“It is what it is?” Not Any More… All things are New – Purity 920

 “It is what it is?” 
Not Any More… All things are New –  Purity 920

Purity 920 12/21/2022 

Purity 920 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the morning sky and the surrounding
shoreline reflected on the surface of Cherokee Lake in North Carolina comes to
us from Fred Dimmick who shared this scene on social media back on Friday
December 16^th.  Fred appreciates
the great outdoors and is active in sharing the beauty of God’s creation with
his friends and I’ve decided to no longer share his work anonymously. I
mentioned him by name the last time I used his work and although he has humbly
never asked to be recognized for his contributions to the blog I am no longer
content in sharing his work as anonymous “friend”.  I want to give Fred the credit he is due and
encourage anyone who like to see more of his work to send him a friend request
on Facebook, because he will most likely accept it, like he did mine, a
veritable stranger, a few years ago, and because Fred is very active in his
photography and shares a lot more of scenes like this one than I ever will.  

With that said, although Fred and I share a mutual
appreciation for the wonder of the world God has created, please don’t assume
that he agrees with everything I write. He  may agree with me on some things but we’ve
really never discussed it so  just so
everyone one knows: “The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are
those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the
opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or others authors
of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not
necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
 – I am copying and pasting this to the
bottom to all my messages going forward, because I should, and because I have received
some recent criticism that reminded me that some people that are near and dear
to me may not care for what I write or comment on and while I am associated
with different groups, ministries, organizations, churches, and people, I
wanted it to be clearly stated that while I may represent or have represented these
“entities” in the past, present, or possibly in the future, every thing I do
and say should be a reflection of me only and, likewise, no offense, but that
is a two way street, the views and opinions expressed by these “entities” do
not necessarily reflect me.  

People love to categorize one another and will erroneously
make judgements or draw conclusions by examining the people, places, and things
we are associated with.  This is something
we all do. We should be discerning and get as much information about people we
are interested in when we decided to be in a relationship with them or consider
the things they say.  The things we have
been exposed to and the relationships we have influence the ways we think and
behave to some extent and its not a bad idea to know what someone has been
exposed to and what relationships they have had to get a sense of where they
are coming from.  

But we can be so adept at this process of discernment
and categorization, that we can run the risk of not thinking and rush to make
conclusions that are not necessarily true.  

As Christians on the path of discipleship we want to
know and follow the truth. So we have to be careful that in our interactions
that we are rightly judging people by the content of their character, that we
can discern from their words and actions, and not solely by their associations.  There is a fine line here of course that
demands wisdom and I am not saying we should ignore data thatwe  receive that indicate that people are indeed
what they appear to be.  

I personally have made the two common errors that
plague us in our relationships:

·       Jumping to conclusions too quickly based on limited
information

·       Ignoring the subtle or obvious signs, or red flags,
that go against what we want to believe to be true.

Not surprisingly Jesus gives us the best advice on
how to judge someone wisely.  He said in:

Matthew 7:15-20 (NLT2)
¹⁵  “Beware of false prophets
who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.
¹⁶  You can identify them by
their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from
thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
¹⁷  A good tree produces good
fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
¹⁸  A good tree can’t produce
bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.
¹⁹  So every tree that does
not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire.
²⁰  Yes, just as you can
identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

So, yeah, as one part of the Trinity, Jesus
is God and unlike you and me has perfect knowledge.  

While the world system would implore us
to ignore the obvious signs of evil in the world and proclaim that “everyone is
good at heart”, Jesus, the living Word of God, tells us like it is.  He does judge and He does it rightly.   He tells us that there are “phonies” out
there and he tells us that we can identify them by the way they act.  

Let that be a lesson to us all.  Let’s really hear that.   I think it was Dr. Neil Anderson that said
we judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our
intentions.   But if we are in relationship
with someone sometimes we will ignore the implications of their actions, or
inaction, and project “good intentions” upon their “bad fruit”.  

When I sin against you or don’t act in
the way I should in our relationship, the tendency is to protect my “pride” or
ego by rationalizing just why it was completely reasonable or acceptable for
you to accept my unreasonable, immoral, or unacceptable behavior.  

“You’re a Christian, so forgive me.  And do it like Jesus again and again and
again.  Forgive my repeated abuse and
failures, repeatedly.”

“Oh, I really wanted to be there but I
had other things to do.”

“I wanted to be on time but couldn’t.”

“I wanted to help you with that, but
something came up.”

I don’t know if any of this hits close
to home for you or if this is you.  But
we have to realize that we may have “false prophets” among us, – “false friends”
and maybe  “false family”.  

The world’s a  broken place and nobody is perfect and we may
have grown up in dysfunctional settings where certain things were “just the way
we do things around here” and may have accepted it by saying “it is what it is”
but God has given us a hope and a future and Christ encourages us to value His
presence and family over the “bad company” we associated with before Christ.  

When Christ calls us to follow Him, he
calls us to die to our former lives and unfortunately He also know that there
will be people from our past, or present, who won’t be going with us and who
will actively or unwittingly oppose our purpose and progress.  

Forgiveness for the Christian is
mandatory. We are to forgive everyone because God forgave us. But for those who
reject the Lord, God tells us to separate ourselves from the darkness and shake
of the dust from our feet as a curse against them, with the hopes that they
will repent.   

So if you are suffering from a lack of
peace in your life due to present or past associations that aren’t a part of
where you are going any longer, go to the Lord and ask Him what to do.  He may ask you to endure in your
relationships or He very well may take you and introduce you to new people that
can be a part of your spiritual family. Although not joined by genetic flesh
and blood, your spiritual family and you share the blood of Jesus and a common
purpose and direction: to give God glory and to go where He leads.  

So don’t be deceived by jumping to conclusions,
ignoring those red flags, or remaining tied to producers of bad fruit.  God calls us to an abundant life in the Spirit
and so we should keep walking and talking with Him and see where He takes us.

People tend to stay the same but God can
transform us to become the people He created us to be, and that’s a good path
to be on, even if it means walking away from “what you’ve always done” or the
people who would seek to convince you that “it is what it is.”    

For those in Christ all things are new,
and we just have to surrender to the Lord’s will and live by His wisdom and ways
to experience it.

——————————————————–

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

This morning’s meditation verse is:

James
4:7 (NLT2)
⁷  So humble yourselves before
God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Today’s verses encourages us to humble ourselves before GOD and to
resist the devil, and by association, his minions with the assurance that they
will flee from you.  

I’m sure that James 4:7 has been shared before because it just
happens to be one of the quintessential verses for spiritual warfare and
personal discipleship.   It is shared in
the Freedom in Christ Discipleship course more than once because it highlights all
the parts of the “Freedom in Christ” two step.  

Although perhaps paradoxical, and really what isn’t a paradox in
our faith, the way to freedom is found in submitting to God.  While we could think we are “resisting the
devil” fine just by ourselves, without God’s presence and wisdom, we are
deceived.  

Our individual will to do “our own thing” makes us a rebel and us
the “king” of our lives which obviously is in opposition to the KING of KINGS
and LORD of LORDS – Jesus Christ.  

So be wise and be humble to GOD – 
this is important because narcissists would implore that you humble yourself
before them and seek to enslave you as their servant.  

I’m short on time so let me encourage you to meditate and reflect
on the wisdom in this short verse because within it is wisdom and freedom in Christ.

___________________________________________

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.

The
Church of Jesus Christ and Discipleship

 Chapter Twelve

The
Saints, continues

 

The only thing that
matters is God’s victory over our unrighteousness, that God alone be the one
who is righteous. This victory of God has been won in the cross. This is why
this cross is not only judgment but reconciliation (ἱλαστήριον,
v. 25) for all who believe that, in the death of Jesus, God alone is righteous,
and in that way recognize their sin. It is God’s righteousness which brings
about this reconciliation (προέθετο, v. 25). “God was in
Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19ff.). “[God was] not
counting their sin against them”^[16]—but instead bore the sin, and
as its consequence suffered the death of the sinner. “God has set up the word
of reconciliation among us.” This message seeks to find faith, the faith that
God alone is righteous and in Jesus has become our righteousness. However,
between Christ’s death and the message of the cross lies Christ’s resurrection.
Only as the cross of the risen one can his cross have power over us. The
message of the one who was crucified is always already the message of the one
who did not remain in death’s bondage. “So we are messengers on behalf of
Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of
Christ, be reconciled to God.”^[18] The message of reconciliation is
Christ’s own word. He is the risen one who, in the word of the apostle, gives
witness of himself as the one who was crucified: find yourselves included in
Jesus Christ’s death, and thus in God’s righteousness which in his dying is
bestowed on us as free gift. Those who will find themselves in Jesus’ death see
the righteousness of God alone. “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew
no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The innocent
one is killed because he bears our sinful flesh; he is being hated and cursed
by God and the world; he is made sinful for the sake of our flesh. But in his
death we find God’s righteousness.

We are in him by
virtue of his incarnation. He died for us so that we who are sinners would in
him become God’s righteousness, precisely as sinners who are pronounced free
from sin by virtue of the righteousness of God alone. If in God’s eyes Christ
has become our sin, which must undergo judgment, then we have in him become
righteousness—but this is most certainly not our own righteousness (ἰδία δικαιοσύνη,
Rom. 10:3; Phil. 3:9). Rather, in a very strict sense, this is solely the
righteousness of God. Thus, God’s righteousness is such that we as sinners
become God’s righteousness. Our, or rather God’s, righteousness (Isa. 54:7) is
such that God alone is righteous and we are sinners, accepted by God. God’s
righteousness is Christ himself (1 Cor. 1:30). And Christ is “God with us,”
“Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14), God, our righteousness (Jer. 33:16).

The proclamation of
Christ’s death is for us the proclamation of our justification. What
incorporates us into the body of Christ, that is, into his death and
resurrection, is the sacrament of baptism. Just as Christ died once and once
only, so we are baptized and justified once and for all. Both baptism and
justification are unrepeatable events in the strictest sense. What can be
repeated is only the recollection of what happened to us once and for all; it
is, in fact, not only capable of, but in need of, daily repetition.^[22]
Nevertheless, such recollection is something different from the actual content of
the event to which this recollection refers. There is no repetition possible
for whoever loses the content of the event. The Letter to Hebrews is right
(6:5f. and 10:26f.). If the salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be
restored? Those who are baptized are told “Do you not know …?” (Rom. 6:3; 1
Cor. 3:16 and 6:19) and “So you also must consider yourselves having died away
to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). Everything has already
taken place, not only on the cross of Jesus, but also as far as you are
concerned. You have been separated from sin, you have died, you are justified.
God has thus completed God’s work. Through righteousness, God has established
God’s realm of holiness on earth. This realm of holiness is named Christ or the
body of Christ. The separation from sin has been accomplished by the sinner’s
death in Jesus Christ. God has a community which has been justified, and thus
freed from sin. It is the community of the disciples of Jesus, the communion of
saints. They have been accepted into God’s holy realm, indeed they are God’s
holy realm, God’s temple. They have been taken out of the world and live in a
new space of their own in the midst of the world.

From now on,
Christians in the New Testament are only named “the saints.” The other
conceivable name, “the just,” is not used. It is not equally capable of
describing the full content of the gift received. It rather refers to the
unrepeatable event of baptism and justification. True, the recollection of this
event is in need of daily repetition. It is also true that the saints remain
justified sinners. But together with the unrepeatable gift of baptism and
justification and its daily recollection, Christ’s death also warrants for us
another gift, namely, the preservation of the life of those who are justified
until judgment day. Living within this divine preservation is the process of
sanctification.^[26] Both gifts, justification as well as
sanctification, spring from the same source, namely, Jesus Christ, the
crucified one (1 Cor. 1:2 and 6:11). Both gifts have the same content, namely,
community with Christ. Both gifts belong inseparably together. However, just
because of this connection between them, they are not simply one and the same.
While justification appropriates to Christians the deed God has already
accomplished, sanctification promises them God’s present and future action.
Whereas, in justification, believers are being included in the community with
Jesus Christ through Christ’s death that took place once and for all,
sanctification, on the other hand, preserves them in the sphere into which they
have been placed. It keeps them in Christ, within the church-community. While
the primary issue in justification is our relationship to the law, the decisive
factor in sanctification is our separation from the world in expectation of
Christ’s coming again. While justification incorporates the individuals into
the church-community, sanctification preserves the church-community together
with all the individuals. Justification liberates believers from their sinful
past. Sanctification makes it possible for them to stay close to Christ, to
persevere in their faith, and to grow in love. It is perhaps possible to think
of the relation between justification and sanctification as analogous to the
relation between creation and preservation. Justification is the new creation
of the new human being. Sanctification is their preservation and safekeeping
unto the day of Jesus Christ.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, “Freedom in Christ” series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!

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Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and
do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author
may represent.”

 

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship