Condemnation or Vacation? – Wherever You Go – Purity 1584
Purity 1584 02/17/2025 Purity 1584 Audio Podcast
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Good morning,
Today’s photo of a boardwalk pathway leading to a sandy beach and the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean comes to us from yours truly as I captured this after my second arrival at my hotel in Myrtle Beach yesterday.
Well, It’s Monday and even though I am on vacation this week, I will not be taking a vacation from my daily spiritual practice, and that includes my blog. I know that confession is good for the soul and so is encouraging one another along the path of Christian discipleship and so I have come to realize that my blog is an important part of my overall well being and what I believe to be part of my purpose in Christ.
After living most of my life entrapped in low self-esteem and in bondage to a myriad of addictions of the flesh, the Lord was gracious enough to save me and set me free and I believe that this act of mercy was done for a reason and from the best I can figure out the reason is to tell others about Jesus Christ and the various truths that I have learned about what you can expect when you decide to be an apprentice to the King.
As much as I encourage people to follow Jesus to experience the peace, love, and joy that comes as a supernatural byproduct of walking in the Spirit, I also try to keep it real by telling them that choosing to live as a follower of Jesus comes with its costs and with quite a bit of resistance from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Your faith in Jesus will cost you time, money, and loss.
Following Jesus requires time in His word, attending church, serving the kingdom, and in prayer (our “walking and talking with God). Christian Discipleship will also cost you monetarily in, if nothing else, tithes and offerings. Generosity is a spiritual practice, after all, and the Lord calls us to be cheerful givers.
And finally, the path of Christian Discipleship will also cost you loss. What will you lose? Maybe everything… but I would say that you can almost certainly count on following Jesus to cost you some relationships. Some friends and/or family or loved ones will not support your decision to be a “religious zealot”, “Bible thumper” or “Jesus freak” and will distance themselves from you if not out right reject you. Whether they stay or go, your pre-Christ relationships will change, and you will feel the pain of loss.
But one of the more surprising losses may be of your relationship to your “former self” as the “old man” is transformed into the person God created you to be as you become more and more like Jesus in your character.
The Holy Spirit comes to indwell us when we put our faith in Jesus and He will call us to repent of our former ways and if we cooperate with what God wants to do in our lives we will echo the sentiments of John the Baptist, in John 3:30 when he said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” And so, as we begin to turn from our sins, we realize that the person we used to be decreases and our Christ-like qualities increase.
With that said, old habits die hard, and transformation doesn’t necessarily happen overnight, and so the process of walking in the Spirit is related in terms of dying. As I shared in yesterday’s “Bible Study with M.T. Clark” message, Jesus said as much in:
Matthew 16:24-25 where He “said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
So we lose our old life when we follow Jesus, but He is faithful to save us and to give us a new life in Christ, but just to be clear some of our old challenges or struggles will come along for the ride until they are completely “killed”.
As I stated low self-esteem was a struggle of my past and that often manifested in a lot of negative self-talk, condemning thoughts, and the tendency to people please. Before coming to faith in Christ, when you are feeling low and not confident in yourself, the world system would naturally lead you to look to find validation from others. The world system is a performance-based system and so it encourages you to perform for others and to gain their acceptance to alleviate your feelings or unworthiness. Receiving acceptance and praise from others feels good but if we are seeking our feelings of acceptance, security, or significance based on our performance to someone else’s approval, our self-esteem will always be subject to their opinion. In essence, we make others our gods and become enslaved to their opinions of us. But that’s idolatry, and God doesn’t want us to look to anyone else but Him for validation. He sent Jesus to set us free and He wants us to know our “self-worth” – which is determined by what God says about us in His word which is detailed in Neil Anderson’s “Who I am in Christ” list.
I have renewed my mind quite a bit with God’s truth by meditating on these truths but occasionally will have those old familiar thoughts of condemnation when I don’t perform well, disappoint someone, or receive negative feedback. And these thoughts can even happen when you’re on vacation.
This morning I did my regular morning exercise routine and I am glad I did because even though I successfully got my family to our hotel safely and am pleased with the accommodations, I was having negative thoughts over minor details that I couldn’t control – like the weather, the travel time, minor inconveniences, not knowing everything, and from receiving negative feedback. I also woke up to a doozy of a nightmare featuring relational problems of the past that I also didn’t have control over and that I suspect are demonically driven, because I forgot to pray over the room, cast the demons out, and claim the space for God’s kingdom. (Which I just did now).
So even though I was under spiritual attack, I knew how to deal with it by doing what I always do – my daily spiritual practices of exercising the body and casting out any negative thoughts, foreign or domestic, by focusing on the truth of who I am in Christ and thanking God for another day of life.
There is an old expression regarding when we travel, that says wherever you go, there you are. And in terms to our experiencing the chaos of condemnation or peaceful tranquility while on vacation, we have to be intentional in deciding who we are when we get to our final destination and what bags we want to unpack. We can unpack the old bags from the past where we base our self-esteem on how we are performing while on vacation – where every hiccup or disappointment can cause us to doubt our worth or steal our joy – OR we can unpack the truth of who we are in Christ and know that no matter where we go, what we do, or what we suffer, nothing can separate us from the love of God and nothing can change what the Lord thinks about us.
When we choose to stand in our identity in Christ and do what is right according to God’s word, it doesn’t matter where we go or what we experience on the road, because God will give us the peace that comes from knowing the no matter where we go we are accepted, secure, and significant in Christ.
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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. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Imitating Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 1:6–7 (NASB) You also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.
Today’s verses fall under the eighth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Imitating Jesus.
8. Thessalonian Christians soon became good models for others, partly by imitating Jesus and his disciples.
Today’s Bible verses remind us that we can receive the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ even in the midst of tribulation and receive it with joy and allow the Holy Spirit to move us to be imitators of Christ.
Why would we believe in Jesus when people will hate us for it?
Why would we believe to follow Christ when it would cause us trouble?
How could we have joy in our suffering for our faith?
Because the higher truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ – which guarantees life everlasting in the presence of God – overrides the temporary concerns and circumstances of this world, that’s why.
When we understand the truth of eternity, or as I say – ultimate reality- we understand what Paul was saying when talked about our suffering being a light affliction in 1 Corinthians 4:17. Our current suffering is only temporary and leads to an eternal reward.
We can endure trials because we understand that they help us to grow in our character in Christ and will one day be rewarded in God’s kingdom – so we can boldly continue to imitate Jesus and share His good news, because of the joy set before us.
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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 continue 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 83
Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine that I have mixed. – Proverbs 9:5
Wisdom is also available for those who will come to her house for a meal. She has made herself equally accessible (v. 3), even seeking those who will partake of her feast, and sending her messengers after them (v. 3). There is no excuse for failing to acquire wisdom. She does not hide, but freely offers herself to all those who will come. She says, “Forsake the naïve and live” (v. 6), and urges her listeners to “walk in the way of understanding” (v. 6). She promises increased days and added years (v. 11). Compare the results of eating at her table with eating with an unfaithful woman whose guests “are in the depths of the unseen world” (v. 18). One leads men to early death; the other leads to prolonged life. Is there any real choice? Why would you choose wrongly? Wisdom is “the other woman,” the one who seeks your welfare and blessing. This other woman is the one to embrace with all your heart and soul. Fear God and He will make you wise.[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 91.
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