Alarm Clocks, A Sovereign God, and the Power of Perspective and Practice - Purity 927

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 headlight-illuminated highway pathway come— that runs alongside the silhouette of trees while moving towards a cross-like shadow of a utility pole with the outline of the Castleton-on-the-Hudson Bridge in the distance comes to us from yours truly, As I captured this scene during my commute home from work back on December 12th, I took a bunch of shots during that drive, and I'm not really sure of what to do with them. Uh, some are better than others, um, some are blurry, but all of them capture the magic of twilight time, and each document another step in the journey of one man's simple drive home from work that testifies to the continuous beauty and mystery of our lives. Well, it's Thursday, and as is my old habit, I am sharing this photo that features a pathway of sorts to encourage all who read or hear this message to get on or stay on the path of Christian discipleship, to discover who you are in Christ, to experience your freedom in Christ, and to seek the Lord and to pursue the purpose that he has for your life. However, while I do wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly make this recommendation and believe that its pursuit is God's purpose for all of our lives, I have to warn you that it comes with a cost, and it is a path that is meant to be traveled continuously, meaning that is a path that you must choose for yourself because of the cost, but it is also a path that must— that one— boy, but it is a path that once chosen should not be forsaken. Verses Hebrews 4:6 Hebrews 6:4-8 indicate that we may not be able to come back to faith if we walk away. The text says, for it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance. Since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put him to an open shame. For the earth, which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessings from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. Whoa, this parallels the, uh, Christ's, the, the sowing of the seeds parable, um, where Jesus is in explaining the parable to his disciples indicates that some receive the word but become unfruitful. In Matthew 13:20-22, Jesus says, but he who received the word on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Stumbles. But now he who receives seed among thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitful riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. So So does our falling away or stumbling lead to destruction or just an unfruitful testimony? Christ's teaching, teaching has even warned us about maintaining our freedom and victory over the spirit, spiritual forces of darkness. Describing an unclean spirit that has been cast out, Christ taught in Matthew 12:43-45 that when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking and finds none. Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him 7 other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it be also— it shall also be with this wicked generation. When I taught at, uh, when I taught at and later led Celebrate Freedom, a Christian recovery ministry, I, you, I would use, uh, these verses to warn about giving in to the demons of temptation and falling into relapse and sin, and pointed to the fact that addicts often fall lower or harder into an early and fall lower and harder, and sometimes into an early death when they try to recover and then relapse. Uh, ask me how I know. No, actually, that's not what I said. Sorry. Uh, the state of the person who once decided to walk with God but then for whatever reason decides to not follow or not believe in the Lord always seems to be worse. Instead of finding their freedom again, when people walk away from God, they often go further into their former darkness, bondage, or hopelessness, and sometimes with immediate tragic results. Ask me how I know. Well, I have seen it time and time again, and others, as my progressive walk of discipleship has seen many, many traveling companions come to a certain point where they decide to abandon their faith walk for other worldly pursuits. To remain in their spiritual infancy, or to go running back to their sin, or just to walk away without ceremony. I never thought I would be ghosted by someone who was supposedly walking in the Spirit, but it happens. Some of these ghosts actually go into eternity as victims of their poor choices, and others remain a mystery. In some cases, I honestly don't know if these people who I had seen experience a measure of freedom or victory in their lives. Have gone on to enjoy it, or if they doubted and went back to their lives of quiet desperation, of depression and addiction, or were revisited by their demonic friends in low places and are currently afflicted with condemnation and oppression. This is why Christ emphasized obedience and endurance to his disciples. The Apostle Paul doesn't encourage the church to seek out their salvation with fear and trembling, or warn us to put on the full armor of God because we are safe. Our faith will be tested, and only those who endure and decide to follow the Lord in spirit and in truth on a continual basis will have the assurance that they will be in that number when the saints go marching in to God's kingdom. Our faith is to be practiced as well as preached and is a journey of constant adjust— adjustments as the Lord will continually reveal to us the errors of our ways and and things that He would have us do. It is a journey of both correction and accomplishment. The LORD has things for us to fix and He has things for us to build. When we seek the LORD and His will for our lives, our personal lives change and the direction we follow takes us ever towards Him and His purpose for our lives. Of course, we do not do this perfectly and that is okay. When we put our faith in Jesus, we have already been forgiven of everything we will ever do and are accepted into God's kingdom. Our journey is not about perfection. It is about being faithful to the calling and about learning from our mistakes. It is about experiencing peace and joy while we are making progress. This morning I awoke from a work anxiety dream. Although I am on vacation until January 4th, I was back at work early this morning in my dreams. Nothing horrific, mind you, but the dream of me at work was anxious because I was, I was given a task that I wasn't going to be going to complete and would have to refer to someone else. But in the dream, I desperately wanted to do a good job. And I was struggling with the fact that I wasn't going to get 'er done. Even after I woke from the dream, I was considering other possible solutions to the problem at hand that didn't exist. After putting the brakes on my thoughts for problem solving, I wondered just how long it would be before my alarm would go off. You know how this is, right? Quite often I awaken anywhere from 30 to 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. And spend that, that time trying to get those last few minutes of sleep, with or without success. But this morning I got the feeling that something was wrong, and rather than trying to go back to sleep, I checked my phone/alarm clock to discover I never set the alarm and was 2 hours past when I normally would get up. So all my plans for my normal morning routine have been altered. I had plans to work out before Bible study, prayer, and blogging, and was upset for a few moments before, before I practiced my faith. Just like a karate expert who knows how to defend himself from enemy attacks, I went into action by combating the reactivity and beginnings of condemnation with a one-two punch of the truth. I am on vacation. I can do whatever I want in the order I want anytime today. I can work out later. I can take a rest day. As for my spiritual practices, they are somewhat non-negotiable, but because I am not a perfect person who has made, who has made similar mistakes in the past, or been distracted, not managed my time wisely at all times, I knew that it wasn't the end of the world, and I would do what I could because I know from my previous experiences at being less than perfect that we can only do what we can do. So although I felt the urgency to start blogging, I decided that my Bible study had to come first. There is nothing like the Word of God to cool your jets and to make you realize what is important. When you read the Word, you can rest assured that no matter what else transpires that day, at least you did something of value. And usually it will help us to— help to remind us— that as compelling as this world and our problems can be, there is a sovereign God above it all who has called us to be at peace with Him, and He knows how everything will turn out. So, was my forgetting to set my alarm on my phone God's will? Well, it happened, so if nothing else, it was allowed, and who knows, maybe it was intended to to disrupt my regular routine. Maybe he wanted me to get, to get my attention. Maybe he wanted to remind me that I'm not perfect, that I am weak while he is strong. Or maybe this was just a lesson, another lesson to myself to be diligent, to set the alarm. Well, I'm not sure about that stuff, but I, as I practice shifting my perspectives and prioritizing my tasks I experience the peace that comes from knowing that I'm already accepted by God. I am positively blessed with where I am right now in life. I have had an incredible past to marvel over, and I anticipate more of God's wonder and wonders and love, uh, in the days ahead. My morning Bible study was in Jeremiah 5 and 2 Kings 21, which just so happens to teach about harsh warnings to follow the Lord and rediscovering faith. They taught that there are negative consequences for those who don't follow the Lord, that for some it is not too late— for some it is not too late to rediscover the word of God and to be blessed by the Lord when we answer his call to repentance. It's the end of the year, and I noticed once again— has it always been this way?— the messages mourning the very bad year we have had and other messages that are welcoming 2023 3 with fear, suspicion, and trepidation. I have seen friends suffer loss this year, so I get it. Some of us are hurting, and I suppose it's compassionate to share these well-intentioned messages of doom and fear. But honestly, because I have learned to walk in the spirit and have learned to keep things in perspective, it positively puzzles me why the basic practices of gratitude and shifting our perspective to consider the plights of those even worse off than little old me have not been widely disseminated to the masses. But then I remember why the prophets of old, like Jeremiah, had to speak of impending judgment. People do not believe in the LORD, people do not follow the LORD, they do not know if there is anything to believe in, and they do not know if there is anything beyond the circumstances of their immediate lives. And they certainly do not know about the mental, physical, and spiritual consequences for their decisions to live independently from God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and if we disregard what his word says and fail to believe and to follow him, our lives will be a progression of tragedy and woe, uh, as we age and continue to lose the things of this world that are passing away, as we march ever closer to eternity. Without an eternal perspective, we will lament over every bump in the road or negative circumstances that we suffer because we have chosen to worship our personal happiness and the things that we can manipulate to produce it. So forgive me for seeming harsh and suggesting that people get over it when I see these well-intentioned but sorry laments, uh, over the very bad year it has been. For someone who has been through the crucible of life, lived in, in the errors of atheism, addiction, false worship, and sexual immorality, and who has suffered the pain of loss of loved ones to death and from broken relationships, and who has seen the national tragedies of 9/11 and the recent paradigm-shifting, world-changing waves of glo— of a global pandemic, I don't see how 22 2022 was a particularly bad year. Of course, I understand the personal tragedies I've suffered didn't fall within the last 365 days, but I would continue to object to any messages that would encourage people to focus on the pain of the year past and actually fear the new year instead of giving a message of hope that is based on the reality of God, His creation, and His plan for humanity. And that encourages us to consider others more than ourselves and to thank the Lord for all He has done, even in the storms of life, and all that He will do in the future. Without God, life is a bitter shame. So if you have suffered and have had a bad year, let me encourage you to make Christ your Lord and Savior, or to recommit yourself to Him. And make the decision to never walk alone again, to make the decision to keep on walking and talking with God forever. There might be a cost for the new life in Christ, but the dividends for investing yourself into His Kingdom are the peace that goes beyond all understanding and the joy that comes from knowing that you are accepted, secure, and significant with God. Well, I'm short on time this morning because I overslept, so I'm taking a vacation from sharing the Bible verse of the day from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men or from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruss. But do not— but I do encourage you to read the Bible every day for yourself. I'm including a link to Ligonier Ministries Bible reading plans for 2023 as an encouragement to read the word this year, to have a plan if you need one to draw close to God through his word, to experience the power that he wants to unleash in your life. And 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 to sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship, and I'm happy to announce that today is the day that we complete sharing from that book, as we even shared the entire resource on our blog over the past several weeks and months. Um, so if you wanted to see what— how it all ends, uh, go to m.t. forchrist.org,, and you'll see the last section of Bonhoeffer's chapter, The Image of Christ, at the, at the end of today's blog post. And so now I'll have to scramble for another resource to share for tomorrow that'll take us into the new year. Just as a reminder, if, if you don't want to have to go through several blog posts to read Bonhoeffer's book, you can always find it somewhere online. And also We just happen to do a teaching of the book Bonhoeffer's Discipleship on YouTube and our podcast. So basically it's called Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, and in it basically I read through the book, make a few comments, and on the YouTube presentation I share a PowerPoint presentation to lead us through the text, which is based— mostly based on Bonhoeffer's Works, Volume 4, Discipleship. That translation of the text. So we encourage you to go to the podcast to listen to it, or go to YouTube to watch it. It was a labor of love, and I really felt the Lord calling me to do it. I don't know if it'll— it's up to him to, you know, decide to use it, I guess. But I'm just putting an encouragement out there that it's out there to help you in your faith walk and to examine what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to say about discipleship. And as always, we also encourage you to check out our other teachings on discipleship. As we began a Community Freedom Ministry in 2021 in our local church and had the presence of mind to podcast the lessons, so if you wanted to listen to the audio for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, or Freedom in Christ, are all available on the M.t. MT for Christ 247 podcast and the YouTube channel MT for Christ 247. Um, you know, these lessons teach about spiritual realities of who we are in Christ and the spiritual forces of darkness and how we can be free in Christ. And so if you don't know what that means or don't know what discipleship is, I highly encourage you to check out those teachings as well. And as we've already stated, we highly encourage Bible study. So we, we provide a Bible study of sorts, a topical study, uh, that we get together with our good friends Arthur and Susanna Sincotti each week to discuss the things of God that, uh, are brought to the forefront of Arthur's imagination. And, uh, we, we take his study outline and discuss whatever the Spirit or whatever our thoughts, uh, bring up basically in regard to that. So we invite you to check out Bible study with us in Cádiz as well. Well, I'm gonna rest today, although I, uh, it's late. Uh, I'll have to walk the dog and, uh, other plans— continue studying and resting and reading on this vacation at my countryside home in Easton, and which I'm enjoying immensely. But I know some of us have to work, and so probably don't want to hear about that. So let's, uh, let's pray for all of us regardless of where, where we go today. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we just thank you for, you know, all the blessings of this life. And although we might have had a bad year, if we shift our focus, even in the worst years we can find days that were okay and think good things that happened even in the midst of tragedy. So many things can happen in 365 days, Lord, and I'm just, you know, just looking through the photos on my phone today over the past year. I'm just utterly amazed at all that has transpired in such a short time, and we thank you, Lord, for being with us in every step of the way. Lord, so we pray for anyone listening today that they'd be greatly encouraged to keep walking and talking with you, to live a life of Christian discipleship as you, you lead us, um, you lead us into very good things, Lord. Even if it's through a pathway of pain or suffering for a season, we know that we're on the right path when we, when we read your word and follow you. So Lord, we just pray for you to come alongside anyone who might be listening or reading this message, Lord, that you would bless them and that you would come alongside them in their prayer request in their walk of faith. Lord, as always, we pray for you to go before us today to, to set up things that you, that you want us to experience and to open our eyes to see them and to lead our, our steps into the things you would have us do. Lord, our intention is to do, to follow you and to do your will and represent you here on Earth. And Lord, for that we need your help. And so we pray for your help in, in this today and every day. And Lord, as always, we, we just have to tell you we love you, we thank you, and we praise you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.