In this MT for Christ 24/7 devotional podcast, host M.t. Clark opens with a daily photo metaphor for the Christian journey, urging listeners to stay on the “asphalt pathway” toward light and maturity. He explains spiritual formation as a gradual process, using the toddler‑to‑walker analogy, and emphasizes that believers are now saints called to reflect Christ’s sinless example. Clark reads and interprets Ephesians 5:8‑20 (NLT), urging listeners to live as people of light, be filled with the Holy Spirit, and avoid drunkenness and evil deeds. He then shares Dr. Charles Stanley’s In‑Touch devotional on defending against temptation, outlining the thought‑to‑choice progression of sin and the two cornerstones of a good defense: recognizing God’s control and committing to obedience. Next, he highlights 1 Peter 4:8 (NIV) on love covering a multitude of sins, stressing that love leads to forgiveness, peace, and healthy boundaries. He follows with Stephen F. Allpert’s devotional on 1 John 2:5, teaching that keeping God’s word perfects divine love and that obedience is the evidence of true love for Christ. Clark promotes the Celebrate Freedom support group in Clifton Park, NY, and the channel’s various YouTube playlists (Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, Celebrate Freedom course) as resources for discipleship and recovery. He concludes with a call to be “empty for Christ,” invites listeners to pray for openness to God’s will, and offers a heartfelt prayer for guidance, protection, and spiritual growth. The episode blends scriptural exposition, practical counsel, ministry promotion, and prayerful encouragement.
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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, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of either a spectacular sunrise or stunning sunset sky in the distance over a stretch of Unknown Highway comes to us from a similarly unknown Facebook friend who shared this scene on social media back on January 9th, 2021. If this memory is yours, let us know and we will photo credit you in— on the blog after the fact. Well, it's Thursday, and I share today's Asphalt Pathway photo as a visual encouragement, uh, to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship. Where you will progressively leave the darkness of the past behind as you draw ever closer to the life of goodness and light that the Lord has for you right now and into the future. Spiritual formation, or being transformed into the people that God made us to be, is a process that takes time. And so we consider our spiritual lives to be a journey of growth and maturation. You can't expect a toddler to go from crawling to walking instantly, and likewise, you can't expect new believers in Christ to instantly live a righteous and holy life. However, if someone says that they are serious about following the Lord, you would expect that they would make attempts to turn from the sinful lifestyle choices of their past. If Christ, who lived a sinless life, is our example, We, um, you know, we shouldn't have a blasé attitude toward our sin. While it is right to acknowledge that we were just a sinner saved by grace, after we put our faith in Jesus, we are no longer sinners but saints, and we should follow the Lord to become more and more like Jesus. Ephesians 5:8-20 tells us, for once you were full of darkness, But now you have the light of the Lord, so live as people of light, for this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness. Instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, 'Awake, O sleeper! Rise from up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.' So don't— so be careful how you live. Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves and making music to the Lord in your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that was Ephesians 5, um, 8 through 20 from the New Living Translation, or, or yeah, the NLT, New Living Translation. Um, and, uh, so as new creations in Christ, we have to follow these instructions for living a Christian life. And to overcome sin, when, uh, to overcome sin, we'll need to be able to say no to temptation when it comes calling us back into the darkness. Today's In Touch devotional, uh, with Dr. Charles Stanley, um, speaks on defending against temptation. So I'm sharing it on the blog today to encourage us all to be wise and to rely on our relationship with God to give us a defense that will help us to win the battle when temptation comes calling. Dr. Charles Stanley writes, Defend against him— temptation. Temptation comes to all. The wise prepare for it. When we struggle with temptation, understanding how it works can be helpful. Every sin originates as a thought. If we hold on to the thought, it becomes a fantasy, the chance to imagine what pursuing that notion would be like without actually doing so. Fantasies can easily become entangled with our emotions. This creates a desire which brings us to the point where a choice must be made, and we must either consent to the sin or refuse. This process is quite dangerous as the progression from thought to choice can be almost instantaneous. Wise believers determine ahead of time to resist temptation. They build the defense before the offense happens. There are two cornerstones to a good defense: the recognition that God's in control and the commitment to obey him. We can further fortify our defense when temptation actually comes. Satan has a way of spotlighting the pleasure of sin until it's all we see, but with prayerful effort, we can retrain our focus to take in the bigger picture. Is this choice a violation of God's word? What are the consequences? No one can resist temptation perfectly. We all continue to struggle with sin, But the more we meditate on scripture and communicate with God, the stronger our defense will be. Those are the words of Dr. Charles Stanley, and I say amen. You know, to overcome sin, we must choose to follow the Lord and turn from our sin. We make the decision to go and sin no more as Christ directs us, but we must not try to overcome sin in our own strength because we will fail every time. Without God, we tried to change and couldn't. So we go to God in prayer as we go through life to ask for his strength and wisdom. Also, we examine our thought life and the game film of how we failed in the past. We seek to learn how or why we fell into sin and then game plan to make, uh, come up with a defense to prevent the same mistakes. With God's help and being committed to doing things his way, we can do the impossible. We can walk free. So keep walking and talking with God and commit your mind, soul, heart, and body to doing things his way. We tried our way and our plan didn't work. Let's surrender to the one who loves us and knows what's right. Let's follow the Lord. Today's Bible verses come— well, Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on forgiving others, and today's verse is 1 Peter 4:8 from the NIV. The word of God says, above all, love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins. Today's verse falls under the 10th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on forgiving others. That 10th point is: Love covers— overlooks— a multitude of sins. Today's Bible verse exhorts us to love each other deeply because God knows that when we act in love, we will forgive one another, we'll seek to make peace with one another, and we'll choose to do things that will not harm, or offend one another. Love covers a multitude of sins, not because it chooses to ignore wrongdoing or turn a blind eye to one another's sin. Love covers a multitude of sins because true love would cause us to forgive or seek forgiveness, to make peace, and most importantly, to repent of the things that cause division in the first place. We can love someone without affirming their sinful choices. We can forgive someone without necessarily welcoming them back into our lives. When we choose to follow the Lord, we choose to love and forgive, but we also choose to live by God's word, which will include establishing boundaries in our lives to limit sin's reach into our lives and to keep the darkness at bay. So let the love of the Lord guide your relationships and encourage those who sin against you to surrender to the love and lordship of Jesus. Have all their sins washed clean. 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 in their walk. And today we continue sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Allpert. And, uh, in Allpert's devotional, he prompts us to read a chapter of Scripture. Today's chapter is 1 John 2. And, um, and, and from that chapter, he shares a verse of a section of verse 5, which says, however, or whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. And Stephen Alford writes, perfect love cast out fear. Love, as I have seen in past quiet times, is the most excellent way It is the sum and total of all that is spiritual, for God is love. In this verse, John says, whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. Thus, the secret of perfect love in the experience of the Christian is the keeping of God's word. The Lord Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And Stephen Alford ends by praying, oh Lord, give me the needed grace to keep your word and obey your commands, that your love may be perfected in me. Amen. And, uh, yeah, perfect love. How about that? Um, the love of God is perfected in, in the one that, you know, obeys his word or keeps his word. And that's how we show our love for the Lord. The Lord has showed his love for us by reaching through the darkness and showing us the truth of the Gospel. The changing our hearts and minds to put our faith in Jesus and to decide to follow him. And the way we can express our love for the Lord is to obey. And, you know, Jesus says, go and sin no more. And he says, if you love me, keep my commandments. So he tells us to follow him into the righteous life that and that he has for us, because he knows it's the best life. It's God's perfect will for us to walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh, and to experience the fruit of the Spirit growing in our lives. And that's why we always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Um, when you fully surrender, the evidence for that is a life of following and following Jesus. Uh, it's a life that would involve the study of his word so we can know how to apply it to our lives, keeping the word. And, uh, we've, we've discovered that the path of Christian discipleship, becoming more and more like Jesus, is the only way to go. It's the life, it's the path that leads to life everlasting, and it, and it, it's the path that leads to love, joy, and peace here on Earth, uh, before Christ returns. So we encourage that you not only know who God is, but to, uh, do what God's word says. And when you do that, amazing things happen, like, uh, ministry. And last night we, we hosted the Celebrate Freedom support group, which meets on Wednesdays at 6:30 PM at Starpoint Church in upstate New York, the Clifton Park. Um, and I was blessed to have new people show up and see that they They've received that call from the Lord to, um, to follow him out of the darkness of their pain and their past, uh, to discover the new life that we have for them. So, um, it's a great ministry. It's a great opportunity for growth and maturation, and we offer it to any Christian, um, that wants to live a Christian life. And its focus is recovery and discipleship, but it's also discipleship, um, living a Christian life. That's how we overcome and, and live the transformed life, is to actually do it. Um, so we offer that to anybody in Upstate New York who can get to Clifton Park on a Wednesday. But if you can't, uh, we believe you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of our podcast classes on YouTube. And we have playlists for Bondage Breaker, uh, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, and our own Celebrate Freedom discipleship course, uh, available on our YouTube channel under playlists, along with a whole bunch of different playlists basically from things we've done in the past and also from other, uh, Christian pastors and theologians, uh, basically that we, that we, you know, found impactful and we, we share, share freely even though they're not our videos. We've made playlists to encourage people to, to watch those. So So, uh, they're available, um, on the YouTube channel and also on, on mtforchrist.com. There's a whole page of playlists that we've created, uh, that will get you and get you there. Um, anyway, um, today is Thursday and we're— we always ask the question, always, any day, uh, are you empty for Christ too? And what does that mean? Well, that just means that you're you're making yourself available to do God's will in your life. You're emptying yourself of all the things of the past and being filled with the Holy Spirit to, you know, to walk in love and walk in peace and walk in righteousness as the Lord guides you. So if you are empty for Christ, we say keep on walking and talking with God. And if not, we suggest you pray. Pray about it. Pray to ask the Lord to reveal himself. Pray to make Jesus your Lord and Savior and to change the way you live, and God will be faithful to answer those prayers. And that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Uh, Lord, we thank you so much for the things you did yesterday, the day before, and how you'll be with us, uh, into the future. And today we, we're asking for your help, Lord. We pray for you to go before us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. And we also pray for anyone who's listening or reading or, or watching today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests, Lord, because, uh, we, we all need your help. And, uh, we just want to represent you in your kingdom. And, uh, you know, we want you to help us walk through life. So we're asking you for your help with that today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
