Curious Questions Answered with Joy - 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 28– Purity 1084

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Today's photo of a golden wheat field under cumulus cloud-filled blue skies comes to us from yours truly as I captured this summer scene on the first day of my 51st year on Earth— on the Earth— back on June 25th. Well, it's Monday and Friday in a sense because tomorrow is America's Independence Day giving some of us a 1-day work week. And I don't know if today's photo says America or not, but I am sharing its simple beauty this morning because I realize that we can't even take the somewhat commonplace phenomenon of blue skies for granted. The summer of 2023 may be forever remembered as the summer of white skies because of the effects of the Canadian wildfires that had a significant impact on the last day of June and the first couple days of July. For those who may have forgotten, this is the second time that the wildfires in Canada have caused a whiteout of our northeastern atmosphere. The first instance was so bad that the skies over New York City on June 8th were so smoky that the sky seemed like it, it had been run through a sepia filter. And so I will be praying for the Lord to stop the fires and to give us normal skies again. Saturday was sunny and pleasant enough to cause me to push for a beach day at Lake Lauderdale in Cambridge. After getting my swim on, I was ready to check off Summer '23 as a success, but upon further review, although I will accept the cup I have to drink weather-wise, um, I I will be praying for normal blue skies going forward. Persistent white skies in summer, with or without rain, are just plain weird, even in upstate New York, and I will be adding blue skies to my gratitude list on a permanent basis because I enjoy them and appreciate them. While I was able to experience joy this weekend without blue skies, I joyously anticipate the day we see them again. And that brings us to the end of our current series where we are walking through the 28-Day Joy Challenge because we are encouraging ourselves and others, you, to find peace in our lives by increasing our capacity for joy and by building our emotional resilience through simple practice of quieting and appreciation. The 28-Day Joy Challenge is based on Dr. Marcus Warner and Chris Corsi's latest book, The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People, and you can sign up to take it for free and purchase a variety of books from Warner and Christy on the topic of joy by going to 4habits.org. So let's jump into the last day, Day 28, which will direct us to allow our curiosity to lead us to joy. And the 28-Day Joy Challenge says, Day 28: Are you curious? Welcome to Day 28 of the day of of the 28 Days to Joy Challenge. We made it! Today's encouragement: We hope you found these exercises life-giving. We encourage you to pick some of your favorites and do them again and again. The more we stop and smell the roses, slow down to rest and find things to enjoy, the more our quality of life increases. Share some of your joy with others in your life. Then watch what grows. Today's Practice: Exercise 28. Today we practice cueing our curiosity to keep our joy switch on. How this exercise will benefit you: Curiosity is a good reflection that our brain's joy switch is online and working. Exercise step— steps: What in life Sparks curiosity in you? Who or what topics make you curious? If you could have answers to any questions in the world, what would you ask? Create a list and share your thoughts with a friend. You did it! Congratulations on completing the 28 Days to Joy exercises with us. And that's from our friends at 4habits.org. Well, it may come as no surprise considering I produce a Christian blog and podcast 6 days a week, but the thing in my life that sparks my curiosity like nothing else are the things of God. I am curious about God the Father, Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Lord's plan for all of us and me specifically. If I could have the answer to any questions in the world, I want— I would want to know When will Jesus Christ come to rule and reign on the earth? Will I be physically alive on the earth when that happens? What does the LORD want me to do with my life? How can I give God glory? How can I know Him more? And the question that continuously gives me joy: What is next? I could go on and on and ask a bunch more questions regarding the End Times or future events on the earth. Or God's final answer on debatable points of Christian doctrine. But because I walk by faith, by the Spirit, I am somewhat content knowing that I don't have to know everything or have to be right about everything. My big questions about Jesus's return and my place in God's plan for my life, or what's next, will be revealed in time. And the other questions about how to give God glory and to know him more I think I already know the answers to. To know Him more and to give God glory, I need to seek the Lord—His presence, wisdom, and ways—and follow Him. And for the rest, I guess we'll see. But don't get me wrong, I have great joy in this curious process of life where I discover more about God, about myself, and about His plan for my life as I go. Life in the Spirit is the adventure of adventures. And if anyone is seeking their best life now, you may not be blessed with material prosperity, but I can tell you that the way to find it is to decide to pick up your cross and to follow Jesus. So what about you? What are you curious about that gives you joy? There are many aspects of our lives that give us joy, and inquiring and discovering the truth about things can be a worthwhile endeavor. When it brings you joy. So what are your questions? What do you joyfully contemplate knowing about? Whatever those things are, I hope you enjoy the journey of asking, seeking, and finding what you're looking for. Just because the 28-Day Joy Challenge is over, it doesn't mean that you have to stop finding joy in life. So practice quieting, practice appreciation, and continue to be curious about life and how joy is available to find when is available to find when we seek it. And, uh, you know, this additional commentary for the podcast, you know, there's so many things that we can be curious about, uh, different hobbies and activities and places on the earth to go. I'm curious— my wife wants to go to Alaska. We're curious what that would be like, although I think it'd be quite a bit like upstate New York, but apparently other people have a different opinion. Um, but but we'll discover that someday, maybe, but we have to plan for it, and we'll be able to have joy in anticipating that plan. And, you know, there's all kinds of things. There's different hobbies and things that give us joy and be curious about. And, you know, I think the key there is learning. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but, you know, it doesn't mean it has to lead us into destruction. So be curious and find joy where you can find it. But don't, you know, don't be so curious as to what's it like to sin, because I can tell you that the Word of God is pretty explicit on the fact that that would bring suffering. So that's that. Anyway, today's Bible verse come— verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on adultery. Um, today's Bible verses are Proverbs 6:27-28. Can a man— and the Word of God says, can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? Today's verses are used by our resource to point out that adultery can be avoided. These are the last verses shared under this particular point in our ref— our resource, and they indicate that the sin of adultery calls you to get burned, so thus you should avoid it. If we know something is wrong, well, do we really expect that we can make, make them a part of our life and not suffer negative consequences from them? No. And, you know, even though we— there are people who can walk on hot coals without having their feet scorched, that doesn't mean we should do it as a, as a habit. Well, we shouldn't expect, you know, that we won't suffer. We shouldn't dismiss the word of God and what it tells us about what is right and wrong. Our culture's entertainment industry glorifies adultery as exciting and sexy, but the broken hearts and families that result from going after forbidden fruit are not something anyone wants to see or experience. Today's verses are in the midst of a whole discourse on avoiding adultery, and so I invite you to read Proverbs 6 in its entirety because of its wisdom— because it is wisdom literature after all. But verses 20 through 35, um, will give you the full counsel on the matter of adultery. Those verses highlight how we get burned by this sin and how someone who falls into it can expect to not go unpunished, as it causes disgrace and dishonor personally and may cost you all the goods of your house after a divorce and/or the cold servings of revenge from betrayed spouses on either side. So, avoid adultery and choose to be sexually pure. The passions of lust burn everyone involved, and sometimes the fires sparked by that sin consume and destroy everything. As always, we invite you to go to mtforchrist.org 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 A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and today's, uh, we're finishing up chapter 11 on the Spirit quickening. And, uh, I'm going to actually read this section because it says it's only the beginning. And these are the words of A.W. Pink: Let it be pointed out in conclusion that the Spirit's quickening is only the beginning of God's work of grace in the soul. This does not wholly renew the heart at once. No, indeed, the inner man needs to be renewed day by day. But from that small beginning, the work continues, God watering it every moment. And goes on to perfe— goes on to perfection, that is, till the heart is made perfectly clean and holy, which is not accomplished till death. God continues to work in his elect both to will and to do of his good pleasure, they be— they being as completely dependent upon the Spirit's influence for every right exercise of the will after as for the first, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work within you will finish it until the day of Jesus Christ. And I had this, you know, because it was a short section, I had to share that. And, you know, because of what it says, you know, the Holy Spirit is working in us to, you know, to will and to do God's will and to perfect us. And no, we will not be perfect until death. Um, when Christ will glorify us. But, um, in the meantime, it's a work. The, the quickening of the Spirit works in us and through us, um, to change us and to cause us to find our purpose in Christ. So that's the adventure that we point to. That's the adventure of joy. It is a challenge at times to discover that we've been living a lie or that we've been living in a sin and have caused ourselves damage or other people damage, but we can, uh, we can find joy, um, and, uh, and be confident in that the Lord is working in us through the Holy Spirit. So that's what we do here at, uh, mtcforchrist.org. We encourage people to walk in the Spirit because that's the pathway to peace, as the fruit of the Spirit grow from a life in the Spirit. If you don't know what that means, or what Victory Over the Darkness or Freedom in Christ means, we, we offer our discipleship classes that we have on the podcast and our YouTube channel for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're all works based on Dr. Neil Anderson's work and the Word of God, and they were transformative in my life, and so we share them. And I was thrilled to have another person on YouTube comment. Um, somebody from London, Ontario, uh, has been listening— is listening into the Bondage Breaker series. And we, we say thanks. Um, thanks for letting me know. Um, those teachings are very popular apparently, and, uh, I'm so glad I did them because, because of the wisdom that they contain. Not my wisdom, But well, I suppose there's a little bit of my wisdom, or at least my commentary. But I was blessed by that acknowledgement, and I might have to do more teaching. But right now we just sort of pushing along with the encouragements and the Bible studies. So we appreciate anyone who's checking out, and if you're checking out the Bondage Breaker, we definitely encourage encourage you to check out Victory Over the Darkness and Freedom in Christ as well. And we also did a study on Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. That one's actually on video, but yeah, so if you want to see a PowerPoint presentation of Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, that's out there too. Anyway, we obviously encourage people to read the Word of God. That's how we know what's right and wrong. We don't worry about what the culture tells us. We worry about what the Word of God says, and we unapologetically try to follow that as our standard of morality, because that is the truth of what God tells us is right and wrong. So we encourage people to do personal Bible study so they'll know personally what the Word of God says. So we encourage Bible study, and we do it on the podcast by doing a Bible study with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti each week, and we just did a new study on why I don't share the gospel. And, um, if you want to check that out, we just uploaded that yesterday. Well, it's Monday and Friday, so thank God it's Monday and Friday. Uh, and tomorrow we get to celebrate our freedom, our independence from, you know, I guess Britain. However, I will be celebrating my dependence on Christ. Who's given me true freedom, that I rely on him. Because as free as I want to be, when, when, when my life expires, I won't be able to determine my freedom. I'll be subject to what I believe in. And when we believe in Christ, put our faith in him, we are given eternal life that expands beyond death. So we not need not fear death and And when that's no longer a fear, you can live in freedom. And the other way to live in freedom is to surrender your will to the Lord's. Do what's right according to the Word of God and do the things that he leads you to do. So I encourage a life of Christian discipleship because we live so long a life of sin and, um, of not following the Lord to know that that really, even if we did things, some things, you know, right by the world standard, we would have never been right without God and without Jesus. And so we encourage you to put your faith in Jesus and to follow him, to experience all that he has for you in this abundant life in Christ. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you do for us. And Lord, we just pray for blue skies, the end of the Canadian wildfires, and we pray for your, your mercy and your grace to be poured out in the earth and in all the broken situations that are out there. We pray for your return to make things right under your government. Um, but until then, Lord, we're gonna, we're gonna follow and try to represent you. And so, Lord, we just thank you for the people who are listening or reading this message. We pray for you to bless them and to lead them and guide them in the way they should go, because we all need your help. We need to know, and we need to know and be reminded of what is right, and be encouraged by your Spirit to represent you here on the earth, because that's really all we want to do. We found the answers to life in you, and we want people to know that those answers apply to them as As well. well. And so help us to represent you. We pray for you to go before us, open our eyes to see what you want us to see and to do what you want us to do today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.