The Freedom – Dependence Paradox– Happy Independence
Day – Purity 1085
Purity 1085 07/04/2023 Purity 1085 Podcast
Purity 1085 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the magnificence of the heavens just
past sunset over the Washington County Fairgrounds in Greenwich NY comes to us
from yours truly as I decided to capture the last remnants of God’s natural light
show before some local men tried to celebrate our American independence and dazzle
us with the use of the latest technology, drones, and pyrotechnic elements,
fireworks.
As much as we Americans may associate fireworks with
our Independence Day, fireworks were originally used by the Chinese to celebrate
new Year celebrations and to scare away evil spirits. Exploding firecrackers are said to be produced
by a Chinese monk named Li Tian, who lived near the city of Liu Yang in Hunan
Province during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) (https://www.thoughtco.com/invention-of-fireworks-607752)”, long before “America” was ever dreamed of.
But in the fullness of time, the settlement of North
America by invading masses of settlers from England, France, Spain and the
Netherlands did come to pass, and eventually resulted in the formation of these
United States of America that our national anthem declares to be the land of
the free and the home of the brave! But as many Americans would remind you, our
freedom wasn’t free, as our Independence was fought for, established and maintained,
because people were willing to die for the privilege to rule themselves. So the
freedom and independence we celebrate today is one that came at a great price
of the sacrifice of many.
So freedom isn’t free and we should appreciate it.
Some of the freedoms that I particularly enjoy, (speech,
religion, assembly) freedoms regarding the practice of my Christian faith are covered in our Constitution’s First Amendment
that states that:
·
Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances.
As Americans we have a country that has pledged to
neither establish a state religion (sorry Christian nationalists) –, or to
prohibit the free exercise of religion, a country that pledges to not abridge
free speech ( I can speak about my faith) or press ( I can write about my
faith) or impede our right to peaceably assemble (we get to gather together to
worship)!
And the reason why these freedoms were established
in our First Amendment is because other kingdoms of the earth had a history of
limiting or dictating how its people could relate to God and our founding
fathers understood that if the nation we were creating wanted to be free – the ability
to freely worship the Lord was important, but they also understood that we shouldn’t
force people to worship Him or to do so in one mandatory way.
They also understood that man was fallible and that
we wouldn’t always get things right. There would be different opinions. There
would be disputes. No matter what noble
intentions we had, the constitution’s first amendment acknowledges that problems
would arise and thus our first amendment gives us the right to “petition the
Government for redress grievances” – it gives us the right to go before a
government body to ask them to solve problems.
Of course, paradoxically the biggest problems that
man faces come when we seek to free ourselves from the wisdom and authority of
God and fail to see that man’s biggest problem – death – can only be solved by
coming under the Lordship of Christ.
While we can “Live Free or Die” in these United States,
without bowing the knee to Jesus, we will perish.
Jesus said of Himself in:
John
3:13-16 (NKJV)
13 No
one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is,
the Son of Man who is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
eternal life.
16 For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
While we can choose to live however we want, we are
not free of the consequences of our sins and the only One that can give us eternal
life and forgiveness and freedom from sin is Christ. God’s word tells us in:
Romans
6:23 (ESV)
23 For the wages of sin is
death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And
Romans
8:2 (NKJV)
2 For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
Just as our freedom as Americans has been paid for
by the lives of those who were wiling to pay the ultimate price of their lives,
Jesus died so we could live.
Romans
5:8 (NKJV) tells us
8 But God demonstrates His
own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
And
just how Americans died for our freedom, Christ came and died to set us
free. So as we go forward to celebrate
our freedom as Americans let’s share the joy of our freedom in Christ. True freedom over death and sin has been won
by the Son. As Christ said in:
John 8:36 (NKJV)
36 Therefore if the Son makes
you free, you shall be free indeed.
IN Christ we are free indeed!
Our independence from the tyrannical rule of foreign
powers is nice, but freedom from sin and death , and the gift of eternal life
come from our dependence on Christ alone.
Its another one of those paradoxes of our faith but our freedom
comes from surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus. So Live Free and LIVE forever,
in Christ!
——————————————————————————————–
For
those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide,
I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By
John G. Kruis.
(
While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick
google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late
author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )
This
morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Adultery:
Proverbs 6:20-35 (ESV)
20 My son, keep your father’s
commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
21 Bind them on your heart
always; tie them around your neck.
22 When you walk, they will
lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they
will talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a
lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of
life,
24 to preserve you from the
evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
25 Do not desire her beauty
in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
26 for the price of a
prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious
life.
27 Can a man carry fire next
to his chest and his clothes not be burned?
28 Or can one walk on hot
coals and his feet not be scorched?
29 So is he who goes in to
his neighbor’s wife; none who touches her will go unpunished.
30 People do not despise a
thief if he steals to satisfy his appetite when he is hungry,
31 but if he is caught, he
will pay sevenfold; he will give all the goods of his house.
32 He who commits adultery
lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.
33 He will get wounds and
dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.
34 For jealousy makes a man
furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.
35 He will accept no
compensation; he will refuse though you multiply gifts.
Today’s verses fall under
the fifth point of our resource’s section on adultery, 5. “Shun adultery”.
Yesterday, our resource shared verses 27, 28 of proverbs 6, warning
how our sin would cause us to get “burned”, but when I saw that verses 20-35 was
a whole discourse of the dangers of adultery I wondered why our resource didn’t
share the whole passage, only to discover that today it did! I just had to look
a head a little to see it, teaching me that checking out the context of our
resource, as well as the context of the scriptures it references will be a good
idea going forward!
As I pointed out
yesterday, today’s verses warn of that the one who commits adultery will not go
unpunished. If caught in the sin of adultery, one could experience loss – of trust,
of a marriage, of friendships, of a home, of personal property as divorce causes
dispersion, and possibly of life itself at the hands of an angry spouse seeking
revenge. If undetected on earth, beyond God’s judgement, the adultery faces the
loss of honor and integrity as the sin changes how one views oneself, relationships,
and the world in general. The adulterer
looks at the world with an untrusting eye because they know what acts of
betrayal and depravity people are capable of and they look at the world with
lust as once committed the adulterer, like the successful thief looks for new
opportunities to take what they want.
So follow today’s verses
injunction to “keep your father’s commandment” to not commit adultery. As our
resource recommends, “shun adultery” it because it never goes unpunished and
its effects are far reaching and damaging.
God doesn’t forbid adultery to keep us from a good time. He forbids it
because it is wrong and causes us pain.
———————————————————————-
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 The Holy Spirit By A.W. Pink.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for $0.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Arthur-Pink-Collection-ebook/dp/B008CM5292/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AHKAQOM39CTN&keywords=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit&qid=1684376225&sprefix=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit+%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-3)
A.W. Pink’s The Holy Spirit
12 – The Spirit Enlightening
Darkness by Nature
By nature fallen man is in a state of darkness with respect
unto God. Be he ever so wise, learned, and skillful in natural things, unto
spiritual things he is blind. Not until we are renewed in the spirit of our minds
by the Holy Spirit can we see things in God’s light. But this is something
which the world cannot endure to hear of, and when it be insisted upon, they
will hotly deny the same. So did the Pharisees of Christ’s day angrily ask,
with pride and scorn, “Are we blind also?” (John 9:40), to which our Lord
replied by affirming that their presumption of spiritual light and knowledge
only aggravated their sin and condemnation (v. 41); unhesitatingly, He told the
blind leaders of religion, that, notwithstanding all their boasting, they had
never heard the Father’s voice “at any time” (John 5:37).
There is a twofold
spiritual darkness, outward and inward. The former, is the case with those who
are without the Gospel until God sends the external means of grace to them:
“The people which sat in darkness saw a great light” (Matthew 4:16). The
latter, is the case with all, until God the Spirit performs a miracle of grace
within the soul and quickens the dead into newness of life: “And the light
shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended
it not” (John 1:5). No matter how well we are acquainted with the letter of
Scripture, no matter how sound and faithful is the preaching we sit under and
the books we read, until the soul be Divinely quickened it has no spiritual discernment or experimental
perception of Divine things. Until a man be born again, he cannot “see” the kingdom of God (John 3:3).[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 mt4christ247 podcast is also available
on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and
Audible.com.
These teachings are also available on the
MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247
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 Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ), 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)
For those who require the assistance of a Deeper
Walk International Prayer Minister to experience healing or your freedom in
Christ, I highly recommend Christy Edge’s Life on the Edge Freedom Prayer
Ministry. You can schedule a session by going to : https://cedge216.wixsite.com/life-on-the-edge
“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
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