Rejoicing in the Victories Seen – Purity 1194

 

Rejoicing in the Victories Seen – Purity 1194

Purity 1194 11/09/2023     Purity 1194 Podcast

Purity 1194 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo od a leaf covered log obstructed forest
pathway comes to us from yours truly as I took time to capture this scene as I
walked out of the woods on Saturday from my brief visit to the Lye Brook Falls
Trail near Manchester Vermont. 

Well, It’s Thursday and I share today’s forest
pathway photo to encourage my friends in the Northern regions of the country to
get out and see some of God’s great outdoors before the temperature drops too
low or before the terrain in covered in snow. 
I also share it because it is a tradition of sorts to share a pathway photo
on Thursdays because that was the original day of the week that got on the road
to recovery and started following the pathway of Christian Discipleship with an
attitude of surrender. So I share pathway photos as a visual reminder and
encouragement to myself, and to you, friend, of the journey that has been taken
and of the fact that I am still following Jesus all these years later.  

Last night, I hosted the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group
meeting at Starpoint Church and was filled with joy over the fact that we have
been walking along that path for 26 weeks, half a year, and have seen the Lord
do some amazing work in and through that group. 
But I also have to admit that I was a little disappointed as our attendance
wasn’t as high as I thought it would be and realized that there have been many who
once walked with us and have seemingly made the decision never to return again.
I also lament over the eight people who registered for our group and never
attended, knowing that the ones who never came and the ones who have stopped
coming most likely haven’t been healed of whatever hurt, habit, or hang-up that
caused them to express interest in the group.  I was also disappointed to hear that some of
the people in attendance last night were still struggling with the same
problems they had had some measure of victory over in previous weeks. 

But that’s why we meet, to encourage those who are
still struggling and to be there in case those who have never attended or those
who have been gone for a long time decide to come.  As much as I would like to “cure” everyone of
their burdens, I know that’s not my job. 
I and the other people that attend our meetings can’t fix or heal anyone.
Only God can do and all that we can do is encourage people with the truth that
God is real, He does love and care about them, and He will help them if they
ask Him and make the choice to follow Him into repentance and the new life that
He has for them.  

And many in our little group can bear witness to
that truth because has helped them, healed them, and delivered them out of the
darkness of their pasts to discover a new life of hope, peace, love, and joy.  They surrendered to the Lord’s wisdom and ways
and have been transformed. They have joy because they know they are never
alone. They have been given the power to overcome the sins and addictions that
had them in bondage. They discovered that the fruit of the Spirit of peace,
love, joy, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, patience, gentleness, and YES, self-control
can grow in their lives when they follow Jesus.

So last night despite some disappointment over the
things that didn’t happen for the people that stopped coming or who didn’t step
out in faith to get help, I was given the privilege to hear some amazing
testimonies about how our group had been used by the Lord to help people
overcome their problems and hurts and experience freedom and victory. 

One of the testimonies was my own! I took the extra
time we had last night and laid out my twisted path through life and testified
how the Lord guided me into a new life that is defined by peace, joy, and
purpose and how He still wasn;t done making me into the person He created me to
be as He had used this latest incarnation of Celebrate Freedom to guide me into
new levels of freedom and victory as my body is being transformed as I am in
the best physical shape of my life through several weeks of victory over my
food addiction.  

So even though I wish more people could have
benefited from the support and encouragement we offer at the Celebrate Freedom
Growth Group,  I will remind myself of
the victories we have seen – in others and in myself – and rejoice!

If you don’t know what it means to be free in
Christ, I encourage you to seek the Lord and follow His will for your life.
Check out Freedom in Christ Ministries (https://ficm.org/)
 or Deeper Walk International (https://deeperwalkinternational.org/)
if you don’t have a recovery or “freedom ministry” at your local church. Seek to
equip yourself and make the decision to ask God to help you and to grant you
repentance.   For as Jesus said in:

Matthew
7:7-8 (NKJV)
⁷  “Ask,
and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be
opened to you.
⁸  For
everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it
will be opened.

——————————————————————————————–

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 Children.

Matthew 19:13-15 (ESV)
¹³  Then children were brought
to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the
people,
¹⁴  but Jesus said, “Let the
little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the
kingdom of heaven.”
¹⁵  And he laid his hands on
them and went away.

Today’s
verses fall under the fifth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Children.

 5. Jesus loves little children; of such is
God’s kingdom.

Today’s verses show us
that Jesus’ love extends to the littlest of humans – the children and other
scriptures indicate that all we need to be saved is “child-like faith” to trust
in Him as Lord and Savior.  

Jesus took the time to
love the “least of these” and in a historical era where children were treated
as property and were disciplined harshly to keep silent and not to be a bother,
Jesus showed that their little lives mattered and that He loved them too.  

 

The love of God extends to
us all and because children need to learn in order to survive in this world we
should do all we can to tell them about Jesus and encourage them to follow His
example for living and to put their trust in Him to be safe in God’s kingdom
forever more.

——————————————————————–

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 – 4

Bearing the Rod –
Part 1 of 2

“Man is
born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

(Job 5:7)

How can it be otherwise,
living as he is in a world which is under the curse that Adam’s sin entailed,
and, what is worse, under God’s judgment because of its casting out of His
beloved Son. Yet the subject of “trouble” needs to be “rightly divided” if we are
to properly heed that exhortation, “Be ye not unwise, but understanding what
the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:17), an important part of which consists in
understanding the meaning and message of our Father to us in all the “trouble”
which we encounter and experience.

As we turn to the
Holy Scriptures for light upon this subject of Trouble, Suffering, Affliction,
Tribulation, Persecution etc., we discover two distinct and different lines of
Truth thereon, running all trough the Word. On the one hand we read that, “We must
through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22), parallel
with which are such passages as Luke 6:26, 2 Timothy 3:12 etc. But on the other
hand, we read that “the curse causeless shall not come” (Prov. 26:2), that God
does not “afflict willingly” (Lamentations 3:33), and that “if we would judge
ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:31). Much of the “trouble” and
“affliction” experienced by us, we bring upon ourselves, through our own folly.
We see this plainly exemplified in the natural realm: how many are now
suffering bodily ills through intemperate eating and drinking: how many are
nervous wrecks as the result of “burning the candle at both ends!”

The same principle
holds good in the spiritual realm: the chastening rod of God is upon many of
His children because of their self-will and self-pleasing: some of them are
passing through sore financial straits because their “sins have withholden”
God’s temporal mercies (Jeremiah 5:25); still others, who have been favored
with clear and definite light from God as to a certain course of duty—e.g.
separating themselves from religious associations which dishonor Christ—and
because they have not walked therein, the Lord has “hedged up their way with
thorns” (Hosea 2:6). Nevertheless, it would be a serious mistake to draw the
inference that every time we see a suffering Christian, we behold one who has
seriously displeased God, and therefore is now being severely chastised by Him.
It would be wrong to form such a conclusion concerning every case, because
trouble and suffering issue from other causes, and are sent by God for other
purposes than the reproof of sin—sent sometimes to experimentally fit the
recipient for greater and higher usefulness in the service of Christ: compare 2
Corinthians 1:4.

Now from what has
been pointed out above, it should be quite clear that real exercise of heart is
called for from each one of us whenever painful trials come upon us; that we
need to get down before God, and cry, “show me wherefore Thou contendedest with
me” (Job 10:2). To take this attitude is the part of wisdom, for if God be
dealing with us over something that has displeased Him, and we fail to humble
ourselves before Him and learn of Him what it is which is now choking the
channel of His highest blessing toward us, and obtain grace from Him to put
right what is wrong, then the chastening “profits” us not, and further and
increased chastisement must be our portion; for it is not until we are
“exercised thereby,” exercised in conscience, that we have any promise it will
issue in “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11).^[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
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These teachings are also available on the
MT4Christ247 YouTube 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)

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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship