Going Nowhere without God – Wisdom from Dr Neil Anderson - Purity 1239

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning! Today's photo of a driveway pathway and a view of a calm, partially frozen pond and the barely visible snow-capped peaks of mountains in the distance comes to us from yours truly, as I decided to capture this scene before taking one last look and walk around the grounds of my Adirondack retreat on New Year's Day. Well, it's Thursday, and although this photo may be lacking a bit on majestic beauty, don't let it fool you. Sometimes our photos don't do justice in reflecting the beauty that we can encounter on even gray overcast days. There can be beauty in silence and stillness, and sometimes the big picture of things near and far and how they all display the wonder of God's creation can't be captured on film or whatever you call digital phone photography. Sometimes you have to be there, go there, or live it to know a place and the beauty it holds. Likewise, on the path of Christian discipleship, the beauty of one's relationship with God and the joy of discovering the joys of living in harmony with his wisdom for our lives is only known by doing it. Similarly, knowing what the Bible says intellectually or factually is a whole lot different from knowing it experientially, when the Holy Spirit reveals to you the depth of its wisdom in revelatory moments of eureka, or when you put its wisdom to the test by actually doing what it says and experiencing the results for yourself. I can tell you to read the Bible, but I can't read it for you. I can even quote what the Bible says, but just like a photograph may fail to convey the experience of beauty, I may not be able to transfer to you just how much a certain passage of Scripture changed my understanding or impacted my heart. Often when people put their faith in Jesus, they decide that they will work— will now work on changing their lives. Each new year, droves of people will speak an intention to change in some way, but more often than not, they don't end up, quote unquote, keeping the change because their hearts or minds weren't trained— weren't changed at a fundamental level. They didn't have faith in their new life, and they went back to what they really believed. They pridefully thought they could change in their own strength, but their strength gave out, or they gave in to the flesh that said the new life was too hard or that it wasn't what they really wanted. That's why we have to go to God to be transformed, and we have to form that deep personal attachment to Him, because faith is not just about doing everything right by following rules. Our faith is in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and their way. Our faith is to be a relationship where we recognize that God loves us, cares about us, and tells us the things he, he does to help us. God doesn't tell us to obey his word to correct us in a traditional sense. He gives us his word because he loves us and knows that if we follow him, we will discover our best lives. But that comes not by our own willpower, but by believing in Him, trusting Him, and experiencing the joy of discovering just how true and good His teachings are. God doesn't want us to be self-sufficient. He wants us to depend on Him. I am currently re-reading Dr. Neil Anderson's Discipleship Counseling, and I have to share the following passage that deals with our pride and what what it, the world, and the devil say about change and how those contrast with what God says. Anderson writes, after Jesus fed the 5,000, he sent the disciples across the Sea of Galilee while he went up to the mountain to pray. In the middle of the sea, the disciples encountered a storm, and Mark 6:48 says, seeing them straining at the oars, he came came to them walking on the sea, and he intended to pass them by. And Anderson writes, I believe the Lord intends to pass by the self-sufficient. Go ahead and row against the storms of life. He will let you row until your arms fall off. But those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. The only answer the world has for those who are caught in the storms of life is row harder or give in to the pressure and learn to live at sea. The devil says, you can do it by yourself, but if you need a little extra power, I can arrange that for a small price. Pride says, I think I can get out of this by myself. All it requires is a lot of hard work, human ingenuity, and maybe a little luck. God says, I won't interfere with your plans. If you want to try to save yourself, solve your own problems, or meet your own needs, you have my permission. But you won't be able to— won't be able to— because in the final analysis, you absolutely need me, and you necessarily need each other. Fallen humanity is on a sinking ship that is going nowhere. Without God. That's the, uh, the end of the passage by Neil Anderson. So stop working so hard. We are going nowhere without God. We can't save ourselves, so why would we think we could change ourselves in any worthwhile way without him? You can be the most physically fit, intellectually smart, kind and caring person you want to be, but without God All your accomplishments go to nothing, and your pride will send you straight to hell. We need God, period. He determines our destiny here on earth and in heaven. So ask Him to save you and to help you to change. He is good and faithful to do both when you keep on walking and talking with Him. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on Comfort. Verses, actually. It's John 10:14-15, where Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep." Today's verses are the second of three passages of scriptures that fall under the tenth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on Comfort. 10. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, died for His sheep. He knows, leads, and protects each one. He gives us eternal security. Today's verses remind us that God, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, knows us. And if we are really His, we know Him. God is all-knowing. He created everything and moves things forward through time and space according to His sovereign will. So He knows when we were born and when we will die. He knows our thoughts and our heart's intentions. He knows who has trusted in Jesus and who will be saved and spend eternity in His Kingdom. But this passage also says that His own know Him too. If you truly know God, you love Him and you seek to know Him more. Christ says that those Those who love Him obey His commandments. So, they know what the Word of God says, and they respect the author of Scripture enough to value what it says and to apply it to their lives. So, be encouraged that the Lord knows you, cares about you, and loves you. But be inspired to show Him that you know Him and love Him too by reflecting His light and love with the way you live. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.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're sharing from God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and today's message, um, from that devotional for January 4th is entitled For Everything There Is a Season. And Bonhoeffer writes, for those who find and give thanks to God in their earthly fortune, God will give them times in which to remember that all things on earth are only temporary and that it is good to set one's heart on eternity. All things have their time, and the main thing is to stay in step with God and not always be hurrying a few steps ahead or falling behind. To want everything all at once is to be over-anxious. And he quotes Ecclesiastes here: For everything there is a season, to weep and to laugh and to embrace and to refrain from embracing, to tear and to sew. And God seeks out what has gone by. Yet this last part must mean that nothing past is lost. That with us God again seeks out the past that belongs to us. So when the longing for something past overtakes us, and this happens at completely unpredictable times, then we can know that this is only one of the many times that God makes available to us, and then we should not proceed on our own but seek out the past once again with God. And then our devotional shares a letter, a birthday letter to Bonhoeffer's mother, where Bonhoeffer wrote: Dear Mother, I want you to know that I am constantly thinking of you and Father every day, that I thank God for all that you are to me and the whole family. I know you've always lived for us and haven't lived a life of your own. Thank you for all the love that has come to me in my cell from you during the past year. It has made every day easier for me. I think these hard years have brought us closer together than ever we were before. My wish for you and Father and Maria and for us all is that the new year may bring us at least an occasional glimmer of light and that we may once more have the opportunity of being together. May God keep you both well. That was, uh, Bonhoeffer's birthday letter to his mother from prison on December 28, 1944. And our resource shares Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, where the Word of God says, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to seek and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sew. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. And that concludes our sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's God is in the Manger. And we'll continue sharing that until it runs out of, runs out of messages in a couple days as it ends on the Epiphany. The celebration of the Epiphany is, you know, in case you didn't know, it's, you know, the day we're supposed to celebrate the wise men coming to visit Jesus. That's the whole Christmas season goes from the birth of Christ to the Epiphany. And so as we draw near to that end, in a couple days we'll switch to a different resource. But I'm really enjoying everything that's been presented in the Bonhoeffer devotional to bring us through the Christmas season, and especially the messages from earlier this week on New Year's Day and how God, God is the one who has to change you. And, uh, you know, it's any self-improvement project, it might be doomed to failure without him. And ultimately, if you do things without him, you're doomed to failure. So that's why we encourage people, uh, to live out your faith every day. You know, if you're a Christian, you're supposed to be a student of Jesus, you know, a follower of Jesus. And, you know, his sheep know him and love him. And so what do we do? We pray, we talk to him in prayer, we read the word, we want to know what he has to say to us, and we demonstrate we've heard his message by living it and testing it out. You know, the word of God says this, but I don't know about that. Well, let's find out about it. Let's do what it says. Um, believe me, I was not you know, the person I am today, always, you know, I did things my way for most of my life and I suffered greatly because of it. I answered every, you know, fleshly call that there was and I discovered there's no satisfaction or joy or peace when you do that. You become a slave to your selfish desires and those desires don't fulfill you. The only thing that can fulfill you is a relationship with the Lord because that's not just for here on earth, that's forever. And we want to, you know, not focus on the temporary things of this world but on the eternal things that'll last forever. And that's our love for the Lord and His love for us. And, you know, that's why we encourage one another to follow Him so we can all be together His love and experience the goodness that comes from following Him and living in His grace. So, you know, last night we met with the Starpoint Church growth group, Celebrate Freedoms, small growth group, and did a lesson on mission where it was, you know, what do you do after you clean up your act, assuming, you know, you're following the Lord and have had victory and freedom? You know, that's a big assumption, but you know, that lesson, you know, the mission lesson is basically the sort of the end lesson to recovery. Not that recovery ever ends really, but it sort of does, because when we experience our freedom and victory, we don't declare, you know, we don't claim that we're addicted to anything anymore. We claim our freedom and we pronounce that. You know, some people say, "I'm an addict and I'll always be an addict." Well, if you give into it, yeah, but if you stay sober, guess what? You're not an addict anymore. You're living in victory, you're just sort of living in fear that you're gonna fall off, and so you remind yourself you're an addict so you don't do that anymore. And I get that, but that's trusting in your own strength. Let's trust in the Lord to preserve you and keep you and, you know, keep building you up in your faith. You know, God won't— you know, if you keep walking and talking with God, He'll protect you and guide you through the storms of life, and He'll take— He'll change the desires of your heart. Your heart, you know. And, and that's the thing, you have to change the way you think according to God's word. So, you know, this morning I was, I was moved by the Lord to reach out to some people. Uh, some, someone I know, uh, struggles with sexual addiction and, uh, this has had, you know, next to zero victory or freedom, uh, of any sustained, you know, you know, because he's trying to stop a behavior And I'm like, you know, I gotta impress upon him the idea to seek out purity as a goal. You know, I want to be pure for a day. I want to be pure for 2 days. I want to be pure for 3 days. Then, you know what, I want to be pure for a week, and I want to be pure for 2 weeks. I want to be pure for a month. I want to be pure for 2 months. I want to be pure for a year. I want to be pure for the rest of my life. I want to only have sex under God's governance, which is within the confines of a covenant marriage between a man and a woman. Anything outside of that is sin. And, you know, I turn to Romans to impress that you're supposed to surrender your body as a living sacrifice. That means you give up your fleshly desires and, you know, give your body over to righteousness. Living a life of purity, living a life that's good. You know, that's the goal, a good life. And then later in Romans it's like, you know, hate what is evil and love what is good. Well, sexual addiction is evil, you know, masturbation is evil, fornication is evil. Purity is good. So you hate those other things and you love what is good, the purity. And you know, You're never satisfied by giving into the flesh. I know this. I've done this, you know. I tried it and experimented with it. There's no satisfaction. You'll always have those desires and urges, but if you don't give into them, those desires and urges pass by the way, you know, and you realize how evil it is to give into them. You know, looking at somebody who's lost in passion, you know, sort of shows they're truly lost, where they've surrendered over to the flesh. And, you know, it's not a pretty picture. And so we try to go with what God says and see that He's not denying us. He's encouraging us to live a good and pure and holy life that in and of itself is satisfying. You know, the love, the love in its approved boundaries is, is what we're supposed to pursue, and the love of the Lord always. So, you know, we have to set a goal, you know, to, to live a righteous life. And, you know, I ask God, and guess what, you don't do it in your own strength. You pray to the Lord for help and strength all along the way, and you pray for him to change your heart. And guess what happens if you keep walking in that? It happens. He changes you. He renews your mind and renews your heart. He gives you, you know, He takes that heart of stone out and He gives you a heart of flesh. He renews your mind. He gives you the mind of Christ. You know, Christ was pure. These are the things we're supposed to pursue, the good and simple holy life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. So Believe me, I struggled with it. I overcame it, and the Lord was faithful to help me. And so I understand that, that struggle. I understand the alcohol and drugs, and I understand food addiction. Why? Because— not because I read a book about it, because I struggled with it most of my life, and the Lord helped me to, to be delivered from them. And, uh, you know, we're still fighting a good fight with that food thing. That's a tough one. You know, all of society is against you on that one. You know, they think you're trying to be, you know, anorexic or something when you try to deny yourself certain foods and live a healthy lifestyle, or that you're prideful and, you know, that you're about image. But no, we just want to be good stewards to our bodies. And wow, guess what? When you take care of your body, you feel good. You know, it feels good to be healthy and not carry around extra weight. Feels good to be strong, you know. Not that— believe me, we need work on all of those things, but you know, these are the things that God would have us do to live the best life that he has for us, you know, and to not believe the lies that we can't have it. That's what the enemy wants to say: you can't do this, you're not able, you're— you know, so there'll be limitations in life, but let's see what those are. Let's see what the Lord has for us. So I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God. And that was a lot of off-the-cuff comments, so forgive me for taking too long. And we'll pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for this wonderful journey that you've given us through life, that we can discover the truth and, and see your love for what it is. It's the intention to help us And we need your help. So we pray for today for you to help us. We pray for anyone listening today that you would come alongside them and their prayer request and their walk of faith. And Lord, as always, I ask for you to go before me, open my eyes to the things you want me to see. And God, help me to walk in the way you would have me walk, because I know your ways are good and you give them to us because you love us, Lord. So, uh, help me. To represent you and your kingdom here on the earth the best I can. And, uh, never let me go. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.