Retooled & Thriving
Michael’s been in and out of Panama frequently during the past 6-8 years when we began following him. I don’t necessarily endorse all of his posts but this one is certainly choice!
Again, this blog is all about the 3-D’s of your Life’s Focus: Destination-Distractions-Determination, and the galaxies beyond, that science has yet to quantify>>>>>
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelyon/p/be-not-afraid?r=690o5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Hello readers! I’ve been greatly enjoying “The Seven Decisions:
Understanding the Keys to Personal Success” by Andy Andrews and wanted
to share this historical account with you. Do yourself a huge favor and
read “The Traveler’s Gift” first though!
Andy was ironing his shirt one evening in his hotel room when he heard the anchor on a network news show announce Norman Borlaug as the person of the week. Andy ran to the television and heard that Borlaug was credited with saving the lives of over two billion people on our planet. Andy stated he was blown away, not knowing the 91 year old man was still alive. Andy knew Borlaug had hybridized corn and wheat for arid climates. Actually, he won the Nobel Prize because he discovered how to grow a specific type of corn and wheat that saved the lives of people in Africa, Europe, Siberia, and Central and South America. Borlaug was being credited with saving, literally, two billion people on our planet.
The reporter was misinformed, however; Andy knew it wasn’t Norman Borlaug who saved the two billion people. It was Henry Wallace. Henry Wallace was the vice president of the United States during Franklin Roosevelt’s first term. However, the former secretary of agriculture was replaced for Roosevelt’s second term in favor of Truman. While Wallace was vice president of the United States, he used the power of that office to create a station in Mexico whose sole purpose was to hybridize corn and wheat for arid climates. He hired a young man named Norman Borlaug to run it. So, Borlaug got the Nobel Prize and person of the week, but wasn’t it really Wallace who saved the two billion people?
Or was it George Washington Carver? Before Carver ever made his amazing discoveries about peanuts and sweet potatoes, he was a student at Iowa State University. There, he had a dairy sciences professor who allowed his six-year-old son to go with Carver on botanical expeditions on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Carver instilled in him a love for plants and a vision for what they could do for humanity. George Washington Carver pointed Henry Wallace’s life in that direction long before that little boy ever became vice president of the United States.
So, when you think about it, it is amazing how George Washington Carver “flapped his butterfly wings” with a six-year-old boy and just happened to save the lives of two billion people and counting. So perhaps Carver should be person of the week?
Or should it have been the farmer named Moses from Diamond, Missouri? Moses and his wife, Susan, lived in a slave state, but they didn’t believe in slavery, which was a problem for a group of psychopaths called Quantrill’s Raiders, who terrorized the area by destroying property, burning, and killing. One cold January night, Quantrill’s Raiders rolled through Moses and Susan’s farm, burned the barn, and shot and grabbed some people. One of these was a woman named Mary Washington, who refused to let go of her infant child, George. Mary Washington was Susan’s best friend, and Susan was distraught. Quickly, Moses sent word out through neighbors and towns and managed to secure a meeting with Quantrill’s Raiders a few days later.
Moses rode several hours north to a crossroads in Kansas to meet four of Quantrill’s Raiders. They showed up on horseback, carrying torches, flour sacks tied over their heads, with holes cut out for their eyes. Moses traded the only horse he had left on his farm for what they threw him in a burlap bag.
As they thundered off on their horses, Moses knelt and pulled a little baby out of that bag, cold and almost dead. He put that child inside his coat next to his chest and walked him home through the freezing night. He talked to the child, promising him he would raise him as his own. He promised to educate him and honor his mother, whom Moses knew was already dead. And he told that baby that he would give him his name.
And that is how Moses and Susan Carver came to raise that little baby, George Washington Carver. So, when you think about it, it was really the farmer from Diamond, Missouri, who saved the two billion people—unless . . .
The point is that we could continue this journey back through to antiquity. Who really knows who saved those two billion people? Who knows whose actions at a particular time were responsible for changing the entire course of the planet—two billion people and counting!
And who knows whose future will be changed by your actions today and tomorrow and the next day and the next.
BOTTOM LINE:
Depending on Almighty God’s timetable, there may well be generations yet unborn whose very lives depend upon the choices you make because everything you do matters—not just for you, not just for your family, not just for your hometown. Everything you do matters to all of us—forever.”
now for merlins two cents:
I agree 2 billion lives saved is a monumental accomplishment, and there are likely a few more such unsung heroes. Fact is, on the other side of the coin, I’d wager there are likely historical accounts both centuries ago, and perhaps even last year, where unbelievable atrocities whether geo-political, environmental, medical, judicial, corporate greed, human trafficking, etc., did not make the news, at least, YET.
But in the final analysis of whose future will be changed by your actions this coming week, actually tomorrow, as we once again will be privileged to enter Lent, may we each be uniquely reminded that all of our lives have an ultimate destination and even a recorded destiny, so we can rest in His perspective as we encounter scads of consuming trivial distractions that are attempting to usurp, actually downright destroy, our determination to keep His Circle Unbroken! I personally prefer the first rendition below, roughly 18 years ago, but I was looking for a choral piece, of course. The second is just too glitzy for me!
This unfinished document from 2018 unexpectedly surfaced today. The following random statements I judged worthy of you, were taken from Matthew Kelley’s book, “A Call to Joy: Living In The Presence of God,” Chapter One.
Sometimes you just know things. You do not know how you have come to know them, but deep within you there is an urge to listen to yourself, to trust yourself.
Only two things exist in eternity: joy and misery. We have long labeled them Heaven and hell. When you are with God you dance for joy. This we know as Heaven. When you are separated from God, you are paralyzed by misery. This we know as hell.
When you give to another, you fill yourself, and when you take selfishly, you empty yourself. Taking is not the same as receiving. When you graciously receive, you also fill yourself. Give and receive, but do not take.
Holiness is about grasping the moments of each day and using them to grow and become a better person and about assisting others in achieving the same. It is this that gives glory to God.
Smile, say less & listen more, pray & trust
A smile is an invitation to someone else to dance for joy.
One day a priest found himself walking through the Bowery in New York City, a place for many homeless people can be found. The priest was with three friends, were all on their way to take a ferry ride. As they walked along, they came a man dressed in rags and sitting on the pavement. He was very dirty and looking depressed. When he met the priest’s eyes, he beckoned him to come over. Touched, the priest moved toward him. But his friends quickly spoke up: “Come on, you don’t want to go near that bum.”
The priest ignored their warning and move still closer while his friends watched in amazement. The priest said a few words to the man. Then he smiled and moved on to catch the ferry.
As they were waiting to board, the same man came running up to the priest, sobbing like a child; he pulled out a gun and said, “Father, just before you walked along this morning, I was about to go down an alley and blow my brains out. When you came along, I waved to you and you responded to my call, my cry, my plea. Then you spoke to me as you would speak to someone you love, but it wasn’t any of this that that would stop me from doing what I had planned. As you started to leave, you looked deep into my eyes and smiled. It was a first sign of human affection that I’ve been shown in seven years And I just wanted you to know that today your smile has given me life.“
The two spoke for a while, and the priest discovered that this man had once been a doctor practicing at John Hopkins Hospital. Then the priest gave him his blessing and went on his way.
Later, the priest went to the hospital to find out what he could about this man. He mentioned the man’s name to various doctors and nurses and was told that he had in fact been a doctor there earlier, but he was having some troubles, so he left. No one knew where the priest could find him now.
Three years later the phone rang and the priest was greeted by a well spoken voice saying, “Hello, I’m Dr. Lawson. Remember me from the Bowery? I’m back at the hospital now. I just wanted you to know a smile can make a difference – sometimes all the difference.
Say less and listen more. (SLALM)These five words have improved my relationships with people more than any other. Everyone has a story. Your story is the thread of your life. It is when we lose or forget our story that our lives begin to fall apart.
The voice of God never ceases in our lives; He just uses different channels.
We are always wanting to know more, yet we are often not “prepared” to listen. We want to know more, but we do not live what we already know.
Our big struggle takes place between the false self and the true self. The more we abandon the false self and surrender to the true self, the more we grow in perfection. This battle takes place primarily in our hearts. It is a battle between power and love, between the love of power and the power to love. As we discover and nurture our true selves through prayer and reflection, the power to love grows in our hearts overwhelming and defeating it’s enemy, our inherent love and insatiable thirst for more power.
You will never be in control until you resolve not to be, for it is in the surrendering that we find our freedom. The key to surrendering to the Divine plan is trust.
Whereas, suffering puts us in touch with what is really important, sacrifice spells out our commitment and confirms our love.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, in this life is a coincidence. There are no accidents, just providence. Providence, providence, all is providence. Our happiness comes from seeking, finding, and struggling to live in harmony with this plan. The plan is truth, but it will never be imposed upon us.
To breathe is not a right; it is a gift. One of the first steps toward being able to recognize and be in touch with the divine plan for you is discovering the difference between a right and a gift. In the modern Western world we have an interesting combination of an overdeveloped sense of rights and an overdeveloped ego. When the two are mixed together, they form an extremely harmful formula known as U4; Unfulfilled, Unhappy, Unsatisfied, & Unbearable.
At times, I don’t understand while I’m alive, or why I wake up each day, how I breathe, and many other taken for granted intricacies, but I do know that one day I will not wake up. Death, however it is, is not a mystery. Life is the mystery. Life is sacred. Life is to be reverenced in all it’s forms.
Not everyone with his eyes closed is asleep, and not everyone with her eyes open can see. If you do not listen, you will never hear.
The clouds do not need to open and have lightening strike for God to speak. We need to develop the extra sense that allows us to hear God’s voice in the gentle whispers of the afternoon breeze.
To hear His voice you must be willing to change and obey His words. To achieve the necessary frame of mind and heart, we must recognize that God is good and that He calls us to do what is best. His challenge to change is much more than just that. His challenge to change is really a call to growth and to fulfillment. Fulfillment for a person is not merely a place or a destination; it is a path. You Journeying while on the path is fulfilling, whereas standing still on the path is devastatingly depressing!
When you stand still, you reject “the struggle” and you refuse to change and grow. Simultaneously you reject fulfillment, happiness, the dance for joy, and everything else, that is eternally for your good, and for His glory.
“The flower within you that wants to bloom is your soul. The Divine Gardener wishes to work the ground. The Divine Gardener wishes to water the ground. He wishes to pull out the weeds and place the flower where it can get just the right amount of sunlight.
Listen to the voice of the Divine Gardener. Remember, when He points out your faults and failings, He is hoeing the earth of your soul and pulling out the weeds. Some parts of the gardening process are painful, but the pain gives birth to new life. Allow Him to direct you, to call you forth, to move you, remembering that He wants to place you where you will get just the right amount of sunlight. Listen. Listen. Listen.”
God is your father. He is a loving father with wonderful plans for his children. Regardless of the greatest plan you can put together for yourself with the greatest power of your imagination, His plan is better, greater, more exciting, and by far, the most rewarding. Believe in His plan. Ask him to reveal His plan to you.
Sometime soon, when the Spirit calls you to listen to His Word, you practical seekers of His Plan, open and read Galations Chapters 5 & 6 from the KJV or NKJV. Then lastly, read and study from the paraphrased Message Version, sitting back with pencil and paper, and prayerfully listen.
Blessings.
UP NEXT: No idea. Honestly.
Folks, I’m afraid too often TODAY we don’t want to even know where the battle lines are, or even the devastating skirmishes of our temptations! Am I to believe Christians will gain their victories in these cultural wars by default, or by our silence? Perhaps we need to ask Sam & Sarah in SE Asia what persecution is teaching them? And then we wonder why our church is lackluster, weak, seemingly dwindling, perhaps even seeking hospice care? Is it even possible to die on The Vine? The verse below is key: if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live…
“For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:13
Resisting temptation is a gutsy, courageous, stubborn refusal to violate God’s law. Repeatedly calling upon Christ for the strength to say no to the world, the flesh, and the devil and to say yes to God instead, brings an ultimate heavenly happiness and joy that can be found only in knowing and pleasing God.
Remember the Beatles song where Ringo Starr sang, “All I gotta do is act naturally”?
It’s hard to imagine worse advice! The truth is, if you act naturally you’re toast.
But if you act supernaturally, drawing on the power of the indwelling Christ, you’ll enjoy great personal benefits, now and later.
“O blessed Jesus, your love is wonderful! May your loving kindness be ever before my eyes to induce me to walk in your truth.” John Fawcett, (1739-1817) See the article on John and his song below.
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 89 Harvest House.
John Fawcett (1739-1817), a dissenting Baptist clergyman in England, gave us one of the most beloved farewell hymns of all time. Fawcett’s parish in Wainsgate, described by hymnologist Albert Bailey as “a straggling group of houses on the top of a barren hill,” may have been typical for many rural pastors in the 18th century.
Fawcett, orphaned at 12, was “bound out” to a tailor in Bradford where he worked long hours. He learned to read and eventually mastered Pilgrim’s Progress, the devotional classic by John Bunyan.
Fawcett was converted under the powerful preaching of George Whitefield while the evangelist delivered a message to 20,000 people in an open field. It is said that upon telling Whitefield he wanted to preach, the evangelist gave Fawcett his blessing.
Mr. Bailey describes Fawcett’s congregation at Wainsgate: “The people were all farmers and shepherds, poor as Job’s turkey; an uncouth lot whose speech one could hardly understand, unable to read or write; most of them pagans cursed with vice and ignorance and wild tempers. The Established Church had never touched them; fortunately the humble Baptists had sent an itinerant preacher there and he had made a good beginning.”
John and Mary Fawcett went to live there in 1765 following his ordination. By engaging families house-to-house, he built a congregation that grew to the point that a gallery had to be added to the modest meetinghouse. With the addition of four children to the family, a modest salary that was supplemented by parishioners’ donations of wool and potatoes was barely adequate, especially during the long winters.
The story is told that a prestigious parish with more financial resources in London, Carter’s Lane Baptist Church, extended a call. It is at this point that it becomes difficult to separate fact from apocryphal imagination.
Mr. Bailey, a vivid storyteller, sets the scene: “[John] and Mary decided to accept. The announcement was made to the church, and the farewell sermon was preached, the bulky items of his furniture and some of his older books were sold and the day of departure arrived. The two-wheeled cart came for the rest of his belongings, and likewise came the parishioners to say good-by.”
The crowd was despondent and in tears. According to Mr. Bailey, Mary is quoted as saying, “I can’t stand it, John! I know not how to go.” John responded, “Lord help me Mary, nor can I stand it! We will unload the wagon. . . . [To the crowd], We’ve changed our minds! We are going to stay!” Mr. Bailey describes a scene of pandemonium as the crowd broke out in joyful acclamations.
It was then the practice of many ministers to write hymns on the theme of the day to be sung at the conclusion of the sermon. (I certainly never heard of that practice before. Imagine that today!) This hymn was included under the title of “Brotherly Love” in Fawcett’s Hymns Adapted to the Circumstances of Public Worship and Private Devotion (1782). UM Hymnal editor Carlton Young notes that the “collection contained 166 hymns, most of them to be sung as a congregational response to the sermon.”
We do know that John Fawcett remained in Wainsgate for 54 years and nearby Hebden Bridge. We do not know if this hymn was written in conjunction with his decision to remain in Wainsgate, but its language connects well with congregations, identifying with the struggles of life and our unity in Christ.
No doubt this hymn has been tearfully sung by more Christians upon parting than any other hymn.
Fawcett developed a school for the area children by adding on to his home. He was known as an educator and scholar, as well as a fine preacher.
In 1811 Fawcett published his Devotional Commentary on the Holy Scriptures and was also honored with a Doctor of Divinity degree from Brown University, Providence, R.I.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Colossians 3:12
Humility doesn’t come naturally or automatically to us. Our God-given humanity necessitates a process by which we mature and grow in humility, perspective, and faith. If we have faith in Christ, then God has declared us righteous through his death, but God also wants us to become righteous in our hearts and daily lives, a process we refer to as sanctification.
The incredible truth is that God is not only preparing a place for us in heaven, but He is uniquely and personally preparing us for that place. He does so through our daily living experiences beginning at our conversion, continuing on throughout our lives as the Holy Spirit faithfully transforms our spirit, soul & body, heart, mind & will, by mortifying the deeds of the flesh, cleansing impure motives and thoughts of the mind and heart, as well as glorifying the Father through worship, obedience and faith working in love, often during times of intense suffering.
Recall James words in 1: 2-4 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers,whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Understandably, given our culture’s propensity to avoid pain and suffering, Christ Followers often want to skip this sanctification growth process and get directly ushered into eternity without suffering. But that wouldn’t accomplish God’s highest purpose for us and is absolutely contrary to the teachings throughout Scripture.
“Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers.” John Piper
UP NEXT: Seriously now, when was the last time you had an intimate transparent conversation about a recent temptation of yours?
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 83 Harvest House.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” II Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
We often underestimate the life-changing power of conversion and the Holy Spirit’s enablement in sanctification. “Let’s be real; we’re only human.” True. Yet God graciously grants us a new identity and empowers imperfect humans to live holy lives.
Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32). We need a cure for our sin, one that may require nasty-tasting medicine, painful surgery, and physical therapy.
BOTTOM LINE:
To hate suffering is easy; to hate sin is not. But God mercifully gives us consequences to our sins so that we can hate them, repent, and find healing.
“The greater the afflictions you’ve experienced, the more assistance you’ve been given for this life of holiness.” John Flavel
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 82 Harvest House.
UP NEXT: Consider How Man Admires Ability, Whereas God Admires Humility…
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Psalm 119:97
Much of the modern thinking about meditation demeans rational thought. It’s a carryover from Transcendental Meditation. Such meditation involves the repetition of a mantra, a word (sometimes the name of a Hindu god) not thoughtfully pondered but mindlessly repeated in order to stop thinking. The goal isn’t to focus on words or meaning ; the goal is not to focus at all.
In contrast, meditation in the Bible is always on a real person (God) and real words and meanings from God (those in scripture). May we join David in praying, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14 ESV).
“Give yourself to prayer, to reading and meditation on divine truths: strive to penetrate to the bottom of them and never be content with a superficial knowledge.” David Brainerd.
Be sure to read the history of this spiritual giant below the music. Unforgetable! Forward to others.
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 76 Harvest House.
UP NEXT: Sin’s Consequences Do Capture Our Attention!
David Brainerd was born on April 20, 1718, in Haddam, Connecticut, the son of Hezekiah Brainerd, a Connecticut legislator. He was orphaned at the age of nine years, as his father died in 1727 and at 46 his mother died five years later.
On July 12, 1739, he recorded having an experience of “unspeakable glory” that prompted in him a “hearty desire to exalt God, to set him on the throne and to ‘seek first his Kingdom’. This has been interpreted by evangelical scholars as a conversion experience.
Two months later, he enrolled at Yale. In his second year at Yale, he was sent home because he was suffering from a serious illness, tuberculosis, that caused him to spit blood. When he returned in November 1740, tensions were beginning to emerge at Yale between the faculty staff and the students as the staff considered the spiritual enthusiasm of the students, which had been prompted by visiting preachers such as George Whitefield, to be excessive. Brainerd was expelled because of comments about the impious staff.
A law forbade the appointment of ministers in Connecticut unless they had graduated from Harvard, Yale, or a European institution, so Brainerd had to reconsider his plans. In 1742, Brainerd was licensed to preach by a group of evangelicals known as New Lights. As a result, he gained the attention of Jonathan Dickinson, the leading Presbyterian in New Jersey, who unsuccessfully attempted to reinstate Brainerd at Yale. Instead, Dickinson suggested that Brainerd devote himself to missionary work among the Native Americans, supported by the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. He was approved for this missionary work on November 25, 1742, which he would continue until late 1746 when he became too ill. .
Within a year, the Native American church at Crossweeksung had 130 members.
Thereafter, he refused several offers of leaving the mission field to become a church minister. He continued his work converting Native Americans, writing in his diary:
“I could have no freedom in the thought of any other circumstances or business in life: All my desire was the conversion of the heathen, and all my hope was in God: God does not suffer me to please or comfort myself with hopes of seeing friends, returning to my dear acquaintance, and enjoying worldly comforts.”
In November 1746, he became too ill to continue ministering, and moved later to Jonathan Edwards’ house in Northampton, Massachusetts where he remained until his death the following year. Diagnosed with incurable consumption, his diary entry for September 24, stated:
“In the greatest distress that ever I endured having an uncommon kind of hiccough; which either strangled me or threw me into a straining to vomit.”
During this time, he was nursed by Jerusha Edwards, Jonathon’s seventeen-year-old daughter. The friendship grew between them and “many speculate that there was deep (even romantic) love between them”. He died from tuberculosis on October 9, 1747, at the age of 29. Jerusha herself died in February 1748 as a result of contracting tuberculosis from nursing Brainerd. After his death, his younger brother John Brainerd continued his work.
He made a handful of converts, but became widely known in the 1800s due to books about him. Much of Brainerd’s influence on future generations can be attributed to the biography compiled by Jonathan Edwards and first published in 1749 under the title of An Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd. It gained immediate recognition, with eighteenth-century theologian John Wesley urging: ‘Let every preacher read carefully over the Life of David Brainerd.’ From the eighteenth century, missionaries also found inspiration and encouragement from the biography. Gideon Hawley wrote in the midst of struggles:
“I need, greatly need, something more than humane [human or natural] to support me. I read my Bible and Mr. Brainerd’s Life, the only books I brought with me, and from them have a little support.”
Other missionaries who have asserted the influence of Jonathan Edwards’s biography of Brainerd on their lives include Henry Martyn, William Carey, Jim Elliot, and Adoniram Judson.
Brainerd’s life also played a role in the establishment of Princeton College and Dartmouth College. The ‘College of New Jersey’ (later Princeton) was founded due to the dissatisfaction of the New York and New Jersey Presbyterian Synods with Yale; their expulsion of Brainerd and subsequent refusal to readmit him was an important factor in driving individuals such as Jonathan Dickinson and Aaron Burr to act on this dissatisfaction. Dartmouth College originated from a school founded by Eleazar Wheelock for Native Americans and colonists in 1748, and Wheelock too had been inspired by Brainerd’s example of Native American education.
I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. Philippians 3:10
A passage about God’s compassion contains a remarkable statement: “In all their distress he too was distressed” (Isaiah 63:9). I understand the same root word describes both God’s and his people’s distress. Though God doesn’t share our feelings of helplessness or uncertainty, clearly He intends us to see a similarity between our emotional distress and his.
Knowing the truth that the second member of the Trinity suffered unmentionable torture on the cross should correct any notion that God lacks feelings. For in the very suffering of Jesus, God himself suffered.
It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who penned from his Nazi prison cell before his death, “Only the suffering God can help!”
BOTTOM LINE:
“Though my natural instincts is to wish for a life free from pain, trouble, and adversity, I am learning to welcome anything that makes me conscious of my need for Him.” Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 71 Harvest House.
UP NEXT: Until Today, I Had No Idea The Impact of David Brainerd’s Life
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified ; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable. I Thessalonians 4:3-4
Many people are “searching for God’s will.” But what’s the point of seeking God’s will in less important things if you’re ignoring what he has already already commanded you, or revealed to you by your conscience, such as for instance, to flee from sexual immorality?
To say that sexual sin is common among professing Christians is indeed true. But when individuals or the body imply that such conduct has to be common, undermines both the forgiving truth of Scripture and the indwelling Holy Spirit’s power.
BOTTOM LINE:
The purity of Christ’s disciples will absolutely set them apart from the surrounding pagan culture. The church today needs to rediscover the critical role purity, whether sexually or lifestyle, plays in our identity as his spotless bride.
“According to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things.” Timothy Keller (1950-2023)
Read Tim’s “Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, or John Bevere’s book “Good or God: Why Good Without God Isn’t Enough, to avoid the trap of creating those insidiously acceptable church idols.
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 70 Harvest House.
UP NEXT: It Helps When You Not Only Understand The Why, But Appreciate It…
Satan will do his best to discourage you and make you doubt your salvation by reminding you of the sights, sounds & smells during “missing the mark” debauchery incidents (from Eph 5:15-20, thanks Travis!) when your conscience did Recognize God’s Revealed Truths , But You Catastrophically Ignored Them Anyway? If you’ve been forgiven and are now walking in faith, you were extended more of His Truths, namely, Grace & Mercy! Thank you Jesus Messiah!
[My Word] will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:11
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel Prize acceptance address, “One word of truth outweighs the entire world.” What did he mean? That the truth is bigger than we are. Just as the Berlin Wall finally toppled, the weight of all the world’s lies can be toppled by a single truth.
First, we must distinguish God’s truth from man’s truth, though at times, some persons consider them to intersect. For example, consider God’s truth expressed as His gracious gift of righteousness to us from our scandal ridden ash heaps, before we embraced the truth of His loving forgiveness. And, just think how many other examples there have been since the Berlin Wall, where a single truth topples the world’s lies and it begins a domino effect, be it in personal lives or national governments, or hopefully, both?
God’s truth resonates in the human heart. People may resist it, yet it’s the truth they need, for it’s His truth that sets them free.
We should let our feelings – real as they are – point to our need to let the truth of God’s words guide our thinking. THE PATHS TO OUR HEARTS TRAVEL THROUGH OUR MINDS. Truth always matters.
BOTTOM LINE:
“Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.” Blaise Pascal. Well said Blaise! May all our souls so be divinely enlarged!
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 69 Harvest House.
FOR FURTHER PERSPECTIVE: Fore & Aft…
Isaiah 55:9-12 (MSG)
“For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.“So you’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.”
I really appreciate this song. I hope it plays for you. Attaching music is new for me.
And I know your love’s dimension is beyond my comprehension, But this is my heart’s intention to serve you til I die, Oh, I know I can’t repay you with the things I may say or do, But I still want to obey you because your love is always so true.