It’s YOUR DAY – For Those in Christ: You are a Saint! – Purity 1187

It’s YOUR DAY – For Those in Christ: You are a Saint! –
Purity 1187

Purity 1187 11/01/2023 Purity 1187 Podcast

Purity 1187 on YouTube:

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a large boulder of rock entrenched
on the side of a hill surrounded by pine trees with their autumn deciduous
friends in the background comes to us from yours truly as I stopped for a
moment to capture this enchanted forest in the early moments of my exploration
of the High Falls Gorge Nature Experience in Wilmington NY on Saturday October 28^th.

Well, It’s Wednesday and I thought that this mini
mountain of a rock was an adequate visual representation of our arrival at the
midpoint of another work week – so happy hump day to all you saints out there!

That’s right if you have put your faith in Jesus
Christ as your Lord and Savior – I am talking to you! As the Apostles never
addressed their epistles to the “sinners” in Rome, Ephesus, or Colosse, etc.,
we should not think of ourselves as “sinners saved by grace” although that is
admittedly who were, but since we have been filled with the Holy Spirit and
given new life in Christ, we should embrace our new identity in Christ as saints.  “Saints” is the word that is used to describe
members of the church, those who were called by God to be adopted into His
royal family. Since we put our faith in Jesus, we are forgiven, we are saved,
we are children of God, we are citizens of heaven, members of a royal priesthood,
and SAINTS.  

So as today is “All Saints Day”, consider today to
be YOUR DAY and remember the life that you have been given in Christ and rejoice!   

While some traditions consider “saints” to be the
all- star team of faithful Christians of the past, the Bible tells us that all
who belong to God through their faith in Christ, the bride of Christ – the church
– are saints.  

Just like our salvation, we don’t have to do
anything to become saints or to earn “sainthood” other than trust in Jesus as
our Lord and Savior.  

Don’t get me wrong, I will certainly encourage you
to pursue holiness and sanctification through repentance and renewing your mind
with the word of God to become more and more like Jesus – but as for sainthood –
you are already there my friends – but of course that doesn’t mean you can’t grow
in righteousness and maturity to better reflect your new identity as a saint.  

So rejoice saints! You didn’t have to earn that title,
but you can show the love you have for what the Lord has given you by sharing
your faith and life in Christ through the way you live your life.  

You can tell people all day long that you are a
saint, but its probably better to take the humble road and let your life in
Christ convince others that you have been changed by the Lord and walk the walk
as well as talk the talk of a saint.  

——————————————————————————————–

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 vers come from the section on Blame Shifting.

Proverbs 19:3 (NKJV)
³  The foolishness of a man
twists his way, And his heart frets against the LORD.

Today’s
verses fall under the second point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Blame
Shifting.

 2. Some try to blame God.

Today’s verses testify to
how our own sinful and selfish desires warp our walk through life and how we
tend to audaciously blame the Lord in our hearts for making us experience the
suffering that OUR actions cause us.  

Okay, I have to admit, I
needed some help to glean the meaning from today’s Bible verse – while I
understand how my foolishness as a man has twisted my way from experience, I didn’t
quite “get” how my heart “frets against the Lord”  – Fret? 
 

The definition for fret is
to “be constantly or visibly worried or anxious” according to Oxford Languages.
But how does one “fret against” the Lord – what do you mean?!?

But before I went to
Oxford to try to discern what the second half of this verse was trying to tell
us. I decided to consult an easier – more user-friendly version of the Bible –
The NLT – The New Living Translation to see if I could “get” the meaning from it.  While I am in many ways a child at heart – or
just childish at times – I have discovered that the NLT – which is appropriate for
“youth” and those new to scripture helps me – a Bible college graduate – helps
me to quickly discern meaning of some of the more poetic passages in the NKJV –
although that is the one I prefer, mostly. 

Anyway, the NLT presents:

Proverbs 19:3 (NLT2) as
³  People ruin their lives by
their own foolishness and then are angry at the LORD.

Angry! That’s what “fret against” means!
 And I love the way the NLT just sort of
simplifies both portions of this verse to make the meaning ultra clear. 

I ruin my life by my own foolishness and
then get angry at God!  -That was my
pre-Christ life of struggle and strife! And not for nothing – that verse
remains true for Christians who decide to go their own way, rather than following
Jesus and choosing to walk in the Spirit and do things according to God’s
word.  

So with the NLT making this clear- I can
“see” how this verse is associated with blame shifting.   We screw up our lives doing things our way –
and we blame God for “making me this way”!

But now that we know the truth of who
Christ is, let’s not do that. Let’s not “twist our way” with our own
foolishness and “fret against God” in our hearts.  Instead let’s acknowledge our old ways as
foolishness and choose to accept responsibility for what we do and choose to do
things according to the wisdom of the Lord. 

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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 are sharing from A. W. Pink’s – The Arthur
Pink Anthology  – a collection of A.W.
Pink’s tracts brought together in one book and dispersed here on the blog for
your encouragement.

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 free as a PDF at many sites, but printed copies of collections of A.W.
Pink’s books are available for purchase wherever Christian books are sold. 

The Arthur Pink Anthology – 1

1 John 2:2  – Part 2 of 2

In the fourth place,
when John added, “And not for ours only,
but also for the whole world”, he signified that Christ was the
propitiation for the sins of Gentile believers too, for, as previously shown, “the world” is a term contrasted from
Israel. This interpretation is unequivocally established by a careful
comparison of 1 John 2:2 with John 11:51, 52, which is a strictly parallel
passage: “And this spake he not of
himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die
for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also He should gather
together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” Here
Caiaphas, under inspiration, made known for whom Jesus should “die.” Notice now the correspondency of
his prophecy with this declaration of John’s:

“He is the propitiation for our (believing Israelites) sins.”

“He prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.”

“And not for ours only.” “And
not for that nation only.”

“But also for the whole world”—That is, Gentile believers scattered
throughout the earth.

“He should gather together in one the children of God that were
scattered abroad.”

In the fifth place,
the above interpretation is confirmed by the fact that no other is consistent
or intelligible. If the “whole world”
signifies the whole human race, then the first clause and the “also” in the second clause are
absolutely meaningless. If Christ is the propitiation for everybody, it would
be idle tautology to say, first, “He is
the propitiation for our sins and also for everybody.” There could be no “also” if He is the propitiation for the
entire human family. Had the apostle meant to affirm that Christ is a universal
propitiation he had omitted the first clause of verse 2, and simply said, “He is the propitiation for the sins of the
whole world.” Confirmatory of “not
for ours (Jewish believers) only, but
also for the whole world”—Gentile believers, too; compare John 10:16;
17:20.

In the sixth place,
our definition of “the whole world”
is in perfect accord with other passages in the New Testament. For example: “Whereof ye heard before in the word of the
truth of the Gospel; which is come unto you, as it is in all the world”
(Col. 1:5, 6). Does “all the world”
here mean, absolutely and unqualifiedly, all mankind? Had all the human family
heard the Gospel? No; the apostle’s obvious meaning is that, the Gospel,
instead of being confined to the land of Judea, had gone abroad, without restraint,
into Gentile lands. So in Romans 1:8: “First,
I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of
throughout the whole world”. The
apostle is here referring to the faith of these Roman saints being spoken of in
a way of commendation. But certainly all mankind did not so speak of their
faith! It was the whole world of believers that he was referring to! In
Revelation 12:9 we read of Satan “which
deceiveth the whole world.” But again this expression cannot be understood
as a universal one, for Matthew 24:24 tells us that Satan does not and cannot “deceive” God’s elect. Here it is “the whole world” of unbelievers.

In the seventh place,
to insist that “the whole world” in 1
John 2:2 signifies the entire human race is to undermine the very foundations
of our faith. If Christ is the propitiation for those that are lost equally as
much as for those that are saved, then what assurance have we that believers
too may not be lost? If Christ is the propitiation for those now in hell, what
guarantee have I that I may not end in hell? The blood-shedding of the
incarnate Son of God is the only thing which can keep any one out of hell, and
if many for whom that precious blood made propitiation are now in the awful
place of the damned, then may not that blood prove inefficacious for me! Away
with such a God-dishonoring thought.

However men may
quibble and wrest the Scriptures, one thing is certain: The Atonement is no
failure. God will not allow that precious and costly sacrifice to fail in
accomplishing, completely, that which it was designed to effect. Not a drop of
that holy blood was shed in vain. In the last great Day there shall stand forth
no disappointed and defeated Saviour, but One who “shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied” (Isa.
53:11). These are not our words, but the infallible assertion of Him who declares,
“My counsel shall stand, and I will do
all My pleasure” (Isa. 64:10). Upon this impregnable rock we take our
stand. Let others rest on the sands of human speculation and twentieth-century
theorizing if they wish. That is their business. But to God they will yet have
to render an account. For our part we had rather be railed at as a
narrow-minded, out-of-date, hyper-Calvinist, than be found repudiating God’s
truth by reducing the Divinely-efficacious atonement to a mere fiction.^[1]

—————————more
tomorrow————————

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