh,” and “those who
are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8).
Humankind were depraved. Every aspect of their beings was corrupted and they
could do nothing to save themselves.
Positionally, several things changed
at salvation. First, God transferred us from the domain of darkness “to
the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
Second, sin’s dominion through the
flesh has been broken. As a believer, you are no longer in the flesh, you are
in Christ. Paul explains, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the
Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have
the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Romans 8:9).
Paul also equates the idea of being “in the
flesh” with being “in Adam.” “For as in Adam all
die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22,
emphasis added). Christians are no longer in the flesh, but because the
characteristics of the flesh remain in believers, they have a choice. They can
walk (or live) according to the flesh (see Galatians 5:19-21)
or they can walk (or live) according to the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22, 23).
This positional change can be shown as follows:
|
In Adam |
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In Christ |
|
Old |
by |
New |
|
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|
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Sin |
by |
Partaker |
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
In |
by |
In |
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
Live |
by |
Live |
|
|
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Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ.
—————————more
tomorrow————————
God bless
you all!
Join our “Victory
over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” 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
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Email me
at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian
Discipleship
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