Believe and Live – What About Other Religions? – Purity 1263

Believe and Live – What About Other Religions? –
Purity 1263

Purity 1263 02/01/2024 Purity 1263 Podcast

Purity 1263 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of snow-covered trees lining a
headlight illuminated snow covered Waite Rd comes to us from TammyLyn Clark as
she captured this scene during her morning commute on January 23, 2024, sharing
it on social media commenting that there is “Something about fresh snow on trees
(that) is just pretty.”   As much as I would love to see spring sprung
in an instant, I would have to agree with my beloved wife. Snow on trees is
pretty and a big part of experiencing joy and peace in life is appreciating
what we have now.  

Well, it’s Thursday and I appreciate pathway photos
and I particularly like to share them on Thursdays as that was the day of the
week when I really surrendered to the Lord’s will for my life back in 2015 when
I went into recovery for my drinking at a little Christian recovery ministry
that was later named Celebrate Freedom.  

Well, a lot has changed since 2015, I am no longer
struggling with alcohol and have been set free from sex addiction and food
addiction as well as I have continued to follow the Lord and been faithful to
answer His call for continued repentance and progressive sanctification.  Celebrate Freedom now exists at three
different churches as Pastor Bob Costello restarted the ministry at Rock Solid
Church in Hudson last year, Matthew Crandall and company started their own Celebrate
Freedom ministry at Strong Tower Church in Philmont NY in the fall, and I have
been leading the “Celebrate Freedom Growth Group” at Starpoint Church since May
of 2023.   So if you are in Columbia
County or in the Capital District/Clifton Park Area and want to be built up in
your faith and be set free from your hurts, habits, and hangups check us out.
This freedom train is running and all you have to do to experience a new life
of hope, peace, and joy is ask God for help and start the process of renewing
your mind with God’s word and living according to who you are in Christ.  

Those who come to our meetings, apply the teaching to
their lives, and start walking on the path of Christian Discipleship are
testifying to the way the Lord is changing their lives for the better.  Testimonies of sobriety, healing, restored
relationships, peace, and hope are being delivered every week and all you have
to do to experience the transformation is to “believe and live” what the word
of God says.  

That might sound easy but due to the common
ignorance of the Christian faith and our own ideas about what is “right”, agreeing
with God’s word can be a tough pill to swallow. 
I know.  As a natural-born skeptic
and rebel, I had some serious misunderstandings of and objections to many of
the doctrines of Christianity.  

To people searching for God, I would recommend the
Freedom in Christ course, which I just happen to have a playlist of my podcast
of the course on YouTube (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYr9n4D1yfkq0ZMuXvt4PX2QmtyMN6Keb&si=OYqZ1mjMjd_hK4ZK).
If you can believe it the playlist has 4,795 views! – but to keep it real – the
Lessons themselves have less than that.  That tells me that some were curious about “Freedom
in Christ”, but they decided to not go down that path. Maybe they didn’t like
the fact that my teaching is an audio teaching – but I also know that as much
as people profess their Christian faith and their desire to be set free or to
grow in their relationship with God, not many of them will actually surrender
and follow the Lord in earnest.  

Some people stumble before they even start this
walk.  

Last night one of the participants of our Celebrate
Freedom asked a good question that has a heartbreaking answer that causes many
people to choose to not follow the Lord. 

“What happens to the good Jews and Muslims?”  was the question and this actually cameshortly
after the lesson of the night taught about the hope we have in “Christ alone”
and that quoted

John 14:6 (NKJV) that says:
⁶  Jesus said to him, “I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through
Me.

It’s hard to answer this question quickly and simply
because it deals with sin, the depravity of man, how people are forgiven of
their sins, the person of Jesus Christ, and the exclusivity of Jesus’s redemption.   

But the bottom line is that because all men sin and
because we can’t earn our salvation by our own efforts, we need a Savior. And
that is why God sent Jesus to be that Savior – to teach us the truth and to pay
the penalty for our sins and to give us new life through faith in Him.  

This person’s question was loaded and revealed the false
belief in “good people” and the misunderstanding that God would somehow be
unjust by rejecting the people who rejected Jesus.  They also seemed to think that these
questions were a matter of debate – they aren’t – but you have to know God’s
word, understand that it is true, and believe it – to know that.  The problem is spiritual questions is that
they always come from a place of ignorance of God’s word.  So I tried to as compassionately answer that
question as I could and encouraged them to read the Bible, specifically the
book of John to try to get a biblical understanding of the nature of reality,
the person of Jesus, and why He is the only way into God’s kingdom.  

I’ve read the Bible several times, gone to Bible
college, read lots of Christian books and listened or watched loads of
podcasts, movies, or sermons to hep me understand and know God and His will for
our lives.  The truth is out there and
when you seek the Lord you will find it – but in ways that are difficult to
understand – it is up to God whether or not you will accept the truth and put
your faith in Jesus.

There are no good people. We need a savior. Other
faith streams may have some truth to their teachings (maybe a lot of truth!) but
if they fail to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior, as the resurrected
Messiah, they are a false religion – the doctrines of demons – that would lead you
straight to hell.  So there’s that. 

The truth is God is gracious in saving anybody. We
are all worthy of judgment, death, and hell, and we show our rebellion against
our Creator when we refuse to believe and follow Jesus.  Our eternal destiny hangs in the balance of whether
or not we follow Jesus and as well-intentioned as our concern for others may be
– we really should secure our own salvation first and then concern ourselves
with helping others.  

Just like in a plane’s emergency systems – we are to
put the oxygen on ourselves first and then help our neighbors with theirs – we have
to put on Jesus and then if we are truly concerned about the people of
different religions, we are to answer Jesus’ call in.

Matthew
28:19-20 (NKJV) – the last thing He said in Matthew’s gospel – where He said:
¹⁹  Go
therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
²⁰  teaching
them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

What
about the good Jews and Muslims?  Tell
them about Jesus and how He is the only way to the Father, teach them to truth,
and teach them to be disciples of Jesus – to observe all the things that He has
commanded us.  Tell them to believe and
live.   

 

——————————————————————————————–

Today’s
Bible verse come 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 verse come from the section on Communication, Gossip, and
Lying.

Proverbs 29:20 (NKJV)
²⁰  Do you see a man hasty in
his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Today’s
verse is the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the sixth point
of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Communication, Gossip, and
Lying.

6.     Listen before you
speak.

Today’s
verse warns us to not be hasty in our words. 
Something said quickly often proves to be foolish. So we recommend a
pause where you can think before you speak before blurring out the first thing
that comes to mind.

As
Christians, we don’t want to “react” to life in our flesh. We want to respond
with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. When we craft our responses to consider the
truth of God’s word and the wisdom we can draw from it rather than our opinions
or reactions, we will represent God’s kingdom and give Him glory.

So don’t
be so hasty in your speech. Remember when you are an ambassador of God’s kingdom,
every word you say is important because it represents our faith, and we shouldn’t
be hasty in delivering the news that could save someone’s life.  

———————————————————–

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 “According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A
Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.

As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own
private study and to support his work.  This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.

MORNING READING: MATTHEW 23

“Hypocrites!” – Matthew 23:23

To those whose comprehension of God is one of love alone,
what a chapter is this! Woe! Woe! Woe! Eight times, like the toll of the death
bell! Who could possibly deny that God is a God of righteous judgment after
reading a chapter such as this?

“But why such strong language?” the soul asks. The answer
is because of the existence of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is the greatest of all
abominations before the Lord. Men who were outright sinners, the Lord called
sinners and dealt with them in grace (Mark 2, John 8; 15:2, etc.). But when it
came to hypocrites, the Lord scathingly denounced them. Notice in Acts 5, that
even among His own people in the early Church, the Lord did not tolerate
hypocrisy.

O, that I might recognize any
hypocrisy in my life
and deal with it swiftly and decisively!^[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 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)

“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