Beyond Broken Resolutions - Return to Freedom - Purity 954

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Uh, let's see, today's photo of the fading light of day reflected on the Hudson River comes to us from yours truly as I felt moved to capture this downriver view as I pulled into the driveway of River House on the last Friday of January in 2023. Well, it's Tuesday and the last day of January, and although it is the end of the first month of the new year, I am looking forward to new beginnings. Yesterday I was offline for a sick day, and although I took a day off from blogging and podcasting as well, I do feel better today because of the rest for my body and the restoration of my soul. I experienced because although I skipped my physical exercise regimen, I took the time in the early morning hours to do the Steps to Freedom in Christ. So now I am rested and restored and ready to begin again. Not only am I ready to resume my regular work responsibilities today, I am also ready to do what I can to help and encourage other Christians to discover who they are in Christ and to either establish or deepen their freedom in Christ. Tonight I begin leading a new Freedom in Christ course on Zoom, and I am looking forward to teach and to remember what I have come to know about our new lives in Christ and how the acceptance of our new identities as children of God is the key to our freedom and victory. Uh, quite frankly, I look forward to the new course for myself as much as for the men that I have signed up for the course. The last few months of 2022 and the first month of the new year has been a mixed bag of inconsistencies, as I have compromised my health goals with holiday fleshly indulgences, and I fell victim to an episode of wishful thinking that led to discontentment and a moment— momentary loss of reason. So tonight, it's back to basics and a return to sanity, as I am choosing to take the momentum of the new course as a launching pad to get back on the path of Christian discipleship with the enthusiasm of one who knows what works. When I deny myself, pick up my cross, and just abide in the Lord's presence and follow his lead, my life is filled with the simple peace and joy that comes from just doing what is right. To get as basic as we can, uh, As we can see that this was one of God's first instructions to man as he said to Cain in Genesis 4:6-7 where he said, "Why are you so angry?" the Lord asked Cain. "Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it." and be its master. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't living in a licentious life of sin like my old man over the last few months, but I did seek comfort from the things of the world here and there, and I wished/prayed for God to be a genie with the hope that he would deliver me from my secular day job and bless my socks off with a new home and comparable sourdough just like that. I had forgotten to be disciplined in my approach to life by seeking comfort from the world in food and entertainment and and was hoping to be transported to a better place rather than focusing on my walk day to day and trusting the Lord to lead me in the things I've already planned for this year. So I am declaring today to be the start of a new chapter of this ongoing journey of pursuing the Lord and his plan for my life by keeping it simple. Yesterday I did my periodic house cleaning by going through the Steps to Freedom in Christ So I am feeling light as a bird as I have dropped any and all baggage I may have been carrying since the last time I did the steps. Through the steps and coming before the Lord in prayer, I have dealt with some rather recent disappointments, losses, and bitternesses from the slights and unjust treatments I felt I have received as I walk through the fall of 2022 to now. As if to confirm the new beginning, as I return to my regular exercise routine, Amazon Music offered up see as "Bird Set Free," which ends with a victorious declaration. And I don't care if I sing off-key. I find myself in my melodies. I sing for love. I sing for me. I shout it out like a bird set free. No, I don't care if I sing off-key. I find myself in my melodies. I sing for love. I sing for me. I shout it out I shouted out like a bird set free. I shouted out like a bird set free. I shouted out like a bird set free. That song always lifts my spirits as I remember walking through the fire with the Lord to my new life in Christ, to my new place down by the river, and to the love I have with my wife, Tammy Lynn. Our freedom and our victory is found in Christ alone and is never lost. If we forget who we are and wander off, the Lord is always there to restore us and to encourage us to follow him in the way that leads to peace. As those lyrics faded away, my spirit was raised even higher as the Holy Spirit caused me to remember John 8:36, where Jesus told us, "Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." Because of Jesus, I am free. And it's a fine time to remember that and to walk in it. So if your New Year's resolution has been blown like many have been, celebrate the last day of the month of broken resolutions by choosing to begin again based on who you are in Christ. Jesus has set us free, and sometimes we just need to remember that to walk into the new life we already have. So keep walking and talking with God by keeping things simple and just taking care of what is ahead of you and trusting him to guide you the rest of the way into the things unseen. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Isaiah 49:13, and it says, sing, O heavens, be joyful, O earth, and break out in singing. O mountains, for the Lord has comforted his people and will have mercy on his afflicted. Today's Bible verse reminds us of how the Lord comforts his people and has mercy on his afflicted. His afflicted? Say what? I thought that walking with the Lord would be a continual journey into Eden-like gardens of happiness and peace. While we can enjoy mountaintop, uh, mountaintop heights of joy as we experience moments of accomplishments and victory, today's verse reminds us that we will we will also experience the reality of the joy of the Lord being our strength when we receive His mercy while being afflicted. When we seek happiness or comfort from the world and forget about who we are in Christ, it doesn't take long for us to long for the comfort to our souls that only the Lord can bring. If we are not careful, we can easily be tempted to take a rest from seeking the Lord and go back to old, old patterns of seeking happiness from the things of this world. But it doesn't take long for us to remember that the things of the world never satisfied us in the first place, and we soon see the errors of our ways and may even condemn ourselves of not being worthy of restoration from the Lord and may even persist in going the wrong way for a while, which only makes our conditions worse. When you experience the goodness of God in your life, nothing else will work, and we can feel the affliction that comes from forsaking His path. Like the prodigal son, our brokenness, our affliction, will show us that we are far from home and the goodness that we once knew. But when we turn back to our Heavenly Father, we learn that He has been waiting for us to return to Him, and He graciously showers us with comfort and the mercy we desperately need, and our joy and our peace is restored. So return to the Lord and know He is good, and when you rejoice, you too can shout it out for the world to hear. Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people and will have mercy on His afflicted. 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 A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and we continue in chapter 5, The Sovereignty of God and Reprobation. And so if you want to see another section for the chapter, go to mt4christ.org, um, and you'll see that at the end of today's blog post. So as always, we encourage a life of discipleship because it just happens to be the life that leads to peace joy as we walk in the Spirit. So as I stated, I'm starting a new course in Freedom in Christ, so sorry you can't register for that one. However, our previous teachings that we taught back in 2021 have been podcasted and are shared on our podcast and our YouTube channel. So we would invite you to check out our teachings that we've done previously on Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and and Freedom in Christ, um, you know, basically to help you to learn who you are in Christ and to help you experience your freedom in Christ. As always, we also encourage Bible study as we need to know that truth that sets us free, and it's contained in the Bible. So we, we encourage that by offering our own Bible study that we do with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti. Our latest study was put out just this past Sunday, and It's there and ready for, for you to listen and to follow along with the outline, which is on the podcast and the— well, the outline's on the blog, the podcast on the podcast and our YouTube channel. So we invite you to check those things out. It's Tuesday, looking forward to going back to work and getting back to normal. Didn't feel 100% yesterday, and, uh, I felt called to call in sick. And, uh, I got restored very nicely, got a lot of rest, a lot of sleep. Sometimes you run down and your body doesn't like it, and, uh, it calls for you to take a day off. Um, and so there we go. And so now we begin again, and, uh We look forward to what the Lord is going to do in this new Freedom in Christ course and what he's going to do over the next month or two as we lead the participants to know who they are and to trust the Lord and to experience new heights of freedom, God willing. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for restoring us through the Steps to Freedom in Christ and through the rest we took yesterday. We thank you, Lord, for anyone who might be still be tuning in or looking at the blog, um, as we appreciate anyone who's, uh, checking out our messages. Um, as we were, we were touched to see someone share a message from us from 3 years ago on Facebook yesterday, um, before we started putting things into the blog. Someone, someone was, uh, encouraged by our words. So thank you for letting us see that, Lord, and remembering that our encouragements don't necessarily just fall to the ground, that sometimes they're, uh, they're picked up and, and they help other people on their path. So, so help us today, Lord. We pray for those people who might be listening, that you come alongside them and their prayer request and help them in their walk. And, um, well, we thank you for the restoration you've given them our lives, um, as we had a moment Terry Lapp's A Reason, um, and some compromises. And so, Lord, we, we surrender to you and your will and ask for your strength to help us in the days ahead to walk in the way we know to walk and, uh, to be disciplined, to surrender our lives to you. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and, uh, we love you. And we ask you to go before us today to open our eyes to the things we— you want us to see and to, to move into the things you would have us do, um, Lord, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom here on Earth, to encourage other people to find Jesus and find the life that you have for them. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.