A “Break Up to Wake Up!” & Intimacy with God - Purity 1426

Welcome to the MT for Christ 247 podcast. I am M.t. Clark and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch it on YouTube. Uh, good morning. Today's photo of ethereal blue skies over the green pasture running adjacent to Freedom Road in Easton comes to us from yours truly as the pleasant weather caused me to go off-road, uh, during last Saturday's afternoon walk. Well, it is Tuesday and I shamedly have to admit that I went off-road from yesterday's plan to do a modified fast, liquids only, not water only, as my flesh, uh, rose up and just had to finish off the snacks untouched from Sunday's foolish feast. I had a one-night stand with a party-sized bag of Fritos, salsa, and chip dip, cheese dip, but I officially broke up with them this morning as my food relapse into Chipville wasn't as satisfying as I remembered, as is often the case when we give up the things that aren't good for us. Life is all about relationships, and when we are in an addictive relationship with a substance, person, activity, or place, We benefit greatly from when we break up with the object of our obsession. Unlike Ross from Friends, we are not declaring we are on a break until next time. To have freedom and closure, we have to officially say goodbye to the thing that is no good for us. With substances, we say we are done with that or it's over. Or in, or I am in recovery with something. Um, that last one, uh, was the one that seemed to work for me when it came to my struggles with alcohol, with booze. I had to publicly declare to myself and everyone in the world that I was in recovery and I was not going to drink alcohol ever again. And despite a short relapse 2 weeks into my journey to prove I was powerless, to fix myself. Uh, I have been walking and talking with God in freedom and victory over drugs and alcohol ever since. To be free, I needed to break up with alcohol and drugs and go steady with God, and God has been faithful to make me rock steady in that area ever since 2015. Uh, however, God doesn't— wasn't done with me. In 2018, in the wake of the end of my first marriage, the Lord guided me into repentance from sexual immorality. Because those issues played a part in the divorce, the Lord guided me to follow his way of sexual purity. And despite a little stumbling near the finish line, uh, before my marriage to Tammy Lynn in 2022, I have been sexually pure ever since, keeping all my passions in the safe confines of my marriage. To wake up to the freedom of becoming the person God created me to be required a breakup from the sinful ways of the flesh. Since then, the Lord and I have been working on my food addiction, and I have had tremendous progress in that area and have been in the best shape physically, mentally, and spiritually that I ever have been. Um, best ever weight of 198.4 back in January. But since then, I've been struggling with maintaining my resolve because I haven't fully ended the relationship I have with comfort eating or eating as a reward, I guess. However, I have learned a lot and will keep learning, learning with and leaning on the Lord to stay on his narrow path, narrow way of peace, faithfulness, and self-control. It turns out when you are faithful to following what the Lord shows you is right, your health improves immensely. Uh, so I repent again and will try not to give myself, uh, to the flesh today as I want to draw close to the Lord always, but specifically during the next several days as I've been joining hundreds of other Christians for Pastor Vlad Savchuk's 21-day prayer challenge, which enters day 9 today. You know, our relationship with God is the most important thing about us. But many of us who have been brought up in religion may not know what a relationship with God even looks like or what that entails. I would define a relationship with God as a relational, conversational heart connection with the Lord that is formed when one puts their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, and who, out of their love and gratitude for him, dedicates, uh, their life to following him. Not only is that a mouthful to say, it can also be a lot to do. As the Lord would have it though, Dr. Charles Stanley, uh, Dr. Charles Stanley's In Touch devotional message touches on the subject today. So I'm sharing it on the blog today to see what the good doctor says about God's invitation to an intimate relationship with him. Dr. Charles Stanley writes, An Invitation to Intimacy. God, the creator of the universe, chooses us, and his purpose in doing so isn't simply to save us from eternity in hell. His love goes beyond that. He wants an intimate relationship with each one of his children. Building this intimacy requires commitment. God showed his commitment by rescuing us from sin through his son Jesus, sending the Holy Spirit to live within us, and promising us eternal life. A reasonable response is our pledge to obedience in both inner attitude and outward action. Clear communication. To develop a close bond, two people will express deep thoughts and feelings, and they'll also listen carefully to one another's words. God speaks to us through Scripture about himself and his plans, and he also stands ready to listen. Openness. God speaks honestly about our nature, the condition of the world, and the only solution, Jesus Christ. He willingly tells us the difficult truths about ourselves, but also encourages us, encourages and affirms us in our efforts to follow him. Our part consists of being honest with him about our thoughts, actions, and emotions. Salvation is only the first step of life in Christ. John 3:16. Have you accepted the invitation to intimacy with God? Question mark. Um, I can say yes, yes, I have accepted God's invitation to intimacy. I love how Stanley's 3 points about intimacy shows us that our relationship with God is just like our relationship with other people. Because God is a person, three-in-one actually, and that means that we can experience his presence, power, and love just as if he is standing close beside us or holding us in a warm embrace. While that may be difficult to imagine, the truth is God is even closer to us than that. When we put our faith in Jesus, God in the person of the Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside of us. So God is with us always, but to experience the intimacy of our relationship with him requires our openness, communication, and commitment to keep walking and talking with him. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John D. Crews. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on the forgiveness of sins. In today's section, the lengthy one, it's Psalm 51:1-17. And the word of God, word of God says, have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. So that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit, and I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise. Today's verses fall under the fifth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sin, and that fifth point is: David's confession of sin and his cry for forgiveness occurred only by God's grace. Yeah, uh, today's verses are a great model of turning to God in repentance, and David really lays it out. So if you're in a repentant mood, pick up Psalm 51. One of the points that David's confession and declaration of repentance highlights is a broken and contrite heart. Contrite— the word contrite can describe sincere remorse. To walk forward in repentance, we must feel the pain of our sin in our hearts and commit ourselves to change sincerely. We don't just say that we are sorry, and continue in the ways we always have. We let our sin break our hearts and turn from it. Life change is evidence of a contrite heart and the presence of a relationship with God. As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, where you can always find insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist your brothers and sisters in Christ— to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Um, today we continue sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And in Alford's devotional, he shares a portion of, uh, well, he prompts us to read a chapter of the New Testament and shares a portion of that chapter. Today's chapter is 1 Thessalonians 3, and from that chapter he shares a portion of verse 2, which says, Timothy, our brother and minister of God our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ. And Stephen Alford writes, Timothy must have been a godly young man. Paul seems to praise him whenever he has a chance to do so. Writing to the Philippians, Paul said concerning Timothy, for I have no one like-minded as a son with his father. He served with me in the gospel. Timothy was obviously then a very spiritual young man. One in whom the apostle could trust. And he also writes, thus Timothy earns this commendation: Timothy, our brother and minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ. Fellow laborer— what an honor, privilege, what a commendation. This was the first— this was the fruit of learning, to be quiet, for we do not read of anything that Timothy said studying the scriptures and practicing its precepts. And then, uh, all her chairs be still and know that I am God. Amen. And yeah, apparently, you know, as, as, uh, author points out, we don't know what Timothy ever said. You know, we just know that he was faithful according to the testimony, um, from the Apostle Paul. And what a commendation indeed, you know, high praise, as they say. And, you know, as we, as we seek to represent the Lord, we want to be highly praised. We don't do it for praise, but we want to represent the kingdom by being faithful and being a coworker with the Lord to share the gospel. And we do that. We would only do that if we surrender to the Lord. And so we ask the question, have you surrendered fully? Have you fully surrendered to God? As you can hear my testimony, it's a me, it's a work in progress. We have great victory in some areas of our life and we struggle in others. We're confident that if we continue walking and talking with God, we'll increase in our victory. And we have immensely through the years of walking with Christ. And we have no, no reason to believe that we'll stay stuck with forever because that has not been my experience. You know, the amount of victory and freedom has only increased in my life. I have no reason to believe it should decrease. And I look at any setbacks as just that, a setback, not a disaster. So we move forward. And, you know, it's one thing to think about our faith, another thing to do something with it. And the practice of repentance is definitely something we should do as Christians, as we can always, um, seek to represent the kingdom a little bit more. And we don't do that out of the sense of accomplishment. We do that out of our mission in life, our purpose to love God and love others. So we move forward. One way we show the love of God and love others is through our Celebrate Freedom support group that meets tomorrow, Wednesday night, 6:30 PM. At Starpoint Church. It's a Christian recovery and discipleship, uh, support group, and it's available to anybody in the Capital District of New York State. Just have to get yourself to Clifton Park, uh, Starpoint Church on Wednesday, and you can register for our group by going to Starpoint Church's website and looking at support groups. Um, one, one other way we try to show the love of the Lord is through our, our volunteer work with Freedom in Christ Ministries, where we'll be hosting a Online men's discipleship course, Freedom in Christ, starting on September 3rd. You can register now for that class if you're a man. It won't be awkward, so— but there are other courses available for everyone at ficm.org. You can find them there. Anyway, we ask the question, are you M.t. Clark, too. I really do ask that. And if so, well, we encourage you to keep on walking and talking with God. When we focus on the things of the Lord and who we are in Christ, the fruit of the Spirit grows— that peace, that joy, that goodness, the kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, patience, and self-control. So we encourage you to just keep, keep the faith and keep doing it. And not just on Sunday, but every day, because the Lord is with us at all times, and there's no reason why we can't build a relationship with him, uh, every day. So that's what we encourage. Anyway, um, we do have to work today, and, uh, we're gonna pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much uh, for what you've done in our lives, how you help us, uh, and who, who you've made us to be through our faith in Jesus. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer request, their walk of faith, because we all need the help, Lord. They might not know what this relationship is supposed to be like, but we know you're good, and, um, we know when we draw closer to you We feel your presence and your power and your love in our life, and it draws us to, uh, repentance and into joy. Um, well, so we just, uh, we pray as always that you go before us today, open our eyes to what you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. So all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom, Lord, and, uh, we definitely need your help with that. Well, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.