Seize the Day with JOY! – Purity 1183

 Seize the Day with JOY! – Purity 1183

Purity 1183 10/27/2023 Purity 1183 Podcast

Purity 1183 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a late afternoon sun blazing in the
heavens, that seems to be pouring it’s light directly into the decorative well
in the side yard at my place “down by The River” comes to us from yours truly
as I stopped to take a second to peak around the corner of my house after work
yesterday to appreciate the end of the day and the place where God has brought
me to live.  

Well, it’s Friday, let’s Thank God, Amen? And as the
weather is forecasted to be a balmy 78 degrees in the capital district, I am
calling “Carpe Diem” for those of us that need a reminder to stop looking into
the shadows of the past or who are focusing too far into the future to
appreciate today.  If you are into circumstantial
happiness, today may be the day to take a day off because my electronic personal
assistant who will remain nameless informs me there is a chance of showers
tomorrow.  October ends with Halloween on
Tuesday so if you want to go out and see some fall foliage in what is
forecasted to be a “good one” it’s Time to “Seize the Day!” 

Me? I work outdoors, mostly, and although I don’t know
what “troubles” I will face today, I am content regardless of where the day
takes me today because my sovereign Lord has shaped the last week to accommodate
my needs for periods of rest in between the various ministry, work, and
education responsibilities that have been filling my schedule. 

As things begin to get a little complicated in a
time of merging changes in the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group and the
completion of my training with Deeper Walk’s School of Prayer Ministry, there really
isn’t a day where I shouldn’t be looking ahead to make sure that I will be
prepared for what’s ahead of me, when I get there.  

The Celebrate Freedom Growth Group reaches a
milestone next week as we will be meeting for 25^th and final lesson
of the Celebrate Recovery lesson material.  But that doesn’t mean that the Celebrate Freedom
Group will close up shop.  Early on in
the ministry, when I considered giving the ministry a rest for a few weeks for
a “summer vacation” the leadership at Starpoint Church indicated that there was
a great need to have a continuous recovery/discipleship growth group at the church,
so when I went on my two weeks vacation, Debbie Deyoe and Scott Salvadore rose
to the occasion and led the group in my absence.

After that, it was determined among the Celebrate
Freedom leaders that with the exception of Thanksgiving week, we would host a
meeting every Wednesday for the rest of 2024, and after meeting with Starpoint
Church’s leadership about starting “afresh” with lesson one of the CR material
in 2024, (on January 10^th – for those who are considering recovery and
a new life of freedom in the new year) – it was decided that we would be a
continuous ministry for all of 2024, or at least we submitted a schedule to
accomplish that if the need arises.

So, what do you do when you have reached your last planned
lesson, with a 9-week gap before you begin the material again? Well, you get
creative and luckily the Lord knows whom he is dealing with here and as it
turns out, I just happened to compose a 7 week course of recovery-themed discipleship
classes for my master’s thesis in Christian Counseling back in 2020.   So I am currently reviewing, updating, and editing
my old lessons and modifying them for use for the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group.
 So far, I have Lesson 1 – on the Kingdom
of God and Recovery- edited and ready to go, and will try to stay ahead of the
8 ball and get all my lessons edited and ducks in a row to be prepared for the
9 weeks before we start up the Celebrate Recovery material again next
year.  

Simultaneously, I am past the halfway point on the
fourth and final course of Deeper Walk’s School of Prayer Ministry Training,
and halfway past completing the “Prayer Ministry Project” that is required for
graduation.  I am currently leading a
brother through the Steps to Freedom in Christ in prayer ministry and am
scheduled to meet with him two more times before we complete our last session
on November 7^th.   When you add the regular weekly course work
for Deeper Walk into the mix, and my daily blogging, you can imagine that
things are pretty busy right now. 

But you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other
way.  I am in a season where I am being
equipped, experiencing new levels of freedom, serving the body of Christ, and
falling more and more in love with my wife, TammyLyn.  And even though things are busy, I have joy
and peace in knowing that I am thriving in my purpose right now and have been
given opportunities to learn and grow that I never would have dreamed were
possible. 

And don’t get me wrong, I am not looking so far
ahead that I am forgetting to enjoy the moment. Come Fridays, I rejoice in the
presence of my wife and use the weekends to rest and enjoy the peace of our
countryside home. My wife has moved my workspace  “out of the closet” and into the living room
of our countryside home and I love how it feels to not be hidden away in the
back corner of the house as I can sit, pray, study, write or read in the living
room and my wife has open and easy access to visit me while she takes care of
cooking and other household activities in the kitchen.  One of our mutual love languages is physical
touch and we have both been blessed by the way this move has increased our
physical availability to one another. I am more at peace at Countryside now and
whether or not that’s because I have more space in the living room or its
because I am receiving a lot more hugs, I’m not sure but man do I like it!

So, as we roll into another Friday, let’s do the
work that the Lord puts before us to the best of our abilities and “get ‘er
done” today, if we can, but regardless of how the day goes, remember the good
things in your life and remember the God who made them all and who has given
you new life in Christ.  When we take
care of what we need to take care of, we can have a sense of accomplishment,
but when we appreciate what we have been given freely we can have a peace and
joy that goes beyond our understanding. 
So keep walking and talking with God and Seize the Day with JOY!

——————————————————————————————–

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 Bitterness, Resentment,
& Hate.

1 John
4:20-21 (ESV)
²⁰  If anyone says, “I love
God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother
whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
²¹  And this commandment we
have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother..

Today’s
verses fall under the twelfth point of our counseling reference guide
resource’s section on Bitterness, Resentment, & Hate.

 12. If you claim to love God but you hate
your brother, you are a liar.

Today’s verses call us out
of the hypocrisy of claiming to have a relationship with God but being in opposition
with our fellow man.  God created us to
love and while we are to Love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, as His
FIRST Commandment, Jesus also directs us to love our neighbors as
ourselves.  

God is love. He revels
Himself through Jesus Christ to tell us just how much He loves us. God, through
God the Son – Jesus -, was willing to die for us so we can have peace and eternal
life with Him.   He loves us. – individually
and corporately – God loves me, He loves you. He loves everybody.   And so, He doesn’t want any of us to hate
one another.  

The state of this world
broken by sin is not God’s plan for us but because God wants us to freely love
Him, He has given us the ability to decide if we will love and follow Him or
not.  The evil that men do is not God’s perfect
will.  Evil men who claim their acts of
violence are done in the name of God are deceived by the ruler of this world
Satan. 

While God would call us to
love one another, the enemy is here to kill, steal, and destroy. While God
would sow the seeds of love, the enemy would sow the seeds of hate.  

So although we stand for
the truth of God’s word and “hate evil”, we need to recognize that Jesus called
us to love our enemies, not hate them!  As
counterintuitive as that may be, our zeal for righteousness should not surpass
our capacity to pray for and love our enemies.  

Before coming to Christ, I
was a hopeless sinner. But it only took a simple message about the love of God
to tell me that even I could be accepted by Him, because of His love.  

So don’t fall into the
trap of hating others.  When we do that,
we show that we don’t know the Lord and His will for us very well. We should instead
seek to do the hard thing and love those who don’t know about God and pray for
them to make His acquaintance and to experience the life-giving Spirit of His
love.  

——————————————————————–

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

32 – Honoring the Spirit

Worshipping
the Spirit as a Member of the Trinity

“Thou shalt fear (worship—Matthew 4:10) the
LORD thy God, and serve Him” (Deut. 6:13). Now the Lord our God is a Unity in
Trinity, that is, He subsists in three Persons who are co-essential and
co-glorious. Therefore the Holy Spirit, equally with the Father and the Son, is
entitled to and must receive devout homage, for we are here commanded to render
the same to Him. This is confirmed by the “holy, holy, holy,” of Isaiah 6:3,
where we find the seraphim owning separately and worshipping distinctively the
Eternal Three. The words that follow in verse 8, “Who will go for Us?” make it quite clear that the
threefold “holy” was ascribed to the Blessed Trinity. Still further
confirmation is found in Acts 28:25, 26, where the Apostle prefaces his
quotation of Isaiah 6:9 with “well spake the
Holy Spirit by Isaiah the Prophet.” If, then, the angels ascribe glory and
render worship to the Holy Spirit, shall we, who have been regenerated by Him,
do less!?

“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel
before the LORD our Maker” (Ps. 95:6). Who
is our “Maker?” Perhaps you answer, Christ, the eternal Word, of whom it is
said, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made” (John 1:3 and cf. Col. 1:16). That is true, yet Christ is not our
“Maker” (either naturally or spiritually) to
the exclusion of the Holy Spirit. The Third Person of the Godhead, equally
with the Father and the Son, is our “Maker.” In proof of this assertion we
quote, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the Breath of the Almighty hath
given me life” (Job 33:4). Let the reader carefully compare Job 26:13 with
Psalm 33:6. Let it also be duly noted that this 95th Psalm (vv. 7–11) is quoted
in Hebrews 3:7–11 and prefaced with, “Wherefore as the Holy Spirit saith.” Thus
not only may we worship the blessed
Spirit, but here in Psalm 95:6 we are commanded
to do so.

It does indeed seem
strange that any professing Christian should raise any objection and question
the propriety of worshipping the Spirit. Are we not to acknowledge our
dependence upon and obligations unto the Holy Spirit? Surely! surely! He is as
much the Object of faith as is the Father and the Son: He is so in His Being
and perfections, His Deity and personality, His offices and operations.
Moreover, there are particular acts of trust and confidence to be exercised on
Him. As He is God, He is to be worshipped, and that cannot be done aright
without faith. We are to trust Him for His help in prayer and the discharge of
every duty! We are to exercise confidence that He will complete the good work
which He has begun in us. Especially should ministers of the Word look to Him
for His help in and blessing upon their labors.

“Then said He unto
me, Prophesy unto the Wind (Breath), prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind,
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe upon
these slain, that they may live” (Ezek. 37:9). We sincerely trust that none of
our readers will suppose that the Lord bade His servant to perform an idolatrous act by invoking the literal “wind.” No, a comparison of
verses 9 and 10 with verse 14 shows plainly that it was the Holy Spirit Himself who was referred to—see John 3:8. Nor does
this passage stand alone. In Song of Solomon 4:16 we find the Spouse praying to
the Spirit for renewal and revival: “Awake, O north Wind; and come, thou south;
blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.” She expressed her
desires metaphorically, but this is what she breathed after. It is the Spirit
of life, then, we should always apply to for quickening, for the enlivening and
exciting of His graces 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)

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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship