The Peace of No “Have To’s” and Psalm 139 – Purity 803

 

The Peace of No “Have To’s”
and Psalm 139  – Purity 803

Purity 803 08/06/2022    Purity 803 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of sunrise over the Atlantic comes to a us
from a friend who decided to spend a week of his time off from work this year
to lead a group of high school students from his local church to Harvey Cedars Bible
Conference Center in New Jersey for a weeklong Summer Camp. Not only did he
spend a week encouraging his youth group’s faith, but he took advantage of the ocean
side facilities at Harvey Cedars and seized the opportunity to show the kids the
glory of God’s creation with a 5 am wake up call to see the sun rise.  

Well it’s Saturday and the while it is still dark out as I
write this, I have a peaceful, easy feeling this morning because I am at my
countryside home with my wife for the sunrise of the first weekend in August.

I don’t have much to report this morning and in a way that
is sort of great. Although I don’t have any epic plans for the day, I don’t
have any pressing problems or concerns either. I don’t have any “have to’s”
that I can think of. While I can think of a couple of things I could do,
nothing is urgent that has to be done “Now!” and I am free to choose where I
decide to let the day take me.  

That’s a big switch from where I was a couple of years ago
when I was working two jobs and trying to find a new house. In the summer of 2020,
I worked Saturdays every week and had to be super intentional about finding fun
when I could, so this morning I am remembering that and am just so thankful for
where God has lead me since then.

Other than encouraging all my friends to have a great
weekend and to remember to keep walking and talking with God, I don’t have much
to say today other than “Thank You Lord!”  

Yesterday my Bible study included Psalm 139 and so I think
I will share that because it highlights so many wonderful things about our
relationship with God.  

Psalm 139:1-24 (NKJV)
¹  O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
²  You know my sitting down
and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.
³  You comprehend my path and
my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴  For there is not a
word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD,
You know it altogether.
⁵  You have hedged me behind
and before, And laid Your hand upon me.
⁶  Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.
⁷  Where can I go from Your
Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
⁸  If I ascend into heaven,
You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
⁹  If I take the wings
of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰  Even there Your hand shall
lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.
¹¹  If I say, “Surely the
darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me;
¹²  Indeed, the darkness shall
not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are
both alike to You.
¹³  For You formed my inward
parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴  I will praise You, for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that
my soul knows very well.
¹⁵  My frame was not hidden
from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the
lowest parts of the earth.
¹⁶  Your eyes saw my
substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days
fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.
¹⁷  How precious also are Your
thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
¹⁸  If I should count
them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with
You.
¹⁹  Oh, that You would slay
the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.
²⁰  For they speak against You
wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain.
²¹  Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe
those who rise up against You?
²²  I hate them with perfect
hatred; I count them my enemies.
²³  Search me, O God, and know
my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties;
²⁴  And see if there is any
wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

  So many good things in that Psalm. God knows
us, is with us, and leads us to be fiercely loyal to His truth and ways because
He made us and through Christ forgave us and rescued us from sin and death.

So whether you have lots of “have to’s” to do today or
whether you have epic plans to seize the day or just epic plans to relax, remember
that the Lord loves you and when you have peace with Him through faith in Jesus
Christ, there really is nothing to worry about anymore. He has always been with
us and now we are with Him and we can rest and rejoice in the simple fact that
no matter where today or the future takes us, the Lord’s love for us will never
change and He will be with us every step of the way as we go from here to
eternity. 

—————————————————————————————————————

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

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Romans 4:7-8 (NLT2)
⁷  “Oh, what joy for those whose
disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.
⁸  Yes, what joy for those whose
record the LORD has cleared of
sin.”

Today’s
verses remind us of the unending joy that we can have as Christians over the
fact that, through Jesus, our sins are forgiven. 

The
joy of our forgiveness should really never run dry because we are not perfect
and will invariably “miss the mark” of God’s standards somewhere as we walk
through life and we will need God’s forgiveness again somewhere down the
line.  

That
was one of the most amazing things that struck me in my soul and brought me to
surrender my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ: the fact that all our sins
would be forgiven if we put our faith in Him. All our sins! Our past sins, our
current sins, and the sins we haven’t eve n done yet are covered, are forgiven,
because of our faith in Jesus!  

Although,
I had a big misunderstanding about grace and thought I could just freely
continue in my sins unabated because of what Christ did for me, when I first came
to Christ, something funny happened.   Although
anything I did would be forgiven because of Jesus’s work on the cross, I
increasingly felt convicted to change how I lived and repented of my sinful
ways.  Even though there was nothing I
could do that wouldn’t be covered by the blood of Jesus, I felt less and less
drawn to my sin and felt more and more drawn to walk in the ways of the One who
saved me.  

I am
by no means perfect but I sure am not the sinful man I used to be as I have
victory and freedom over many of my sinful habits that had kept me in bondage.  

And
that victory and freedom was born out of the joy that God loved me enough to
send Christ to die for my sins and to forgive me and to accept me into His
kingdom. 

In
God’s accounts, my slate has been wiped clean and instead of feeling guilty and
condemned over the things I have done in the past, I have joy because I know I
have been forgiven and given a new life to draw close to God and to be the
righteous person I always wanted to be but never felt I could be.   And its all because of Jesus, through faith
in Him we receive forgiveness for our sins and the indwelling presence of the
Holy Spirit to give us the power over sin.  

So
rejoice, our sins have been forgiven and the Lord has set us free! That’s good
news!

______________________________________________________________________

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 Clinton E. Arnold’s
“Powers of Darkness”

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Clinton Arnold’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 Nature of Evil Influence

In
Ephesians Paul was at pains to point out that people cannot respond to life’s
decisions neutrally. They are deeply affected by a set of evil, determining
influences. These influences led people on a path that is directed toward
death—life apart from God. In Ephesians 2:2–3, Paul described these influences
in terms of the environment (“the age of this world”), an inner inclination
toward evil (“the flesh”) and a supernaturally powerful opponent (“the ruler of
the kingdom of the air, the spirit”).

By drawing attention
to these three forces, Paul established the inescapability of death for
non-Christians and their resultant need to experience God’s redemptive work.
But an understanding of these three evil influences is also important for
Christians as they seek to spread the gospel and live according to its ethical
standards. These influences continue to make themselves felt even after someone
is saved. A Christian is not automatically immune to temptation, the world’s
influence or Satan’s direct assault.

Although these three
influences continue to operate, there is a decisive difference for the
Christian. The believer lives in union with the risen Christ and may draw on
Christ’s power—his victory over temptation, his resistance to the world’s
allurements and influences, and, above all, his victory and resultant authority
over Satan and the powers of darkness. This passage thus forms the essential
background to an appropriate understanding of why an orientation about the
Christian life as warfare is essential.

The Christian Life
As Warfare

The
spiritual warfare passage represents the church as facing intense attack by the
devil and his powers of evil. Paul used an extended metaphor of a soldier who
puts on the appropriate pieces of armor to heighten this image. In this case
the soldier puts on a belt, a breastplate, footgear, a shield and a helmet, and
then takes up a sword. The main point of this imagery is that Christianity
should be understood as warfare and believers should prepare for this warfare
just as any soldier would prepare for battle. It is really unimportant to
decide whether Paul has a Roman, Greek, Jewish or Persian soldier in mind. Most
of the imagery comes straight from the book of Isaiah (see Is 11:5; 52:7;
59:17). Furthermore, one needs to exercise caution in reading too much into
each of the material images, such as emphasizing that the helmet protects the
brain and the breastplate the vital organs. Paul felt free to vary the
spiritual truths he attached to military imagery. For example, whereas the
breastplate represents righteousness in Ephesians 6:14, it represents faith and
love in 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

In verse 12, the use
of the word struggle describes a
scene of conflict. In the first century this word was commonly used, not in the
context of warfare, but as the typical term for the sport of wrestling. It even
occurs on inscriptions in western Asia Minor in reference to the wrestling
event of the various games held in the regional cities. As such, Paul probably
used it to heighten the closeness of the struggle with the powers of evil. The
use of the words evil and darkness also indicate the character of
spiritual warfare. The world rulers (kosmokratores)
are depicted as ruling over “this darkness” and as being “evil.” The whole
setting is cast “on the evil day,” which probably refers both to the fact that
“the days are evil” (Eph 5:16) and that there will be intense times of demonic
attack. Finally, the devil is depicted in extremely vivid terms as launching flaming
arrows at the church (Eph 6:16). The whole tenor of the passage is designed to
convey the feeling of extreme danger.

The danger posed to
Christians by these organized powers of darkness can be overwhelming—left on
our own. Christians, however, are not alone. They are united to the exalted
Lord who defeated the forces of evil and now imparts his power and authority to
the church. Throughout the letter the apostle has emphasized God’s power and
its availability to believers. This emphasis now reaches a climax when Paul
says “be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” (Eph 6:10). He strung
together three power-denoting terms (endynamō,
kratos and ischys) that have a
combined effect of bringing the almighty power of God into bold relief
especially in contrast to the weaker powers of darkness.

Paul further defined
and clarified God’s power by specifying various ways God bestows his power on
the church and by relating the means through which God’s enabling might is
imparted. Paul enumerated seven spiritual weapons. Five of these are objective
endowments from God (truth, righteousness, the gospel, salvation and the
Spirit/the word of God) and two stress our responsibility (faith and prayer).
Our responsibility is also implicit in the five gifts from God (see also the
chart at the end of the chapter). While this list of spiritual resources
(“weapons”) does not exhaust all divine bestowments available to Christians, it
represents the essence of all that is vital to waging successful warfare
against the powers of darkness.

The nature of
spiritual warfare, as Paul portrayed it here, is primarily concerned with
Christian conduct and spreading the gospel—not with exorcism or eradicating
structural evil. The heart of spiritual warfare could best be summarized as
resistance and proclamation.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

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Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
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Encouragement for the Path of
Christian Discipleship