In this devotional teaching, M.t. Clark opens with a sunset photo over Lake Ontario to illustrate the ending of summer and transitions into the final installment of his "Self‑Deception" series. He revisits the series’ purpose—exposing how believers deceive themselves and the world—and presents the closing instruction focusing on Neil Anderson’s critique of the New Age movement’s distorted view of faith. Clark explains that biblical faith is a deliberate choice to trust God’s revealed truth, not a mental act that creates reality. He offers three reasons to trust the Bible: historical and archaeological confirmation, fulfilled prophecy (especially concerning the Messiah), and the transformative effect of the gospel evident in church growth and personal change. He cites resources such as his Freedom in Christ teaching, D.J. Kennedy’s book, and a prophecy table from GodQuestions.org. Using 1 Peter 1:7‑8 (NLT), he reflects on trials that purify faith like fire refines gold, urging perseverance amid persecution. He then references A.W. Pink’s teaching on true mortification, emphasizing the need to root out sin. Clark shares a personal health testimony, describing his struggle with weight, the use of MyFitnessPal to track progress, past weight loss of 82 lb, and goals to improve health for ministry longevity, including concerns about his father’s health. The message concludes with a heartfelt prayer for resilience, genuine faith, and the ability to represent Christ in daily life.
Chapters
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 the sun setting into the depths of Lake Ontario to the left of the Oswego West Pierhead Lighthouse and a group of people huddling under a tent or gazebo structure comes to us from Celestial Blue Photography as Rocco Seja shared this scene on social media, uh, on on August 14th. Well, it's Friday, and I thought that Rocco's photo was a great one to share as the sun sets on another work week. While Lake Ontario and the Oswego Lighthouse are a familiar offering from Celestial Blue Photography, I never tire of it and thought it was also a good visual representation of the fact that the sun is beginning to set on the summer of '23. It's Labor Day weekend in 2 weeks, and although summer doesn't officially end until September 23rd, 36 days away, granted, um, you know that things change dramatically after Labor Day and the kids go back to school. Um, as much as we may want to hold on to the belief in an endless summer, it doesn't make it true. And that brings us to our current series on self-deception, where we have decided to investigate some of the ways we deceive ourselves by by walking through step 2, deception versus truth, of the Steps to Freedom in Christ, uh, to see what ways we have been deceived by the world and ourselves and what ways we have wrongly defended ourselves. While we have reached the end of this series on self-deception by going through all 32 points of the ways we can be deceived by the world, ourselves, and the ways we wrongly defended ourselves a couple days ago, um, I have decided to conclude the series by sharing the closing instructions that immediately follow those three sections on the ways we can be deceived. In today's section of those closing instructions, um, Neil Anderson writes about the dangers of the New Age movement's twisting of the concept of faith and truth. He writes, the New Age movement has twisted the concept of faith by teaching that we make something true by believing it. That is false. We cannot create reality with our minds. Only God can do that. Our responsibility is to face reality and choose to believe what God says is true. True biblical faith, therefore, is choosing to believe and act upon what is true because God has said it is true and he is the truth. Faith is something you decide to do. Not something you feel like doing. Believing something doesn't make it true. It's already true, therefore we choose to believe it. Truth is not conditioned by whether we choose to believe it or not. Everybody lives by faith. The only difference between Christian faith and non-Christian faith is the object of our faith. If the object of our faith is not trustworthy or real, then no amount of believing will change that. That's why our faith must be grounded on the solid rock of God's perfect, unchanging character in the truth of his word. End quote. That's just an awesome section of Truth by, um, Neil Anderson, who really breaks down, um, you know, the difference. I cut to the chase today with Anderson's statements because I'm a little distracted and could use the wisdom of the basic concepts of our faith. While faith is something we decide to do, because we could always doubt, we stand on the truth of God's word, which we also have to take on faith. But don't get that twisted either. While we could doubt whether or not the Bible is true, there are at least 3 good reasons to believe it is true. Number 1: History and archaeology have confirmed the claims of the Bible to be true time and time again. I refer anyone who is interested in knowing why we believe the Bible to go to our first Freedom in Christ teaching on YouTube, where the lesson gives specific examples of how historians doubted certain Bible facts, only to have the truth of scripture to be confirmed by archaeologists literally digging up evidence to support God's word. Or I would suggest checking out D.J. Kennedy's book Why I Believe that I read back in Bible college that gave a natural-born skeptic, me, relief that I— that he, he wasn't following a blind faith when he put his faith in Jesus. The second piece of evidence also highlighted in the sources I mentioned is fulfilled prophecy. What the Bible has predicted to come to pass has come to pass again and again. The most significant fulfilled prophecy, of course, is the coming of the Messiah and the details of the life of Jesus. Conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 prophecies in his earthly ministry, and I am sharing a link to the article from GodQuestions.org that gives a whole table of prophecies and the Bible verses that they are drawn from. Support that, that claim. Number 3, people who put their faith in Jesus are changed. Now I know this doesn't apply— this doesn't— this applies more to some, some than others in the quote-unquote church because of the reality of tares amongst the wheat in the church building. But the true church, the body of Christ, is comprised of people who are not ashamed of the gospel and have been transformed by it. Included in this evidence is the fact that the church has never stopped growing. Despite this postmodern, post-Christian society of Western civilization, worldwide the number of Christians has continued to increase throughout history. This evidence is also highlighted in the first lesson from the Freedom in Christ course we mentioned above. As Anderson indicates, the Bible is already true, therefore we choose to believe it and choose to apply it to our lives. We are not making this stuff up. As much as others like to debate everything, the reality of Jesus Christ, who lived, did miracles, taught wisdom, lived a sinless life, died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven, if honestly examined, would lead one to the conclusion that that he who— that he, Jesus, is who he said he was, and that the only one we should put our faith in is him. Jesus is the object of our faith, and he is trustworthy to be believed, loved, and followed. So keep walking and talking with God and tell the true story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it has changed and is changing your life. To others so they can know the truth and be set free. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. And today's verses are from 1 Peter 1:7-8 from the New Living Translation. Uh, the word of God says, these trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold, though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him. And you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. Today's verse— today's verses fall under the 21st point of our Counseling References Guide, the resource section on Affliction, Discipline, Chastisement, and Trials. And that 21st point is: At times God gives us trials so that our faith may be purified as gold is refined by fire, that Christ may be honored and glorified. Today's verses show us that trial— the trials we go through are another evidence of our faith being genuine. We suffer for our faith now, but when Jesus Christ is revealed to be the truth, the way, and the life to the whole world, we will rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy as every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Atheists and non-believers mock Christians for the things they believe, or, and for the moral lifestyle they try to live when they follow Jesus. And sometimes the pressures to just go along with the world is great as we face persecution. But a true disciple of Jesus knows the truth of reality itself and has no choice but to endure the world's abuse and to continue to proclaim the truth of God's kingdom in the gospel of Jesus Christ, come what may. Christians have gone into eternity by the violence of evil men who, who tempted them to renounce their faith. But because the martyred saints knew their Savior lives, they freely surrendered their lives rather than denounce the one who gave them life, forgave their sins, and promised them a place in his eternal kingdom. Our faith in Jesus Christ is is genuine. He is the truth. And so we will be genuine followers of him no matter where the Lord leads us, because we know that we will be with him and we will rejoice. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.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 continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit And today's from chapter 20, the spirit cleansing, and today's section is on true mortification. And, um, you know, just a spoiler, true mortification consists first in weakening sin's root and principle. You know, so we, we— true mortification is getting rid of the, the root of our sins. And, um, that's why we, that's why we recommend a lifestyle of Christian discipleship It's not about behavior modification, it's about life transformation, and it's about getting the root— getting rid of those roots of our sins. And as I struggle with my food addiction, you know, and have come to the realization that although I've been working, I haven't made any progress as I've compromised in that area. I might be in— I'm in better— somehow I'm in better physical shape, but my weight hasn't really changed. All that much at all since, uh, starting my V-Shred program. Um, because no matter how much you work, work out, if you're, uh, if your mouth isn't— your mouth isn't on board with the program, um, there's going to be a problem. Plus muscle weighs more than fat or whatever. I don't know, that's what I've heard. Um, but, um, but yeah, I'm severely convicted by the fact that I was so deceived that I stopped I've stopped mark— I gave, sort of gave up. I stopped marking my progress. So today I was distracted because I signed up for the MyFitnessPal app so I can track my food intake to make myself accountable. You know, if we're going to change our lives, we have to take steps and make plans and use the tools that we have. And so if you want to monitor what's going into your body, you know, you have to keep a running record of it. I did that in the past, but, you know, I didn't do it. In fact, when I pulled up the MyFitness app, it had my old information, and I don't know if I'm ashamed or proud of this fact, but the old information, after I put in my weigh-in, my recent weigh-in, the app told me that I had lost 82 pounds, and so obviously that's based on old information. But man, and you know, I mean, that's the truth, because when I signed up, I was much heavier than I was. So even though I don't feel victorious today, it reminded me that I've been victorious in the past and that I do have a huge measure of freedom from where I used to be. You know, I might beat myself up, but the truth is, in terms of fast food, I, you know, rarely go there anymore. You know, and the snacks I used to buy, I used to buy, you know, 4 or 5 bags of chips at once. I don't buy any anymore, you know. So there's, there's been some modifications for sure, and, and some victory and freedom there. The app don't lie. Apparently, I, you know, from the first go-round of starting the MyFitness app when it wasn't so something you had to pay for to get all the features. You know, it tells me I lost 82 pounds, you know, based on yesterday's weigh-in. So, you know, I shared my fat photo at Celebrate Freedom to show everyone that that was the truth. But I have even more goals to accomplish. I want to get rid of that sleep apnea mask, and one of the ways they say you can do that is by by, you know, reducing your weight. And so that's, that's the pathway we're taking. We want progressive freedom, we want progressive victory, and it's not about perfection, it's about health. Um, you know, I, I want to live as long as I can, uh, to proclaim the gospel as long as I can, and I want to be in good health to do it. Part of this journey, you know, this recent journey was, um, and seeing how my, my father was greatly impacted by his, his poor health. His back, he's in constant pain. He's had several surgeries to try to correct the situation, but the reality is a lot of it had to come down to him being too heavy. He was an athlete when he was young, but as he aged, you know, he let himself go and He suffered for it. Please don't tell him I said that because last time I talked about my dad on the podcast or my blog, my mom found out and caused trouble, you know. So, so don't say anything. Very few, few people listening to the podcast. So although my mother might read the blog on occasion, I don't think she listens in and take too long. So there's that. Yeah, anyway, we have to go to work today and we have to work tomorrow, so it's not true Friday for me. Tomorrow will be Friday with a 1-day weekend to celebrate, but we accept our lot in life and we find joy in every moment instead of lamenting over, you know, what could be seen as a negative circumstance. And so we should pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you for, for what you've done in our lives. Um, as much as we, uh, are striving to, to be more and more like Jesus and to be healthier, we know that you've done great work in our lives already. And, um, you know, we become an evidence for the truth of Christianity, that, um, we're, we're part of the evidence when we are changed. And I know that I'm nothing special and that, uh, anyone who follows You can enjoy the freedom and victory that You have for them. All we have to do is continue to follow You and walk after where You have to lead us, um, Lord. So we just ask You to lead us today. Go before us, open our eyes to the things You want us to see, move our steps into the things You want us to do. And we pray for the people who are listening or reading today's message. That you would come alongside them and their prayer request in their walk of faith. Lord, we just pray for you to, you know, give them the resilience and the strength to endure and to have their faith be shown to be genuine as they suffer, you know, changing from what they were to who you want them to be. We know you have the power to do that in all our lives, Lord. We just thank you for it, and we ask you to help us today. This day in that, in that regard, because all we want to do, Lord, is represent you in your kingdom and live the life you would have us live. And so we thank you, we praise you, we love you, Lord, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
