It’s not “Just Me & Jesus” – Self-Deception Series 23 – Purity 1112

 It’s not “Just Me & Jesus” – Self-Deception Series
23 – Purity 1112

Purity 1112 08/04/2023 Purity 1112 Podcast

Purity 1112 on YouTube:

Good morning,

Today’s photo of green foliage in the foreground of
a magnificent sunset over the Atlantic comes to us from Fred Dimmick who
reshared this scene that he originally captured on August 1^st of
2022 as FB put it fresh in his “memories” the other day, causing Fred to
reflect that he has been in North Carolina a year this month, after spending seven
months in Vero Beach Florida, and after nine months in Kentucky.  Moss sure hasn’t grown fat on Fred in the last
few years which is rather ironic considering he spent most if not all of his
life in areas in and around Hillsdale NY.   Which just goes to show us that life doesn’t
stop after retirement and that the “status quo” that remains steady for years can
really be set on its rear when we realize that we are  “free” and decided to live like it.

Well, It’s Friday and while I enjoyed a day of
swimming in Lake Erie at Headlands Beach State park in Mentor Ohio yesterday I
was so caught up in the moment I didn’t take any photos (although my wife
TammyLyn shared some “great ones” of yours truly on FB – yikes!) , so I am sharing
Fred’s view from 2022 and am curiously thinking about the possibilities of my
own retirement as I contemplate the inevitable day I will leave my day job to
possibly pursue a career in full time ministry, somewhere, somehow. 

Part of my musings this morning (or is it a calling?),
have me googling Hobart Indiana on google maps, because Deeper Walk
International has recently announced the beginning of a new nonprofit venture
called “Joy Centers International” which will be headquartered there.  They have a website up and everything guys!
You can check it out at: (https://joycentersinternational.com/).
their stated mission is to “Bring Christ to the world through joy” by teaching
people the relational-joy skills that are highlighted in Warner & Coursey’s
books on Joy.   To quote the site:

“This training will be based on the work of
THRIVEtoday—an organization that has been training brain-based joy skills for
over twenty years—and on the following books and the exercises found in them:

·       The Joy Switch (Chris Coursey)

·       The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages (Marcus Warner
& Chris Coursey)

·       The 4 Habits of Raising Joy-Filled Kids (Marcus
Warner & Chris Coursey)

·       The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled People (Marcus Warner
& Chris Coursey)

·       Rare Leadership in the Workplace (Marcus Warner
& Jim Wilder)”

So it’s an exciting time of new beginnings for
Deeper Walk International and as a student at their school of prayer ministry I
really interested in seeing how this will develop in the months and years ahead
and wonder and hope I could be a part of it in some way.  But that’s a “What’s Next?” Question and as excited
as I am about the possibilities for this nonprofit and can imagine packing it
all up and being a part of their mission, I have learned from experience that
my “walking in the prophetic” hasn’t been without its stumbles, as I have
previously imagined ministries and relationships that never came to pass.   So as much as I am ready to “pack up and go”,
I think I will wait, pray, and see what the Lord has in mind for me and will answer
when called.  

As I talked about yesterday, one assumption can
easily lead you astray and end up getting you lost, so I will keep walking and
talking with God and follow where He leads because I don’t want to believe in
something that will prove not to be true, even if those things are good things
based on a deep hope and desire of my heart. 
We have one life to live and thus while there are many possible paths
for the future, we invariably will have to choose only one of them and will
want to make sure that it is true.

 And that
brings us to our current series on Self- Deception, where we have decided to investigate
some of the ways we deceive ourselves by walking through Step 2, Deception Vs.
Truth, of the Steps to Freedom in Christ to see what ways we may have been deceived
by “the world” and ourselves and in what ways we have wrongly defended
ourselves. 

So we present the seventh, and last of the  “Ways to Deceive Yourself”:

7. Thinking I can live successfully without the help
of anyone else.

The scripture reference for this point is:

1 Corinthians 12:14-20 (NLT2)
¹⁴  Yes, the body has many
different parts, not just one part.
¹⁵  If the foot says, “I am
not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less
a part of the body.
¹⁶  And if the ear says, “I am
not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a
part of the body?
¹⁷  If the whole body were an
eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell
anything?
¹⁸  But our bodies have many
parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.
¹⁹  How strange a body would
be if it had only one part!
²⁰  Yes, there are many parts,
but only one body.

These verses point out that we are a
part of a body in Christ. It is one body with many parts that have many
different functions, but they all have the body in common.  Just how none of the parts of a human body
can survive on their own without the rest of the body to sustain its life and
purpose,  individual believers in the
body of Christ are to be a part of and function within the body of Christ.  The life we have in Christ was never meant to
be lived out as a lone wolf for Christ as Jesus’ second commandment is to love
our neighbors as ourselves and specific verses in scripture tell us to not
forsake the assembly of the saints. As Christians, we are called to be a part of
and to serve a local church – a body believers.  

While we have a highly individualized
relationship with God, our life in God’s kingdom was never intended to be “Just
Me & Jesus!” as our purpose in Christ necessitates sharing and showing the love
of God to others.  The local gathering of
the body of Christ is where we need to be – to serve and to be served. It is
where we can go to grow in our faith and where we can worship the Lord in Spirit
and in truth. 

So don’t believe the lie that you can
live successfully without the help of anyone else. As Christians, our success
lies in becoming the people God created us to be – to become more and more like
Jesus – and part of His call on our lives was to go and make disciples of all
nations and to teach them to observe everything that Jesus taught.  Successfully answering that call from Jesus
requires us to give and receive help to and from others.   So stand in the truth and stand with the
body of Christ to be a success in this life and in God’s kingdom forever.

——————————————————————————————–

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 Affliction, Discipline,
Chastisement, & Trials.

Exodus 15:22-27 (NASB)
²²  Then Moses led Israel from
the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three
days in the wilderness and found no water.
²³  When they came to Marah,
they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it
was named Marah.
²⁴  So the people grumbled at
Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”
²⁵  Then he cried out to
the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree; and he threw it
into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There He made for them a statute
and regulation, and there He tested them.
²⁶  And He said, “If
you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD
your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments,
and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have
put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD,
am your healer.”
²⁷  Then they came to Elim
where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and
they camped there beside the waters.

Today’s
verses fall under the ninth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Affliction,
Discipline, Chastisement, & Trials

 9. “God tried His people at Marah, where He
turned bitter water sweet and soon gave a time of refreshment at Elim.” 

Today’s verses tell the
story of the Lord’s testing and provision for the nation of Israel in the
desert wilderness days before they were allowed into the promised land.   While these verses and this point in our
counseling resource tell a specific story from the history of God’s people the
overall principle here is that even though God may test us and we may face some
bitter times, we should trust that if the Lord turned things around from His
people once, it is not unreasonable to hope that God will do it again for
us.   

God gave us His word to
tell us His story – the history of God and His interactions with man – but He
also gave us His word to show us how He is faithful to help His people when
they call on His name.   So if we are
experiencing bitterness and are in need of refreshment we should remember this episode
in Marah and ask for the Lord to make the bitter things sweet and to lead us
into times of refreshment.  

——————————————————————–

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

18 – The Spirit Indwelling

The Spirit and Christ Go Together

“But
ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His”
(Rom. 8:9). The possession of the Holy Spirit is the distinguishing mark of a
Christian, for to be without the Spirit is proof positive that we are out of
Christ—“none of His:” fearful words! And, my reader, if we are not Christ’s,
whose are we? The answer must be, Satan’s,
for there is no third possessor of men. In the past all of us were subjects of
the kingdom of darkness, the slaves of Satan, the heirs of wrath. The great
questions which each one of us needs to accurately answer are, Have I been
taken out of that terrible position? Have I been translated into the kingdom of
God’s dear Son, made an heir of God, and become indwelt by His Holy Spirit?

Observe that the
Spirit and Christ go together: if we have Christ for our Redeemer, then we have
the Holy Spirit for our Indweller. But if have not the Spirit, we are not
Christ’s. We may be members of His visible “Church,” we may be externally
united to Him by association with His people, but unless we are partakers of
that vital union which arises from the indwelling of the Spirit, we are His
only by name. “The Spirit visits many
who are unregenerate, with His motions, which they resist and quench; but in
all that are sanctified He dwells:
there He resides and rules. He is there as a man at his own house, where he is
constant and welcome, and has the dominion. Shall we put this question to our
hearts, Who dwells, who rules, who keeps house there? Which interest has the
ascendant?” (Matthew Henry).

The Spirit belongs to
Christ (Heb. 1:9, Rev. 3:1) and proceeds from Him (John 1:33; 15:26; Luke
24:49). The Spirit is sent by Christ as Mediator (Acts 2:33). He is given to
God’s people in consequence of Christ’s having redeemed them from the curse of
the Law (Gal. 3:13, 14). We have nothing but what we have in and from the Son.
The Spirit is given to Christ immediately, to us derivatively. He dwells in
Christ by radication, in us by operation. Therefore is the Spirit called “the
Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9) and “the Spirit of His Son” (Gal. 4:6); and so it
is Christ who “liveth in” us (Gal. 2:20). Christ is the great Fountain of the
waters of life, and from Him proceeds every gift and grace. It is our glorious
Head who communicates or sends from Himself that Spirit who quickens,
sanctifies, and preserves His people.

What high valuation
we set upon the blessed Person and work of the Holy Spirit when we learn that
He is the gift, yea the dying legacy which Christ bequeathed unto His disciples
to supply His absence. “How would some rejoice if they could possess any relic
of anything that belonged unto our Savior in the days of His flesh, though of
no use or benefit unto them. Yea, how great a part of men, called Christians,
do boast in some pretended parcels of the tree whereon He suffered. Love abused
by superstition lies at the bottom of
this vanity, for they would embrace anything left them by their dying Savior.
But He left them no such things, nor did ever bless and sanctify them unto any
holy or sacred ends; and therefore hath the abuse of them been punished with
blindness and idolatry. But this is
openly testified unto in the Gospel: when His heart was overflowing with love
unto His disciples and care for them, when He took a holy prospect of what
would be their condition, work, and temptations in the world, and thereon made
provision of all that they could stand in need of, He promised to leave and
give unto them His Holy Spirit to
abide with them forever” (John Owen).

Plain and express are
the declarations of Holy Writ on this wondrous and glorious subject. “Know ye
not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16). “Because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). Observe where the Spirit is said to dwell:
not in the understanding—the fatal error of many—but in the heart. Most certainly He enlightens the
understanding with truth, but He does not rest there. He makes His way to, and
takes up His abode in the renewed and sanctified heart. There He sheds abroad the love of God. There He inspires the
cry of “Abba, Father.” And be that cry never so faint, it yet is the breathing
of the indwelling Spirit, and meets a response in the heart of God.

“How affecting are
Paul’s words to Timothy, ‘That good thing which was committed unto thee by the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.’ ”^[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

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These teachings are also available on the
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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     

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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship