Holy Spirit Companion – You are Not Alone – Purity 1506
Purity 1506 11/18/2024 Purity 1506 Audio Podcast
Purity 1506 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the sun shining through the forest of trees somewhere along Trail # 2 of the Graphite Range Community Forest in Wilton, NY comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene while hiking with my wife, TammyLyn, on Saturday.
Well, It’s Monday, and as we walk into another workweek, I am looking forward to the journey I will be embarking on later this evening as I will be leading a group of men through FICM’s original Grace Course and hopefully into the Lord’s will for their lives as I begin a new chapter in my Christian Life Coaching practice as I will lead my first independent “group coaching” with “Grace For the Holidays” where the focus will be living in and experiencing God’s grace every day throughout the holiday season. It’s November and we are moving ever closer to the end of 2024 so beyond the course material, I will be inviting the group participants to look back over the last year to examine what has happened, what they had hoped would have happened, and how those two things compare. I will also invite the men to look ahead to 2025 and to decide what thye hope to accomplish in the new year. However, as we are neither in the past or in the future, and the holiday season is upon us, I will also encourage the men to use the 6 weeks we have together to appreciate where they are right now and to focus on their relationship with God to truly appreciate the wonders of His love at the time we celebrate Jesus’s birth and the free gift of our salvation that is only possible because of Him.
The Holiday season can be merry and bright but it can also be a time of great sadness and loneliness so the overall purpose of “Grace for the Holidays” is to encourage one another to focus on God and His grace over the next six weeks, to spend time in His presence and to take Him with us where ever we go, allow Him to guide us into a time of reflection and celebration, and to cause us to grow in His grace and love as He leads us.
When we have God in our lives, we are never alone. The In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotion for today addresses this fact and so I am sharing on the blog today to encourage us to draw close to the One who never leaves us or forsakes us. Dr. Charles Stanley writes:
“Our Incomparable Companion
Because the Holy Spirit lives inside us, we are never truly alone.
Loneliness will creep into most lives at some point. However, as believers, we are never truly alone because God has given us an unfailing companion—the Holy Spirit.
None of us can truthfully promise always to be available; the realities of time, distance, and even death can separate people. Thankfully, by sending the Holy Spirit to live inside of us, Jesus keeps His promise to never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
Human beings were never meant to live alone. God designed us to be complete only when we are indwelt by His Spirit, which occurs upon our salvation. We can, however, choose to ignore the Holy Spirit. For example, some people stubbornly attempt to live the Christian life in their own strength or skip Bible reading when they find meditating on the Word inconvenient. That kind of life is marked by discontent: Peace will be fleeting, and loneliness will feel like the heart’s permanent resident.
The Holy Spirit is our parakletos, or companion who “walks beside.” If we hold Him at arm’s length, we distance ourselves from the Father as well. But if we ask the Spirit to guide our steps and open our mind to God’s plans, He will support and encourage us in ways we never imagined.” – Charles Stanely
I was a big fan of Green Day’s song “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” which begins:
“I walk a lonely road, The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes, But it’s home to me, and I walk alone
I walk this empty street On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps, And I’m the only one, and I walk alone
I walk alone, I walk alone….”
You get the idea. I walk alone.
Before coming to faith in Christ, I felt alone most of my life. Regardless of having friends and later getting married and having kids, I felt alone. I felt alone because I was separated from God and doing life on my own – my way – by myself – lonely and ignorant of true wisdom and love – ignorant of the Lord and His presence.
But God came in and changed all that. After putting my faith in Jesus, the Lord was with me and he led me out of my “man cave” – basement and led me to experience life His way – He led me to churches and the mission field where I made friends and found my purpose for living – to share the good news of God’s presence, wisdom, power, and love that is available to all who follow Jesus. God gave me wisdom, joy, guidance and comfort at times when I needed it the most. He lead me out of the darkness of my sin and loneliness and gave me hope and a future.
While the path of Christian Discipleship may be lonely at times, I am never alone anymore because God is with me in the person of the Holy Spirit. I walk and talk with God every day.
So let me encourage you to spend time with the Lord by seeking Him with a daily time of Bible study and prayer and to keep the conversation with Him going throughout your day.
You are not alone anymore. God is with you so don’t ignore Him. Ask Him to show you The Way and follow Him.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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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 verse comes from the section on Giving.
Matthew 5:7 (NKJV)
7 Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.
Today’s verse is the fourth of five passages of scripture that fall under the eighth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Giving.
8. God requires us to be merciful and give to the poor.
Today’s Bible verse is the words of Jesus – the one who dispenses God’s mercy, grace, and love to all who put their faith in Him.
When we are merciful, we are more like Jesus and while we can never say we ever deserved mercy, His words here from the Sermon on the Mount indicate that when we show mercy to others we shall obtain mercy.
It’s somewhat mysterious how exactly we will obtain mercy. Does this mean that our mercy to others simply confirms that we will indeed be saved and receive the mercy of God’s forgiveness and the gift of eternal life in His kingdom? Is this just reaffirming the joy of our salvation, and that our mercy to others merely reflects the mercy we have already received? Or does this mean that we can expect to continue to receive mercy as we go through life?
I think it is both. God’s mercies are new morning after all so those who are with Him will be merciful to others and they can expect new mercies every day that they keep on walking and talking with Him.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we begin sharing from “Day By Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 5
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. – John 14:6
We return to this verse for an additional look at the Way of Jesus Christ. It is the way of truth and life. In our day, people conjure up their own ideas of truth, failing to consider that there can be only one truth—God’s. All else is error. In a world of sin, there are numberless ways of going wrong, but only one way of going right. Jesus calls Himself both the Way and the Truth. He is truth’s sole Source; He is the truth. But He is also the Life, as He is its true Source: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of human beings” (John 1:4). Contrary to the view of many historians, the Enlightenment came to Palestine, not to Europe. Everyone enlightened through faith, is enlightened by Jesus, Who entered the world for that purpose (John 1:9). Neither science, nor education, nor culture, enlighten. Indeed, they cause darkness when divorced from the genuine Light (v. 9). Those on the way know that all other claims to light and truth are bogus.[1]
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 13.
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