In Conclusion: Ain’t No Half Steppin’ with Faith – Purity 1898
Purity 1898 02/27/2026 Purity 1898 Audio Podcast
Purity 1898 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the sun shining through the trees over Waite Road in late spring comes to us from yours truly as I captured this serene green scene back on June 3rd, 2022.
Well, it’s Friday, thank God, and I am rejoicing this morning because I will be headed north at the end of the work day to be reunited with my wife, TammyLyn, later today, and I am looking forward to saying goodbye to February and saying hello to March come Sunday.
I may be getting ahead of things a bit, but I am all in for spring and am praying that the Lord will be gracious with increasing the temperature and the amount of greenery in the days and weeks ahead. I fully realize that there are still mounds of snow outside my front door still but in my mind, I have moved on from winter and will be rejoicing over every little step we take towards the next season.
I am a man of quick transitions and can easily adapt to a new set of circumstances when I accept and understand that I have entered into a new chapter in my life. I may misremember, but I think I have always been somewhat resilient in rolling with the changes, or at least I have learned to be. At 53 years old, I believe that after you have lived and suffered a while through life, you get used to going through different chapters or seasons. After years of searching for happiness and truth, I found it all through a radio gospel message and immediately decided to surrender to seeking the Lord’s will for my life in 2010. As a former lapsed Catholic, agnostic/atheist, Episcopalian, and Buddhist, I had a lot of different ideas about what life was all about, but all my ponderings never connected to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ on an experiential level. But that all changed in one shining moment in March of 2010, when I understood that I could be accepted, forgiven, and given eternal life through faith in Jesus. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and even though I really didn’t know what I was doing at the time, I went “all in” with my decision to follow the Lord the best I could.
Being wary of religion and the disingenuous religious platitudes, surface-level faith, and moral hypocrisy that I had seen in my exposure to “organized religion”, I decided that there would be no “half-steppin” when it came to my newfound faith and relationship with the Lord. “I will follow” was a serious declaration I made at the time, and I have been faithful to progressively surrendering my will to the Lord ever since, with varying results. Although somewhat skeptical at first, the more I pursued the Lord, the more I found Him and the more I realized that I had made the most important decision of my life when I said that simple prayer to make Jesus the Lord of my life. In conclusion, I have taken the road less traveled, the path of Christian Discipleship, and it has made all the difference.
Speaking of finding life, meaning, and purpose in Christ alone, The Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah devotion for today speaks about that topic, and I am sharing it on the blog today to encourage all of us to give God total control of our lives. David Jeremiah writes:
“IN CONCLUSION…
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments. – Ecclesiastes 12:13
Sylvia Plath was an American poet and author who often described the emptiness of life from her perspective as a non-Christian. On one occasion, she wrote, “I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel.”
God created you with a place in your heart only He can fill. Meaning in life is found in a relationship with our Creator—the Almighty God—through Jesus Christ, who died to save us and to restore our relationship with the Father. God wants us to live our lives joyously, and part of doing that is fearing (revering) Him and keeping His commands. Our joy, peace, and enthusiasm in life is directly proportional to our obedience to God and our reverence for who He is.
If you haven’t already, give Him total control over your life. Let Him be your Lord and Savior today. You will find the missing joy and peace you’ve been searching for.” – David Jeremiah
When you accept the fact that sometimes seasons are dry and times are hard and that God is in control of both, you will discover a sense of divine refuge, because the hope then is in God and not in yourself. – Charles Swindoll
Amen. “Our joy, peace, and enthusiasm in life is directly proportional to our obedience to God and our reverence for who He is,” I repeat this because it is the fundamental truth of our existence. I hope that it sinks in. Meaning in life is found through our relationship with God.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon sees that much of life appears to be meaningless, or vanity as he calls it. Having much wisdom and experience, Solomon realized that the things that the worldly things that man focused on in life were meaningless in the face of death. However, Solomon knew God was real, and at the end of his testimony, he turned from a life of foolish experimentation and chasing after the wind to tell us to fear God and to obey His commandments – for it is only through God and with God that we live.
I’m sure we can all relate to having times of feeling alone like Sylvia Plath, but if we don’t realize that God is with us, we too could suffer a tragic fate like the young poet.
Plath was an atheist who pondered religion, dabbled with the occult, but never put her faith in Christ. After a life plagued by depression and a split from her adulterous husband, Plath took her life at the age of 30 by sticking her head in an oven and inhaling gas.
If we deny the Lord and keep ourselves from the peace and joy that we can experience by living with God, through faith in Jesus, we will only see the world as tragic – as Solomon did. But when we turn to the Lord and live by faith, we discover life’s true meaning and purpose and can face whatever comes our way with hope and peace.
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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 the Providence of God.
Exodus 16
Exodus 16:4 (ESV) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.
Today’s verse falls under the sixth point of our counseling reference guide resource section on the Providence of God.
6. By sending his people manna from heaven each day, God revealed his faithfulness, power, and love.
Today’s Bible verse reminds us of God’s faithfulness in providing for His people, but it also reminds us that there will be tests.
As miraculous and wonderful as the miracle of the manna in the desert was, it didn’t take long for the people to fail the test of faith that God brought to them. Disobedience was displayed almost immediately by the people, as they broke the “rules for manna collection” by trying to stockpile a little more than they needed for a day. The extra manna rotted to show us that God saw their disobedience, and he didn’t appreciate their lack of faith. No sooner was this lesson than the people grew tired and bored with their morning miracle and started to complain that they didn’t have meat to eat! God answered their request in abundance and brought judgment in the form of a plague for dessert! All but a few failed the test of time in the wilderness and never made it to the promised land.
The history of God’s people in the desert warns us not to take our blessings for granted and to obey the Lord’s commands because even though God is faithful to provide, He is a holy God who won’t allow sin in His midst.
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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 “Pause for Power” By Warren Wiersbe.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Wiersbe’s 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 32 – Mixed Messages – Read James 3:9–17
Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. – James 3:10
If you and I are going to have tongues that delight, then we must meet with the Lord each day and learn from Him. We must get our “spiritual roots” deep into His Word. We must pray and meditate and permit the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with God’s love and truth.
But James issued a warning: A spring cannot give forth two kinds of water, and a tree cannot bear two different kinds of fruit (James 3:11–12). We expect the spring to flow with fresh water at all times.
If the tongue is inconsistent, there is something radically wrong with the heart. I heard about a professing Christian who got angry on the job and let loose with some rather strong words. Embarrassed, he turned to his partner and said, “I don’t know why I said that. It really isn’t in me.” His partner wisely replied, “It had to be in you, or it couldn’t have come out of you.”
The tongue that praises the Father, and then turns around and curses men made in God’s likeness (James 3:9), is in desperate need of spiritual medicine.
Something to Ponder – Think of your comments to others today. What percentage of them were “fresh water” comments? What percentage were “salt water” (or bitter) comments?[1]
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
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[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, Pause for Power: A 365-Day Journey through the Scriptures, 2nd Ed., Year in the Word Series (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010).
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