Having a Great Fall, Literally – Purity 864

 

Having a Great Fall, Literally – Purity 864

Purity 864 10/17/2022 Purity 864 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of maple trees showing the glory of
their autumn colors comes to us from SK Photography and Design (https://www.facebook.com/sk.photographyanddesign)
who shared this idyllic seasonal scene that they captured in Shephard Park in
Lake George NY and that they shared on Facebook on Saturday.  

Well it’s Monday again in the season of Fall, and
unfortunately my urgency to “get ‘er done” at work on Saturday by myself caused
me to take the name of the season quite literally as I had a rather dramatic
tumble from my ladder as the cable strand that I was attempting to ascend decided
to allow the only thing holding me up to go sideways all at once spilling to
the ground with a sudden crash!  I landed
on my left side and had the wind knocked out of me and after realizing that I
shouldn’t be attempting what I did alone, I called it a day, reported the incident
to the on duty foreman and went to the nearest emergency room to get checked
out. And I am happy to report that the x-rays and cat scans were negative for
any breaks or bleeding on the brain, and that although I am a little sore and embarrassed,
I am alive and well and was fully capable of doing my regular morning workout
and will be going back to work again today.  

My fall reminded me of why lineman work in two man
groups when working in back yard cable runs because you literally need someone
to hold you up sometimes when working midspan but Saturday the day was running
late, I felt the pressure to get my job done, and moments before my fall, I was
confronted by an angry homeowner for being on their property so instead of
properly assessing the lay of the land that had a considerable slope to the
left, I hurried up the ladder that seemed secure only to discover that my
weight would cause the strand to bend as I got near the top and that the slope
allowed my ladder to give way and send the whole set up sliding to the left.
Instead of settling at a balance point the bend was so extreme that right hook
of the ladder rose above the cable strand and caused the ladder to twist and
dump me to the ground.

So the Fall of 2022 will now forever be remembered as
the season that I had a fall in the Fall. 
I took the Fall season quite literally this year. 

But the Lord was good to me once again. And I am
reminded of  the passage of scripture
that Satan used to tempt Christ, regarding the Lord’s protection. 

Psalm 91:11-12 (NKJV) says
¹¹  For He shall give His
angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.
¹²  In their hands they
shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

So I didn’t see any angels, and I did
have quite a rough landing as my breath rushed out of me giving me the shocked
sensation of what I imagine a sudden cardiac arrest would feel like, and I felt
quite disoriented while being evaluated in the ER, but as my wife corrected me
yesterday, I won’t just claim that I got “lucky” and wasn’t seriously
injured.  I know God is sovereign and my
fall and the extent of my injuries are all under the auspices of His sovereign omnipotence
and providence.  

 

While some marvel over the near misses
and sole survivors of disasters and wonder about impersonal forces like “chance”
or “karma”, I know who’s in charge of the universe and I know that even though
it is difficult to discern God’s will or God’s plan in light of the things that
happen on the earth I know that we can know God’s will to some extent by
looking at the things that have happened. 
This idea offends people but if something has happened, it didn’t happen
in a vacuum.  The things that happen not
be judged as good by us but the things that happen took place with God’s full
knowledge and while we don’t know why things happen the way they do, God does
and the Christian is tested to believe and still give their trust to the Lord
even when things that don’t make sense to our minds take place, even the things
that break our hearts and cause us pain.    

So in looking at my fall, whether or not
it is God’s perfect will is debatable, but because it happened, and I know it
was avoidable, but because it happened God knew it and allowed it.   That sucks right?  But guess what, God’s providence and will
also allowed for to walk away from it with three things:

1.    1.  Minor injury and shame

2.   2. A conviction to be more
careful, to ask for help, and to be more aware of my surrounding to take steps
to try to avoid something similar from ever happening again, and

3.    3.  A testimony for others to
be warned and educated by.  

Bet you won’t be following in my footsteps today.

So just like everything that happens, God can even take the bad
and use them for good,  

My bad thing, my fall, hurts but I can learn from it.  I can tell other people about it. And they
can benefit from my suffering.    And we
can even give glory to God, in the face of this bad thing, because it could
have been worse but it wasn’t. We, who understand God’s sovereignty can truly
say that God protected me and that he will continue to protect me as I seek to do
His will and follow His plan for my life.    

This latest incident is just another testimony of God’s faithfulness
and while I should feel the shame over my foolishness, I know that God doesn’t want
me to stay in the shame and condemn myself. God wants me to learn from my
mistake and to always do what is right in every situation.  

In my urgency, I made the situation about me, my employer, the
angry neighbor, and I forgot about God and His wisdom completely. 

Ephesians
5:15 (NKJV) tells us
¹⁵  See then that you walk
circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,  

Circumspectly means “wary and unwilling to take risks”.

Well I was walking like a fool Saturday. I unwittingly took risks
and paid for it. If I had walked in wisdom I wouldn’t have fallen.  

So if you see, our walk with God has two aspects, His part and
our part.  While God is sovereign, we are
also responsible for our actions.   IF I hadn’t
been in a rush, I could have assessed the situation properly and avoided my
fall.  But thankfully, God was gracious
enough to allow the results of my foolishness to not be so harsh.  Although there maybe more consequences to
this that I don’t know about yet, because I trust the Lord I will face them as
my just rewards for my foolish actions.  

So guys, while I would not suggest you take the Fall season,
literally, like I did this year,  I would
definitely suggest that you can take God’s word literally and that you should
follow God’s wisdom in the way you live your life.  

God’s word would direct you to put your faith in Jesus and to follow
Him. You can start there and then you should read the Bible and know what it
says to apply more of God’s wisdom to your life to avoid walking like a fool like
I did this weekend.  

And as

Romans 8:1 (NKJV) tells us that:  
¹  There is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according
to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

 

Don’t condemn yourself for the mistakes you make but instead
have the conviction to walk in the Spirit by following the Word of God and the
example of Christ with the way you walk through this world.  Just keep walking and talking with God and if
you follow in His ways can avoid a lot of the falls this world would lead you
into and you can be assured that even if bad things happen He will be with you
to help you through them and will eventually show you that when you put your
faith in Christ you have His ultimate protection in His eternal kingdom.  

 

——————————————————————————————————

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.

Chapter Six

The
Sermon on the Mount

Matthew
5

On
the “Extraordinary”
of Christian Life

The
Beatitudes – Continues

“Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.” This does not refer to God’s righteousness, but to suffering for the
sake of a righteous cause, suffering because of the righteous judgment and
action of Jesus’ disciples. In judgment and action those who follow Jesus will
be different from the world in renouncing property, happiness, rights,
righteousness, honor, and violence.^[43] They will be offensive to
the world. That is why the disciples will be persecuted for righteousness’
sake. Not recognition, but rejection, will be their reward from the world for
their word and deed. It is important that Jesus calls his disciples blessed,
not only when they directly confess his name, but also when they suffer for a
just cause. They are given the same promise as the poor. As those who are
persecuted, they are equal to the poor.

Here at the end of
the Beatitudes the question arises as to where in this world such a
faith-community actually finds a place. It has become clear that there is only
one place for them, namely, the place where the poorest, the most tempted, the
meekest of all may be found, at the cross on Golgotha. The faith-community of
the blessed is the community of the Crucified. With him they lost everything,
and with him they found everything. Now the word comes down from the cross:
blessed, blessed. Now Jesus is speaking only to those who can understand it, to
the disciples. That is why he uses a direct form of address: “Blessed are you
when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against
you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in
heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
“On my account”—the disciples are reviled, but it actually hurts Jesus.
Everything falls on him, for they are reviled on his account. He bears the
guilt. The reviling word, the deadly persecution, and the evil slander seal the
blessedness of the disciples in their communion with Jesus. Things cannot go
any other way than that the world unleashes its fury in word, violence, and
defamation at those meek strangers. The voice of these poor and meek is too
threatening, too loud. Their suffering is too patient and quiet. In their
poverty and suffering, this group of Jesus’ followers gives too strong a
witness to the injustice of the world. That is fatal. While Jesus calls,
“blessed, blessed,” the world shrieks, “Away, away with them!” Yes, away! But
where will they go? Into the kingdom of heaven. Rejoice and be glad, for your
reward is great in heaven. The poor will stand there in the joyous assembly.
God’s hand will wipe away the tears of estrangement from the eyes of the
weeping.^[47] God feeds the hungry with the Lord’s own Supper.
Wounded and martyred bodies shall be transformed, and instead of the clothing
of sin and penitence, they will wear the white robe^[49] of eternal
righteousness. From that eternal joy there comes a call to the community of
disciples here under the cross, the call of Jesus, “blessed, blessed.”^[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
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These
teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

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