Asking for “Thoughts and Prayers” – Purity 787

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 backyard towering inferno comes to us from a friend who shared this first fire of the season on social media back on June 15th, and I share it today as an encouragement to my friends to take advantage of the summertime season to safely enjoy the comforts of a campfire or bonfire preferably in the company of friends and family. I have several friends and family members who enjoy camping and backyard bonfires and have been known to enjoy them myself. There is something strange— strangely peaceful and primitive about making a fire and just watching the flames consume the wood as they illuminate the night and provide comfort from, from the cooler temperatures at night. And quite often it is in the solemn darkness that surrounds the campfire where stories are shared, Burdens are confessed, answers are sought, and advice is given. In our modern world, the light of social media can also be a place where we share our burdens and ask for support. As friends face loss of employment, work problems, financial problems, things falling apart problems, and health problems, I see requests for your thoughts and prayers. And sometimes I see someone suggest occultic practices as general spiritual remedies. Although I would point out that general spiritual practices directed to the universe and other entities other than God, of the dead or local or cultural spirits or whoever, is witchcraft. That is specifically prohibited in the word of God and should be avoided at all cost. And appealing to the general spiritual realm realm, at best nothing will happen. At worst, you could conjure— you could conjure a demon. Um, these aren't 50 shades— you know, there aren't 50 shades of gray in the spiritual realm, guys. Uh, repeat after me: if it's not Christ, it's Antichrist. And no matter how wise, good, kind, cuddly, or cute other spirits, religions, and/or philosophies of life may be, if they don't lead you to Christ, they will lead you to destruction. As someone who followed an alternate faith stream for years of my life, I can sympathize with those who have an axe to grind when it comes to organized religion and bad experiences in the church. But when it comes to spiritual truth, the Word of God is clear that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Jesus proved he was the Son of God and God the Son through his life, his miracles, his teachings, His resurrection. His is the way to go. His is the path to follow. Uh, so as for advice, that's mine. Uh, seek the Lord, accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, and live your life according to His ways. And stay in constant communication with Him through prayer, worship, Bible study, and just talking with Him. Experientially, I found I have followed, repented of my of many of my former ways of living, my sin, and have no regrets. I have a peace that goes beyond understanding and have learned to live by faith, living in the presence of the Lord by continuously walking and talking with God. When days, when, when days are good, I thank God and rejoice over the blessings, blessings I am enjoying. When times are not so good, I thank God and am comforted that no matter how bad or confusing the times may be, I have the assurance that he is with me. And will never leave me or forsake me. That is why it pains me to see my friends suffer. In my opinion, I am not special. I don't think of myself as particularly wise or skilled in any areas of my life. I am a klutz. I even got that wrong initially. Apparently it is spelled with a K and means a clumsy, awkward, or foolish person. I forget things. I get frustrated. I get stressed. But the good news is that this klutz just so happened to stumble his way into the kingdom of God. Not really. I ran from God like Jonah. I looked for love in all the wrong places. When the going got tough, I denied God and looked anywhere else for help. And in the midst of all that, God reached me through a radio message to show me the truth that obscured— that was obscured by religion, my ignorance, and my pride. God allowed me to stumble through life, but when he decided enough was enough, he opened my eyes and pulled me out of the darkness. I don't know how God illumination comes. I guess I do actually, through the Holy Spirit, of course. Get it? Yeah. Uh, but in my experience, in my herding, I sought a spiritual answer to the big questions of life and death and existence itself. Although my searching was a prolonged process of stumbling through the dark in which I persisted in going the wrong way for years, the Lord rewarded my searching with his love and wisdom. Although I refused to even consider his way as an option, he was gracious to reveal to me that the answer I refused to consider, the one that was in plain sight, was the one leads to meaning, purpose, and eternal life? The answer, of course, is Jesus. So if you are hurting or in a situation where you are asking for thoughts and prayers, let me encourage you to think and pray for yourself and to pursue the one who answers prayers. Turn to God by placing your faith in his Son, Jesus Christ, and take a look at your life and examine the way you're living to to see if you are living in a way that is contrary to God's way. When we turn a deaf ear or blind eye to the Lord's wisdom and choose to live according to our own desires or the world's standards, we may be free— you know, we may be free to live that way, but we are never free from the consequences of living in sin or from the ultimate judgment and wrath of God that will come upon us if we don't make peace with God and decide to follow him. Uh, last Sunday we did a Bible study on the silence of God, and we highlighted scriptures that indicated that when we don't have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ— when you are an unbeliever— the Lord doesn't hear or honor your request for thoughts and prayers. It may sound mean, but it makes sense. If you have nothing to do with God normally, it is not surprising that He may choose to let you suffer because of your sin. But as a sinner saved by grace, now a saint, let me assure you that doesn't have to be your fate. God loves you, and His Word also is full of verses that highlight that He accepts and helps those who turn from their sins and ask for His help and mercy. My advice is that rather than just seeking his help during a crisis, that you establish a relationship with him through Jesus Christ that will provide you with his help on a continual basis. Recognize your, your and the world's failure to have the answer to life and death and seek, uh, seek the meaning, peace, and purpose, uh, by making peace with God and surrendering your ways for his. Life sucks, right? Well, it can. You know, suffering is not cool, man. But when you turn to the Lord, you don't have to be alone in it, and he will help you through it one way or the other. So give up the ghost. Stop working so hard to find peace through the world. Die to it by placing your life, hope, and trust in the hands of the one who made it. And longs to redeem it. Instead of asking for thoughts and prayers or burning some mixture of spices and herbs to chase away the bad vibes, start walking and talking with God, and he will see you through. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are 1 Timothy 6:18-19. And they say, tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this, they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. In today's verse, we are encouraged to tell people who trust in their riches to use their money to do good, to share it, and to store up their treasure as a good foundation for the future, that they will, that they will experience true life. True life is eternal life in the NKJV, and this points to the ultimate meaning of, uh, to our lives. While we could use our money for all kinds of things while we are here on earth, the word encourages us, uh, to use it to do good things and to share it. I recently heard someone Someone say that we, we never have to teach a child to be selfish, but we do have to teach them to share. And similarly, the Word of God is teaching us to, to mature in our faith with the way we use our money. So as part of our faith, we should consider what we are spending our money on and examine our spending to see if we could make some changes to make our money be used for good. When we put our money where our mouth is as a Christian, as Christians, there will be evidence, financial records that will show that some of our funds went to good things. Personally, I could stand to examine my ways, but even I could point to my giving to my local church, the money I use, uh, the money I spend on my ministry needs, and the money I give to a child I sponsor in Haiti as evidence that a small part of my money is used for good. And unlike, um, some of my other purchases, those expenditures are expenses that I do not regret because they are spent by me for God's kingdom or as a response to do good. So look at your financial statements and in your heart and see if there is more money available to do good things. We can't take our money with us, but our funds can be used to do good things that will be remembered in heaven and help us to transform our hearts to be more generous like our God who freely gives us all we need. 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 Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness, and today, uh, we're still in chapter 8, basically where he's discussing our identity in Christ And the headings today is Dead, Resurrected, and Exalted. And the second section is Filled, Endowed with Power and Authority. So if you want to know how you're filled and endowed with power and authority, go to mt4christ.org and read what Clinton Arnold has to say about that. Um, again, this is, uh, you know, I shared this resource because I personally found it very, uh, very rewarding and just— it was an exhaustive, um, but, uh, you know, a great study on the powers of darkness and how, how the culture was when Paul wrote his letters to the church. And, uh, and now we're, you know, coming into later chapters where basically we're looking at, you know, We know what the powers of darkness are, but who are we in Christ? And so, you know, it's really looking at the spiritual realities behind the doctrines of our faith and what they mean. And it's not just an idea, theological idea, it's a spiritual reality. This is really what has happened to us. And when we know this, we can, we can live it. And that's why we share that resource, you know, to give us insight into the state of that's already happened for us who's come to Christ, and to give us, you know, to give us a peace and assurance that we're walking in the right way and that, you know, we're not making things up. We're grounded in the truth of God's word and we're living according to it. So that's why we're here on the podcast and the blog and the YouTube channel. It's just to encourage other Christians basically in their faith and to, uh, you know, really embrace, uh, their life as a disciple of Christ. And so we share our teachings that we did in 2021, um, for Victory Over the Darkness, uh, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, all based on God's word, all, and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson from Freedom in Christ Ministries. And, uh, so if you want to check those out, they're available on the podcast and the YouTube channel. For your study and your edification. We also— I mentioned the Bible study. We, we do that once a week. So if you don't have a Bible study of your own and want to listen to a couple friends, uh, you know, gather around the word and then do a topical study, um, you can find those under Bible Study with the Tsimkatis, and they're all on the podcast and the YouTube channel as well. Those links are all at the bottom of each blog post on mt4christ.org. If you want to find our podcast or, uh, YouTube channel, there they are. So today's Tuesday, another day in the kingdom, another day of work. So let's, let's go with God and pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you for all the blessings of this life. Lord, we really do come alongside our friends and family who are, are experiencing hard times, Lord. And we just pray for your Holy Spirit to convict them of maybe the way they're living their lives isn't quite in line with you. So we, we pray for the Holy Spirit to come into their lives, to convict their hearts to, to seek you and to, to follow you and, and to pray to you. Um, instead of asking for thoughts and prayers, Lord, we just pray for them to, to think and, and pray to you and come to you, Lord. So we just pray for your Holy Spirit to come into their lives and to give them comfort, um, and meaning, um, through drawing them into the kingdom, Lord, or further into the kingdom, to let them pick up the faith that they left on a shelf or, or that they don't have, you know. I don't know their hearts, Lord, you do. So we pray for those situations that we know of. And Lord, we pray for the people listening today, that they be encouraged, that they're on the right path when they follow you, and that they're not alone, that you're with them in their struggles. And so Lord, we come alongside their prayer requests. You know what they're praying for, and Lord, we're praying for them too, that you would, uh, you you would help them. And, uh, as always, we pray for you to open our eyes to the goodness of our lives today and to the good things that are around us, and open our eyes to the things we need to do. Lord, sometimes we forget, sometimes we don't know, um, so we can use all the help we can get through your Holy Spirit in us to lead us in the way we should go, to lead us into all truth. And to, uh, we ask for your providential hand to go before us and make a way through this day, um, you know, to set things up. Uh, you know, we love walking with you, Lord. So, um, we'll recognize your hand in it when we experience the blessings, when we experience your presence as we go. So we ask you to go before us today. To lead us into the good things you want us to do. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.