Be An Encourager – A Voice in the Darkness - Purity 1481

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I'm 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. Good morning. Today's blurry photo of a magnificent October full moon illuminating a familiar symbol on the crossbar of a utility pole while distant farmhouse lights seem to manifest as the lights of an alien mothership, um, come to us, um, from yours truly as I did my best to capture the wonder of a late-night walk down Waite Road last evening. And yeah, it's— I got to get a better camera. Anyway, well, it is Saturday, and although Uh, I'm stumbling in the dark as I try to navigate my way to a nutritarian lifestyle. I'm fully committed to being ready to be fully committed, and, and, and, uh, and making sudden impulsive food, uh, food choices is the last hurrah in the interim. Um, although all that's true, I can be trusted as a faithful companion on the path of Christian discipleship because although I am seeking to make further progress on destroying my food addictions and experiencing optimal physical health. I have been victorious over many sins of the flesh and can, if nothing else, uh, be trusted to walk with you should you need deliverance from alcohol, drugs, sex addiction, anger, depression, anxiety, and other possible forms of what could be demonic oppression. Uh, with that said, I should make the disclaimer that I'm not a fully trained exorcist, although I have completed a full course of Studies at Bob Larson University, and I'm not a licensed psychologist or counselor, although I do have a master's degree in Christian counseling and previous work experience in mental health. However, I am a Christian life coach, and I've been trained as a Community Freedom Ministry Associate through Freedom in Christ Ministries and, and has, and have acted as an encourager in many a Freedom appointment. Where I've seen God work through that prayerful prayer process, or prayerful repentance process, to set men free from persistent sinful bondages, strongholds, and unresolved issues of their past. Uh, while I can't set you free, I know the one who can. I can introduce you to him through the Steps to Freedom in Christ and walk beside you as you get to know him and learn how to walk in freedom and live according to his ways. Afterward, although many a Christian may claim to know the Lord, research results at thestateoftheology.com indicate that their view of God may not align perfectly with scripture, and their behaviors and opinions are similar to their unsaved neighbors. While do that thou wilt, do what thou wilt, or anything goes morality may be the du jour of our overall society today, many a soul has realized that such self-indulgence is actually the doctrine of demons that offers satisfaction but leads to suffering, disillusionment, brokenness, and death. Freedom isn't doing whatever you want and indulging the flesh. That's bondage. True freedom, joy, and fulfillment come from being the person that God created us to be. By acknowledging God is sovereign and accepting his truth, way, and life through submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by faith, we can have victory over the sins of the flesh and experience the life of peace, love, and joy that God wants us to know. But going from simple faith to a victorious life in Christ is the battleground of spiritual warfare, and the body of Christ was intended to be the means by which we could band together and encourage one another to fight the good fight of faith and to win the war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Unfortunately, the statistics, the statistics indicate that the church in America has not been successful in leading its members to even know the truth about their faith with any degree of success, let alone be able to lead them to live a Christian life when it comes to morality. But ministries like Freedom in Christ Ministries, Deeper Walk International, Wild at Heart, and others, and individual Christian counselors and life coaches like myself, recognize the need to educate and guide Christians to the freedom and victory in Christ that they were meant to have. These ministries and individuals use the truth of scripture and the intervention of prayer ministry to lead their brothers and sisters in Christ Out of the Dark. Well, I've been doing recovery and freedom ministry since 2015. Um, I started my church Christian life coaching practice this year because I recognized the need for continued individualized discipleship and spiritual formation coaching that went beyond the 12 or 25-week course of study, and that was needed to help break strongholds that remained, uh, after otherwise successful, seemingly successful prayer ministry. As the Steps to Freedom in Christ concluding verbiage states, it is exciting to experience your freedom in Christ, but what you've gained must be maintained. Now, you have won an important battle, but the war goes on. Maintain your freedom in Christ and grow as a disciple of Jesus in the grace of God. You must continue renewing your mind to the truth of God's word. Now that process of renewing your mind is empowered by the Holy Spirit, but it is greatly assisted when you have brothers or sisters in Christ who can be a voice in the darkness, brothers or sisters in Christ who can be an encourager and a friend to you when circumstances change and you begin to doubt. We can all be encouragers by attending church services, church small groups, and serving in the church regularly, but Even in those environments, quote unquote Christians can end up hiding their hurts, habits, and, or struggles because they are supposed to be all better now. Uh, or the church culture is such that freedom has been bestowed from the pulpit, and if you don't have it, it's because you haven't been listening or you haven't been faithful. Essentially, it's your fault and you should try harder. They may even have suggested that you just believe with no helpful further instruction of how you actually live a complete— in a completely different and new way. Of course, instruction, you know, guiding people into spiritual disciplines is pretty simplistic. Read the Bible and pray. But when you have someone willing to make you accountable and to encourage you as you learn and grow, those simple instructions become more than commandments. They become advice and testimony, um, from someone who has practiced them and learned from them and cares enough to talk and walk you through the process. As I was reviewing the progress of my clients this morning, I realized that even though our sessions can seem somewhat simple and don't appear to be much more than a couple of friends getting together to talk about life. My relationship with my clients has, has had a meaningful impact on the way they live their lives. While my clients and myself admittedly are works in progress, I can honestly say that they have made steady improvements in the areas that they wanted to address and that they have grown in their faith and their maturity as Christians. They are making progress in many ways. And in many ways are living as the people that God created them to be. And I was a part of that. I have offered coaching, advice, and instruction, and they've benefited from it. I have prayed with them and for them, prayed with them and for them and their families. And I have seen the Lord work in their lives to bless them and to move them to be more like Jesus. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 tells us, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. So let's help each other, you know, help each other up. And let me encourage you to reach out to the people around you and to encourage them to get to know and follow the Lord. As amazing as it sounds, God chooses to work through us, and when we encourage others in their faith, we can not only rejoice over the progress that they make, but we can also stand in awe over how God has used us to help others and has caused us to grow in the process. Today's Bible verses come from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John Gene Kruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on friendships, and today's first, uh, verse comes from 1 Corinthians 15:33, where the word of God says, do not be misled, bad company corrupts good character. Today's verse falls under the first point of our counseling reference resource section on friendships, and that first point is Bad company corrupts good morals. Today's Bible verse warns us that we have to be careful of the company we keep. As much as I've encouraged you to reach out to others in a spirit of Christian fellowship to encourage them to walk with the Lord, if we realize that our messages aren't being received or causing our friends in low places to answer the upward call to, uh, in Christ Jesus, and to turn from their sinful ways, it might be best to take a step back because their sinful ways may in turn corrupt you. The Word says that light has no business with darkness. So if we discover our friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, or fellow church attendees are actively engaged in sin or aren't living according to their faith, we should distance ourselves from their degradation and continually discourage their destruction. As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, where we always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Recording Your Word Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And in Alford's devotional, he prompts us to read a chapter of Scripture. Today's chapter is Revelation 2, and from that chapter he shares a portion of verse 4, which says, 'You have left your first love.' And Stephen Alford writes, 'The church in Ephesus failed in all when she failed in love, for love is the all-inclusive word which embraces all other fruits of the Spirit.' The Lord had to say to this church, 'I know your works.' Here was the work of faith. In faith, this church was strong. Then again, I know your patience. Here was the patience of hope, and hope— this church was strong. But the Lord goes on to say, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Here the church has failed, therefore failed in all. But while three remain— faith, hope, and love— the greatest of these is love. The other two are comprehended in love, and Ephesus had failed there. Here, uh, and Alfred ends by praying, oh Lord, help me not to fail in love. Amen. And you know, it's not loving to let people live in ignorance and sin, and thus the call for discipleship on our lives to, to help us, um, to encourage one another, to help the body of Christ and know what we believe, why we believe it, and how to live according to our faith. And, you know, in our church services culture where it's just a matter of, you know, our faith is, it's little more than going to a weekly church service and leaving, um, there's not a lot of room for growth. You hear a message, but it's not necessarily a message that needs to be received. Even good, good instruction could be given, but if there's no follow-up, if there's no accountability, and there's no expectation that you'll actually listen and obey and, you know, walk according to your faith, you know, there, there's no expectation for growth. Um, and that's why we see the statistics that we see in the, like, the State of Theology, uh, survey that was done in 2022 that I'm sharing a link for on the blog, um, that will— that people don't even know who God is, and they have the wrong ideas about God, no theology. And that obviously will impact what they think about how we live on, you know, how we live in this, this world. You know, almost, you know, half, you know, the statistics were, were pretty pretty terrible because they indicated that, you know, almost half of the church had wrong views on, you know, basic tenets of theology and, you know, the wrong view, you know, or anti-biblical views about morality. And, uh, you know, if we don't know what we're supposed to know or how we're supposed to live, you know, should be no surprise that there's, there's not a lot of, um, freedom in the church. So that's why we, we do what we do to encourage people to, you know, that they can find their freedom in Christ, that they don't have to live a less-than life, that we have been given everything we need for life and godliness through Christ. And when we live according to our faith, we can experience, experience it. So that's why we ask the question: have you fully surrendered to God? Um, you know, we don't ask for you to Surrender much, just everything. But, uh, when you're going to surrender the, you know, the pain in your life, you're going to surrender the hurt and the bitterness and the sin, and you're going to find, if you walk in the Spirit, um, joy, love, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self-control. And that's why we advocate for that. And we enter into that like, like I did. Um, you begin to do things like serve the church in whatever way you can. And one, one of the ways I was able to serve the church is, uh, by leading the Celebrate Freedom Christian Recovery and Discipleship support group at Starpoint Church, um, in Clifton Park. We meet on Wednesdays at 6:30 PM. That's my formal invitation to you to— if you're in that Upstate New York region, you can get to Clifton Park on a Wednesday— to come on out, join our fellowship, uh, where we can encourage each other to walk by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome those hurts, habits, and hangups. Where you can, you know, come to a safe space and be real about life and real about your faith. And hey, I've been to Bible college, and I'll do my best to answer any questions regarding your theology to make sure we have those things right. And so you'll know that, you know, God is with us as well. And if you happen to be, um, not in the Upstate New York region, you can always find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of our podcast classes on YouTube. We have a playlist page on our YouTube channel that has these teachings— The Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course— all available to you, um, for listening or viewing depending on the teaching. Um, if you can look at all of them, just some of them are video. Anyway, they are all based on the word of God and the teachings of Dr. Neil Anderson and other things I've learned through my walk of faith, and we invite you to check those out. And we always conclude by asking, are you empty for Christ too? Being empty for Christ just means being surrendered to follow the Lord with the way you live your life, to be available for the Holy Spirit to come in and teach you how to live and to go the way you should go. So we encourage people to do that. And if you say yes to that question, we say keep on walking and talking with God. If you say no, we encourage you to seek the Lord and to pray to have him reveal himself to you, because we know that when you seek him, you will find him. Um, we know because we prayed a prayer and things happened. That's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do for us, Lord. Um, thank you for the victory you've given us and the freedom you've given us. And we thank you for being patient with us, Lord, as we, we try to make the next steps to healthier living. And we sort of fell down on our face, um, a couple times there. Um, but, um, we know that, um, you're with us and that, um, the only thing that prevents us from being the people that you created us to be is, is ourselves. And that, uh, we trust in you and follow you, Lord, that you'll lead us in the way we should go. So we're asking for your help today, and we're asking for you to come alongside anyone who's reading or, or watching today's message or listening, uh, that you come alongside them in their walk of faith and their prayer requests, Lord, because we all need your help, and we're praying for that this morning. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.