Celebrate Life: Love God and Love People – Purity 456

 Celebrate Life: Love God and Love People

Purity 456 06/28/2021  Purity 456 Podcast

Good morning

Today’s photo of my cousin and his sons on the shores of Big Bear Lake under
cloudless blue skies with some of the peaks of San Bernadino Mountains in the
background comes to us all the way from Big Bear Lake Village California.  My cousin’s lust for life is infectious and
the only thing that could surpass it is his love for his family.   Here
you can see that zest for life being imparted to the next generation as he
celebrates the day with his sons.       

I don’t usually share photos with people in them because I seek to highlight
the glory of God’s creation but after the outpouring of love that I have
experienced over the past weekend I just thought that this photo captures the
celebratory spirit that makes me want to give everyone a big high five! It also
speaks of the fact that God purposely put us all here together to love one
another.

My birthday was Friday, and I was blessed by many greetings and wishes
for a happy birthday. We never know the impact we have on other people’s lives
but occasionally you get indications that we do not walk through this world
without affecting those around us.

For instance, one person shared that I was somehow instrumental in introducing
them to the joys of classic hip-hop! Who knew?  Although I would rather be remembered for who
I have become in Christ, I was touched by the fact that this person had fond
memories of me from distant childhood.  

I spent the first evening in my 49^th year enjoying the joys
of a bonfire and a hot tub under a star filled sky with new friends as we shared
each other’s company and encouragement.   

Saturday was a day relaxation and self-examination
as I have successfully completed the first week of the Optavia 5 & 1 plan
with a ten-pound decrease in weight as the result and started to do some of the
“homework” to transform my mindset regarding optimal health as well as my body. 

My father is suffering from various pains and
conditions that have be exacerbated by his unhealthy eating habits and it
showed me the writing on the wall for what happens when we enter our later
years if we let ourselves go too much. My father’s suffering influenced me to
change.

So I decided to ask for help, signed up for
this plan, got the support of a good friend, and now am in the process of changing
my thoughts and habits about how I live and am setting the intention to flip
the script and use and develop the self-control that God has increasingly
blessed me with through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Sunday was another day of celebration as Rock Solid
Church had our annual summer picnic and I was one of several students of Vision
Christian Bible College and Seminary to receive recognition for completing our
course of studies.  In addition to the picnic
and graduation ceremonies, our church family wished a heart wrenching but fond
farewell to the Romano family who are pursuing the Lord’s call on their lives
and moving to Florida. Christopher Romano is the president of Vision Christian
Bible College and Seminary which is headquartered in Florida, and he is
relocating there to work to expand the college and the Lord’s kingdom by
focusing all his efforts on that calling.

The impact that we can have on one another’s
lives couldn’t be better expressed than by the Romano family’s example, as
Chris, Tara, and all their children have lived out their faith in our church
community with love and service for the past 23 years.  The vast number of lives touched by this
family is countless and will only increase as they take their kingdom mission
to a new location and to undoubtedly new heights.   

So live your life in the pursuit of God and His
kingdom because when you do, your life becomes an ongoing journey and
celebration where you get to glory over all that God has created and provided;
and as you go through this life, the love He has given you gets poured out on
all those you meet along the way, leaving them forever changed.    

Someone said that Christ’s great commandments
could be summed up with the simple instructions to love God and love
people.  It’s one of those truths of the
Christian faith that is simple yet profound in that if we do that with our
lives we can not only be transformed from darkness to light ourselves, but we
can spread the light of God’s love in ways we may never completely see or
understand.  

So love God and love people. Celebrate the life
He has given you and infect those around you with the great love that never
dies.

This morning’s meditation
verse is:

Revelation 21:2 (NKJV)
² Then I, John, saw the holy city,
New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband.

Today’s
verse shows us that God’s plan includes the creation of a whole new world in which
God’s people will dwell with Him forever and ever – that comes down from
heaven!

For
several reasons people don’t understand that the cycle of life and death that has
been evident on the earth since Adam’s fall is not the only story.   Our observations tell us that everyone dies eventually,
and the common view of the future is that all will go into eternity never to be
seen again. 

The
science program “The Universe” on the History channel even had an episode in
which they documented the “end of the universe” in which the last star burns
out leave nothing but a dark and dead universe.   

The thoughts
of our deaths and everything falling apart is troubling, so we don’t like to think
about it.  Any concerns for the universe
burning out of existence are tempered by the real and present danger that our
own mortality presents.  

We are
given a hundred plus years tops on this earth and then we go into what lies
beyond this life.  Regardless of our view
of the afterlife, the vast majority find comfort that we can live with by
either imagining a good place of eternal spiritual life with no suffering or
death or we can choose to imagine the cold comforts of extinction as all
suffering is taken away as our consciousness blinks out of existence.   

But the word
of God refutes both these ideas of an unending ethereal realm of spirits and
the cold dark option of nothingness, the study of the Bible reveals that God
will create a new heaven and a new earth for those who place their faith in Jesus
Christ.   Our lives don’t end in heaven.  Everyone gathered into God’s kingdom now will
one day inhabit the new Jerusalem.  

Many
people are frightened by the book of Revelation because of the devastation that
will occur on the earth as God pours out His wrath and judges the Anti-Christ,
the False Prophet, and the unbelieving but their end is not our end. 

Revelation
is good news because it tells us that the wicked will face justice and that God’s
people will be set apart and experience a new creation and spend eternity with
God with glorified bodies.  

Revelation
is a comfort, but it is also difficult to contemplate how things will be for us
“when the saints go marching in”.  Eternity
is a long time, but we should be assured that the culmination of God’s plan for
us will not be boring and that all things will work together for our ultimate
good.  

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, continuing Chapter 5.

 

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:

Three
Persons and the Spirit

In
1 Cor.
2:14-3:3, Paul distinguishes among three kinds of people in relation to
life in the Spirit: natural persons, spiritual persons and fleshly persons. The
simple diagrams in this chapter will help you understand the differences
pertaining to spiritual life that exist among these three kinds of individuals.

The soul of the spiritual man also reflects a change
generated by spiritual birth. He now receives his impetus from the Spirit, not
from the flesh. His mind has been renewed and transformed. His emotions are
characterized by peace and joy instead of turmoil. He is also free to choose not
to walk according to the flesh, but to walk according to the Spirit. As
the spiritual man exercises his choice to live in the Spirit, his life exhibits
the fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22, 23).

The body of the spiritual person has
also been transformed. It is now the dwelling place for the Holy Spirit and is
being offered as a living sacrifice of worship and service to God. The flesh,
conditioned to live independently from God under the old self, is still present
in the spiritual man, but he responsibly crucifies the flesh and its desires
daily as he considers himself alive in Christ and dead to sin.

“That all looks and sounds
great,” you may say. “But I’m a Christian and I still have some
problems. I know I’m spiritually alive, but sometimes my mind dwells on the
wrong kinds of thoughts. Sometimes I give in to behavior from the wrong list:
the deeds of the flesh instead of the fruit of the Spirit. Sometimes I
entertain the desires of the flesh instead of crucifying them.”

The description of the spiritual person is the ideal. It is
the model of maturity toward which we are all growing. God has made every
provision for us to experience personally the description of the spiritual
person in His Word (see 2 Peter 1:3).
However, most of us live somewhere on the slope between this mountaintop of
spiritual maturity and the depths of fleshly behavior described in Figure 5-C.
As you walk according to the Spirit, be assured that your growth, maturity and
sanctification toward the ideal model are in process.

Notice that the spirit of the fleshly person is identical
to that of the spiritual person. The fleshly person is a Christian, spiritually
alive in Christ and declared righteous by God; but that is where the similarity
ends. Instead of being directed by the Spirit, this believing man chooses to
follow the impulses of his flesh. As a result, his mind is occupied by carnal
thoughts and his emotions are plagued by negative feelings. Though he is free
to choose to walk after the Spirit and produce the fruit of the Spirit, he
continues to involve himself in sinful activity by willfully walking after the
flesh.

The fleshly man’s physical body is a
temple of God, but it is being defiled. He often exhibits the same troubling
physical symptoms experienced by the natural person because he is not operating
in the manner God created him to operate. He is not presenting his body to God
as a living sacrifice, but indulging his physical appetites at the whim of his
sin-trained flesh. Because he is yielding to the flesh instead of crucifying
it, the fleshly man is also subject to feelings of inferiority, insecurity, inadequacy,
guilt, worry and doubt.

Several years ago, I conducted a
little personal research to discover how many Christians are still the victims
of their flesh. I presented the same following question to 50 consecutive
Christians who talked to me about problems in their lives: “How many of
the following characteristics describe your life: inferiority, insecurity,
inadequacy, guilt, worry and doubt?” Every one of the 50 answered,
“All six.” Here were 50 born-again children of God who were so bogged
down by the flesh that they struggled with the same problems of self-doubt that
inundate unbelievers who live only in the flesh.

If I asked you the same question, how
would you answer? From my counseling experiences, I imagine that many of you
would admit that some or all of these six traits describe you. It is evident to
me that a staggering number of believers don’t know how to live their lives by
faith in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Are you struggling with feelings of
inferiority? To whom or to what are you inferior? You are a child of God seated
with Christ in the heavenlies (see Ephes. 2:6). Do
you feel insecure? Your God will never leave you nor forsake you (see Hebrews 13:5).
Inadequate? You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you (see Phil. 4:13).
Guilty? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ (see Romans 8:1).
Worried? You can have the peace of God and learn to cast your anxiety upon
Christ (see John
14:27; Phil.
4:6; 1 Peter
5:7). Doubt? God provides wisdom for the asking (see James 1:5).

Why is there often such great
disparity between these two kinds of Christians: spiritual and fleshly? Why are
so many believers living so far below their potential in Christ? Why are so few
of us enjoying the abundant, productive life we have already inherited? We
should be able to say every year, “I am more loving, peaceful, joyful,
patient, kind and gentle than I was last year.” If we can’t honestly say
that, then we are not growing.

“His divine power has granted to
us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of
Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3).
Yet, countless numbers of Christians have been born-again for years—even
decades—and have yet to experience significant measures of victory over sin.
Ignorance, lack of repentance and faith in God, and unresolved conflicts keep
people from growing.

The world and the flesh are not the
only enemies of our sanctification. We have a living, personal enemy—Satan—who
attempts to accuse, tempt and to deceive God’s children. Paul wrote about
Satan: “We are not ignorant of his schemes” (2 Cor. 2:11).
Perhaps Paul and the Corinthians weren’t ignorant, but a lot of present-day
Christians surely are. We live as though the kingdom of darkness doesn’t exist.
Our naivete in this area is exacting a crippling toll that keeps many
Christians from experiencing their freedom in Christ.

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
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