Company and Comfort on the Path of Discipleship - Purity 1247

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 red sunset falling into the clouds on the horizon of an unknown beach location comes to us from my phone's photo archive where I saved an unknown Facebook friend's summer view back on July 24th, 2020. If this is yours, let us know so we can give photo credit to where photo credit is due, and so we can know where you were. Your friends might want to follow in your footsteps and see this place for ourselves. Well, it's Saturday, and while I doubt anyone would want to follow my footsteps into my Saturday work tour with a forecast of showers, the reason I blog is with the hope that some will take my advice seriously and to not only put their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, but to follow him on the path of Christian discipleship, where you live by faith and walk in the Spirit while you live in the presence of God continually. I have been blessed by the Lord with my freedom in Christ, and so I try to share it with as many people as possible. And recently I've been blessed with some faithful men and women along the path that I can encourage to step out into the, into the life that God has for them. After being called to lead the Celebrate Freedom Recovery/Discipleship Growth Group at Star Point Church, I was blessed to have Debbie Duyo agree to be the women's discussion group leader and Scott Salvador volunteer to lead the men's group. They both proved to be faithful to the ministry and were a great support to me in 2023, but as we entered into the new year, I got the idea that in order for them to grow further in their faith and in their leadership skills, I should step back and offer them the opportunity to run the meetings and to be responsible for all aspects of the ministry. I was thrilled when both— they both agreed, uh, to answer the call to leadership, and this past week they co-led the first meeting of the new round of recovery lessons. They did a great job, and I am excited to watch how the next 25 weeks unfold as I will be support— as I will support— I will support and oversee their ministry, but just act as— but just act in a supporting role as they literally make the ministry their own. Similarly, the Lord has put it in my heart to offer the Freedom in Christ course to a pair of participants from the group who who seem ready to step further into their faith and prayerfully into their freedom in Christ. They have agreed in principle to be accountable, to do the coursework, and I look forward to seeing them progress and experience their freedom in Christ by going through the Steps to Freedom. I led Brian Miller, uh, through the Steps last year, and I am happy to report that he has experienced his freedom and, uh, advanced in the Lord's calling on his life. As he was nominated for and accepted the role of the new men's discipleship discussion group leader last week. And to these blessings, the fact that I have begun discipling another group of men all over the country with the online Freedom in Christ course that I lead on Monday nights. And I would have to say that it's an exciting time as I anticipate seeing the Holy Spirit move in their lives as well. So even though I find myself going to work this morning on a Saturday, I am overjoyed with what the Lord is doing in and around my life, and by the fact that I'll be going to see my wife at our countryside home when the workday is done. So let's thank God for all he has done in our lives and let's rejoice. Hey, if you're not seeing the Lord move in and around your life, let me encourage you to surrender to Jesus' Lordship and follow His call on your life. If you don't know what that is, turn from your worldly pursuits, pray, and ask Him. He will lead you, and if you follow, you will know just how good our Heavenly Father is at giving you hope, meaning, peace, and purpose. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on comfort, and today's verses are from 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 3 and 4. From the New American Standard Bible, the word of God says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Today's verses fall into the 17th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on comfort, and that 17th point is: God is the source of all comfort. Today's verses assure us that God will comfort us in our afflictions, and that our comfort— and the— and that the comfort we receive can be reshared with others to help them in their afflictions. Well, I was afflicted this morning with a crash of my laptop that wiped away all my heartfelt sentiments regarding these verses the first time around. I stated how this ministry of encouragement was born out of God's comforting and helping me. I started— I stated how I had come to a place in my life where I realized that the answers that I had for what I thought was the meaning of life, to satisfy every fleshly and selfish desire on demand, was all wrong. And even though I was way out in left field and looking for answers and love in all the wrong places, God was merciful and graceful and revealed the truth of reality through a gospel radio message that I had only sat down to listen to mock. He showed me that life did have a meaning and that it could continue on through faith in Jesus. It makes sense that the Creator of life itself would determine its meaning and be the one who decides what— that life can continue— who decides that— that he decides that life can continue on into eternity through Jesus. Duh. It was better the first time around, I swear. Anyway, God comforted me through the hardest days of my life and has led me to a place where I have freedom, victory, peace, love, and joy. So let me assure you, the only place to find purpose and meaning and love and peace that will satisfy is from God, and he gives it all to us freely when we put our faith and trust in Jesus. So seek His comfort, seek His truth, seek His love, and live in His presence. He comforts us in our afflictions and empowers us to experience a new life that we can use to comfort others and to point them to the One who comforted us. 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 According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford, a collection of devotional journals from 1940 and '41. And this research— basic resource basically encourages people to read their Bibles, and it shares insights that Alford wrote down in his journals way back when. And today's, uh, entry is, is telling— it's for evening reading, the read Matthew 6, and Alfred shares Matthew 6:21, where the Word of God says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And Alfred also writes, how necessary then to lay up treasures in heaven, from verse 20. The Apostle Paul expresses the same truth when he says from 1 Timothy 6:19, storing up for yourselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold of— hold on eternal life. Alford writes, it would seem from the last quoted scripture and its context that laying up treasure really means trusting in the living God, 1 Timothy 4:10, readiness to give, give of your riches, 1 Timothy 6:18, But as to heaven, laying up treasure means a good foundation for the future from 1 Timothy 6:19 and laying hold of eternal life, 1 Timothy 6:19. This is the real treasure, the center of heart affections. That's what Stephen Alford had to write, and he prays at the end, may I set my affections on things above, Lord, and not on things of the earth. Amen. Amen. And yeah, so we, uh, you know, uh, treasure really means trusting in the living God, uh, readiness to give of our riches to others. And, um, and as to heaven, laying up treasure means a good foundation for the future, um, and laying hold of eternal life. So I'm not sure how that will play out in eternity, but, uh, our good works are rewarded in heaven. So that's why we do good works, not to get into heaven But, you know, because that's what we're created for. Ephesians tells us that. Second Ephesians— Ephesians 2 somewhere, you know, we're saved by grace. And, you know, I think it's verse 10, 2:10, tells us that we're saved for good works, that we're to do good works like comforting others who are afflicted. After we— but they say, you know, I've heard it said you can't give from an empty vessel. And so we get our comfort from the Lord, we get our knowledge, love, and peace from the Lord, and then we can give. If we haven't received, how can we give? If we're not seeking the Lord's comfort, help, and guidance, how can we, how can we receive it? So, you know, we believe, but then we have to follow. And so when we follow, we receive, and we can give to others. And that's what I try to do on the blog and the podcast, is to give I'm not telling you to follow me, I'm telling you to follow Jesus. Read your Bible, pray, and listen to the Holy Spirit to guide you in the way you should go. He's the one who will reveal all truth and, you know, show you things to come. So you should walk in the Spirit to discover that. So seek knowledge, seek wisdom, read the Word, read Christian books, read everything, watch Christian messages, rejoice and sing praise songs, praises to the Lord with Christian music. You know, it's a full immersion. You know, we are baptized into the faith, so let's baptize ourselves into a Christian lifestyle. You know, where it's not just a show, that this is, this is who we are now. This is— we are children of God and we're going to live according to it by knowing the word and, and sharing it and sharing the hope and, and love that we have. From God. So today is Saturday. I'm gonna pray and go to work and hope to get through it unscathed, relatively dry, and to be delivered to my love in Easton tonight. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for the retrieval of what data there was from the laptop crash. We pray for you to protect our PC. Uh, going forward. And Lord, most importantly, we pray for you to bless anyone who's reading or listening to today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer request and, uh, their walk of faith. And Lord, we need you to protect us too. Please go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom and to appoint other people to know you and to be saved and to serve your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.