Adopted to Walk in His Ways Purity 775

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 Cliff Seguin standing beside the trailer for Adopt a— Operation Adopt a Soldier underneath blue skies comes to us from yours truly as I grab this candid photo of the nonprofit organization's founder and chairman after we had finished marching in the Village of Argyle's Independence Day parade yesterday. Founded in 2003, Operation Adopt a Soldier provides support to U.S. soldiers stationed worldwide through the generous assistance of volunteers in the Saratoga, Albany, Queensbury, and Clifton Park, New York areas. My purpose in marching in yesterday's parade was multifaceted. As through this single act of service, I was able to celebrate my individual freedom as a United States citizen, participate in the village of Argyll's expression of their community's love for freedom. I was able to support those who serve the cause of upholding our freedom by serving in the military, by representing an organization dedicated to giving them support, I was able to support the good work that Operation Adopt a Soldier does. I was able to honor my father-in-law's individual efforts as the founder and chairman of Operation Adopt a Soldier. And I was, I was able to honor my father by carrying the flag for the US Navy, the branch of service in which he served in Vietnam. And I was able to also join my wife and stepkids in honoring their father and grandfather through their participation participation in his community service. Considering all that is involved here, how could I not agree to march in yesterday's Fourth of July parade? Add to all these reasons the fact that this simple act of service qualifies as a quote-unquote good work that the Lord may have prepared for me to walk into, and it really wasn't a question of whether or not I would join my father-in-law because it would please him. It is such a wonderful thing to consider how we can meet our purpose of pleasing God through our loving and serving others. With all of these things in play, I believe my participation in the parade also may have pleased my Heavenly Father. And since living, uh, living to serve him is the primary purpose for the rest of my days on earth, I, I pleased myself as well. Talk about a win-win-win situation. Not only did I serve my family and support those who served to protect our freedom, but through the expression of my love for others, I undoubtedly pleased the Lord, and that gives me joy. Since coming to faith in Christ and surrendering to His will for my life, I have been guided to not only deal with walking away from my personal problems, but have been guided into serving others in various ministries and charitable organizations. My journey shows me that the truth— shows me the truth of the aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we are not only saved from God's wrath through the forgiveness of our sins, but we are saved to good works. We are saved to become more like him through our personal sanctification and our developing our character to reflect his righteousness. We are saved to show the love of God through acts of kindness and service to others and to the community at large. And we are saved to let people know the reason for our hope, our changed lives, and our service by letting them know that our faith in Christ has given us a new life and the power to overcome our personal demons and has motivated us to do good works in His name. As adopted children of the King of all creation, our purpose is to be transformed into what he wants us to be, to represent him in the earth, and to welcome others to make peace with him through faith in Jesus Christ and to join his family and kingdom. When you are adopted in his family, the love we have for being given a new life and, and for being set free from sin and death should drive us to further experience the reality of who we are in Christ through our actions. To echo the sentiments of John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech from on becoming the 35th President of the United States, who said, "Ask not what our— your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country," I would say as Christians we should not be overly concerned with asking how we can be blessed by God, but we should be more concerned by how we can serve God, by how we can share his love and be used by him to bring more into his kingdom. In reviewing my walk with the Lord and by seeing others supposedly on the same path, I feel we may be asking the wrong questions when we come into the Lord's royal family. We shouldn't be asking, "What's in it for me?" or "What do I have to do now that I'm a Christian?" or perhaps even worse, "What can't I do now that I'm a Christian?" We should instead be seeking what we can do to know Him more. To be more like him and to show others his love. Our relationship with the Lord shouldn't be viewed as prohibitions or requirements of what we can't or what we must do. Our relationship should be an exploration of the one we love and a process of discovery of the possibilities and opportunities that our relationship with the Creator of all things presents to us. Our adoption into God's family should result in our finding our identity and our purpose in our new life as His children. So keep walking and talking with God and follow where He leads. When we pursue the Lord as His child, we discover our faith isn't a forced march of obedience or else, but is a journey of meaning and purpose that results in peace, love, and joy. Today's Bible verse does not come from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men because that resource has been left behind at my countryside home in Easton, New York. I believe so, uh, anyway, uh, so I draw upon the verse, uh, of the day from the devotional Daily Strength for Daily Needs by Mary Wild Tileston, and And that resource, this morning's meditation verse is Isaiah 27:8, and it says: No, but he exiled Israel to call her to account; she was exiled from her land as though blown away in a storm from the east. Today's Bible verse speaks of the exile of the nation of Israel from their land as though by a storm from the east. A Cliff Notes version of the Old Testament would undoubtedly point to to the holiness of God and the consequences that his chosen people faced when they disobeyed his commands. The Old Testament prophets repeatedly warned the nation of Israel of God's righteousness and tried to encourage the kings and people of Israel to repent and to go his way. But the people refused to listen and lost God's favor and their autonomy and freedom because they were a stiff-necked or stubborn people. As today's verse tells us, God called Israel to account by exiling her to a foreign land where they would be treated as slaves and subject to foreign rules with limited freedoms to live and worship their Lord. The interplay of the course of human history and God's sovereign control confounds us, and when bad things happen to us, we have a tendency to remove God from the equation. 'If God, why evil?' is the question that atheists present, challenging us to explain why a good God would allow bad things to happen to good people. Those invaded by foreign powers and exiled from their land would probably blame their minister of defense or point to the tyrannical powers that defeated them as the reason why their freedoms were lost. If, if not just It's not just some storm from the east that may be causing us to suffer. Our calamities may be consequences of our poor decisions, or a pruning of sorts that the Lord is using to get our attention, to cause us to repent of our worldly ways, or to strengthen our trust in and reliance upon him. With God, nothing happens in a vacuum. We are not removed from his presence. We are never removed from His presence. So when things go wrong, we should draw close to Him to seek His wisdom, guidance, strength, and love. He may be showing us the error of our ways and be directing us to follow Him by rejecting our sins and adopting His ways to live righteously. Or He may be teaching us about the lack of our self-sufficiency and our weaknesses and be drawing us to rely on Him and walk with Him through a season where our efforts alone will not be enough to see us through. None of us can claim following the Lord perfectly, so whether we are enjoying a time of prosperity or find ourselves in a season of struggles or loss, we can always seek to examine our thoughts and actions and what is happening to us to try to discern what the Lord is trying to teach us. Regardless of, of the storms we face in life, we can be assured that the Lord is above them, and that through our interactions with Him, we can find peace in His presence. Draw close to God and follow where His mighty rushing wind directs your steps. 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 continue sharing from Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness. Today, um, uh, the section we share from chapter 5 is entitled The World Is Under the Authority of Satan. So if you, you know, ever question that— and it also, good news, it also highlights a section called Victory on the Cross. Um, so if you want to see how those two things come together, um, go to emptyforchrist.org to read read what Clinton Arnold has to say about those things, about the spiritual reality that the world is under the authority of Satan, but yet Christ has given us victory from the cross. So what's happening there? You know, um, well, you should read about that on the emptyforchrist.org website by going to the today's blog post and seeing that resource. But just off the top of my head, you know, this our faith is not a simple thing. There's, there's, there's good and evil out there. And, uh, you know, until Christ returns, there's going to be that mix of evil and good, of, uh, you know, faith and faithlessness, and, um, how everything will come into play. You know, this world is falling apart because it's broken by sin and death. And until Christ comes to reclaim the earth and make things new, it'll be that way. But Revelation tells us of a time where there'll be no more suffering, there'll be no more death. And, um, you know, that'll be a different— that'll be a different experience entirely. But until then, you know, the, the, the bad that befalls us may be, you know, a consequence of our actions a call to us to repent, or just a call to us to trust the Lord through bad seasons. It's not necessarily something you did, but it could be, that caused the problem you're facing. The Lord puts us here with two hands and two feet to work through problems in the earth, but sometimes we just have to, we have to trust in him. We can't fix everything, but that causes the hope, and we know he cares about us. How do we know that? Well, he sent Christ to show us the truth and to forgive us of our sins, to give us eternal life, to give us our identity in Christ. Christ is the reason we can say we are loved by God. Christ is the reason we can overcome. His example shows us that You know, he suffered greatly, rose again. And when we come into faith with Jesus Christ, we receive the same things. We can suffer greatly, but we— yet we will rise again. We will be resurrected, you know, when we die. And we'll be resurrected with Christ into the kingdom of heaven, or we'll experience life forever after when he returns to the earth, you know. So we need never fear death, and, uh, there's never calamity that we can't work through, um, or walk through with the Lord in peace. Some things we can change, some things we have to accept, and that they may take longer to change, or some things may never change. But the thing that never changes is, is the Lord's presence and the fact that he's available for us to draw, draw close to at all times, just to seek, to, to seek his wisdom and, and his ways, to, to know how we can walk through this life. And so we do that, we do that by following him personally, and there's great joy and peace that comes from that, from walking in the spirit You know, it's not necessarily just, you know, following a church or a pastor. Um, you know, pastor is there to support us and guide us and to help us and to teach us. But, you know, many times we're, you know, we're not going to be able to take the pastor home with us, um, to deal with our problems. But the Lord is with us at all times. And, uh, who we are in Christ and what he has to say about how we should live is probably the best advice we can follow. That's why we're supposed to have a personal relationship with the Lord where we, where we seek to become more like him by learning his word and adopting his ways for living. So that's what we do here at mt4christ.org, because we discovered that, uh, God has all the answers. It's just whether or not we're going to listen to him and follow him is the, uh, the issue for the most part. So we encourage, we encourage people to, to listen to the Lord and to follow his ways rather than the world's ways. And if we're having problems, if we're having a lack of peace, to try to come into harmony with the Lord by following him. Leaning on him for his strength. So we do that, we encourage that, um, this, this path of Christian discipleship. A lot of the answers, you know, might not come during the worship service at church every week. A lot of the answers might be out there waiting for you to discover in God's word or through Christian books where other Christians basically are trying to tell you you know, how you can apply your faith to your life. That's why we share resources from Christian counselors and theologians to give understanding, to help you adopt God's ways to your life. So we might need to do some homework, and we might need to do some practice, and, uh, that's what we discovered. God's got the answers, we just have to apply them. So if you need help with that, we do provide teaching through our classes we did from Dr. Neil Anderson's work of The Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. I was blessed recently with a couple people from YouTube basically reached out and said, you know, that the Lord believed— they believe that the Lord has led them to discover the teachings for The Bondage Breaker on YouTube, and they reached out to me via email and asked for those, those resources so they could go through the courses and, um, you know, read the material and apply it to their lives. You know, they believe the Lord directed them to that, and, you know, I know this material can help people get set free from personal and spiritual conflict, so I believe the Lord did it too. Um, and I'm blessed to be used by the Lord. And so sometimes I doubt, you know, maybe I should just stop doing the podcast, maybe I should stop sharing, maybe I should stop teaching. But I think those encouragements come from the enemy, they don't come from the Lord. I get encouragement for my walk through the things I do and say and from my reflections on what the Lord is He's done in my life, and I have no choice but to keep going. I wouldn't— well, I guess I could choose something else, but I choose not to. The Lord showed me the way, and one thing He's shown me is through His word is to keep going, to keep going where He leads, to walk through life with Him rather than without Him. And I encourage people to do that. So if you haven't checked out the teachings that we provide, you know, I encourage you. I was on the verge of doing a summer reading list of all the books that I would recommend. Still, that's in process. I'll probably share that soon. But some of them are on the website. As I believe I shared, you know, all of Victory Over the Darkness, all of the Bondage The Heartbreaker, all of Anderson's book on depression, all of several other books through the blog. So if you're not sure which books to read, just go back to the blog and see what M.t. was sharing on his blog bit by bit, and you'll get the list. There's other books I'm sure I haven't shared, but you know, this thing of our faith, there's so much to learn. So much to do. You really shouldn't be bored with your faith. What you should be bored is with the silliness of the world and the things that are of no value to our lives, no value to our lives in eternity. I have an index card written somewhere in my room that I just saw, and on the index card, it's very spiritual. It's not a Bible verse. It's a simple statement. And the statement on the index card says, "I have better things to do." And, uh, I think I wrote that down because I had better things to do. Um, and I guess the challenge on that index card is to discover, you know, what the better things to do were, you know, better things to read, better things to do, you know, productive things rather than, you know, being lazy. I have better things to do. So I encourage you in your faith, whoever might be listening, to discover the better things to do that are waiting for you in your life. And, you know, there's probably more than one. That's the great thing. There's so many better things that we could be doing. So I encourage you to find out what those are and pursue them. And today, although, you know, I might have better things to do, I have to work. That's part of our lives too, right? We have to support ourselves and take care of our immediate needs through work. So while we're working, we'll think about those better things we could be doing. You know, after work or whatever, and we'll try to walk in those things. We encourage you to discover the better things you could be doing. And who knows, maybe the Lord will direct you to change the things you do at work, maybe change your job. Um, I'm not, not directing anyone to quit their job today, but if you're unhappy in your work and you can find a means to support yourself by doing something else Um, the Lord might be calling you to do that, but I always say, you know, take care of your family, take care of your needs, um, first and foremost, before you worry about your personal satisfaction. Sometimes we're called to serve in positions that might not always be happy, but we can have peace in it when we walk with the Lord. So let's Let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for the peace that comes from walking with you. We thank you for the peace that you've given us through your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, that tells us that we're forgiven, uh, and that he's given us power to walk forward, uh, not falling in the old things of the past, but to walk, to walk into the better things that you have for us to do. So Lord, help us to discover those better things by reading your word, by We're reaching out to you in prayer today by opening our eyes to the wonders of your love and the beauty of your creation. Lord, we thank you for the jobs we have. We thank you for the families we have. Thank you for the good health that we enjoy. And Lord, we just, we pray that you go before us today to show us the good things that we can walk into. And, uh, or we just pray for, you know, a content spirit to be happy with the things we have and to, uh, to work to resolve the issues that we, that we don't like in our lives, and to lean on your strength and understanding and walking through those, those situations. Lord, we, uh, we thank you, we praise you, and, uh, we pray you come alongside all the people who might be listening today to guide them in the things that you want them to do too. Uh, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.