{"id":8477,"date":"2016-12-22T17:10:15","date_gmt":"2016-12-22T17:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=8477"},"modified":"2016-12-22T17:10:15","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T17:10:15","slug":"liberty-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/8477\/liberty-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tonight, you emphasized the importance, the value, the absolute necessity of a pure heart and a clear conscience before God. \u00a0You said, “That\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>is Paul’s Gospel!”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

That sentence rocked me.\u00a0 I think I paused and caught my breath. That statement felt so big to me, so encompassing and so full of truth; It shook me. \u00a0I felt like a door had just swung open in our midst, to a more perfect understanding of Jesus. I couldn’t leave that place for a while. <\/span><\/p>\n

The thought that I had next was, “That\u00a0pure heart and clear conscience is the ‘liberty’ that the apostle Paul was speaking of.”\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Liberty from everything\u00a0except<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0that purity and clear conscience. \u00a0Liberated to pursue it, without giving mind to anything else. \u00a0And liberty to stay there, blameless before God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul knew that every other way,\u00a0except that way of liberty<\/em>, was of such little significance and consequence that he was at liberty, at will, to put those things on or cast them off as needed. They meant nothing – whether for Paul or against him. \u00a0And for that reason he was free to use them :\u00a01 Corinthians\u00a09:20\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Paul was at complete liberty to use every earthly tool for the furthering of the Gospel, for God’s people.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can appreciate what your father, Preacher Clark, said to brother Murray, many years ago. \u00a0When brother Murray wrote your father and explained to him that the people he was worshipping with in Florida were deeply troubled about brother Murray never being water baptized. \u00a0Brother Murray had received the baptism that counts in Heaven, and was living full of that holy Ghost, but those Oneness people could hardly bear the fact that brother Murray had never been baptized in water.\u00a0When Preacher Clark saw the Uncle Joe was getting a wrong attitude toward them, because of the arguments they all kept having, he told him, “Just go ahead and get water baptized, to give them some relief.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Just like the apostle Paul, your father was demonstrating\u00a0his<\/em>\u00a0freedom in Christ, His liberty from everything but Christ. \u00a0He knew water baptism amounted to nothing, and it had no place in Preacher Clark’s heart, either \u00a0to hurt or to help a soul, so he was free to use it. \u00a0With that, Preacher Clark advised brother Murray to use that same godly liberty to relieve those other people’s burden.\u00a0 What spiritual wisdom and maturity!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

God is not afraid of nor superstitious about Christianity. \u00a0And He loves folk that are tangled up in it. \u00a0I sure can too.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,\u00a0 Tonight, you emphasized the importance, the value, the absolute necessity of a pure heart and a clear conscience before God. \u00a0You said, “That\u00a0is Paul’s Gospel!” That sentence rocked me.\u00a0 I think I paused and caught my breath. That statement felt so big to me, so encompassing and so full of truth; It shook […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}