Do It Yourself Baptisms and Bringing it All Together Purity 953

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Good morning. Today's photo of a red-nosed kayak gliding along the surface of what I suspect to be Lake George comes to us from a Facebook friend who shared this scene from a paddling session on social media on August 20th, 2020. I have a few Facebook friends that paddle, so the suspects are limited, but as of this morning, the photographer's identity remains a mystery. So if, if this is your memory and want to be identified, speak up, and I'll update the blog after the fact to give you the credit for sharing this tranquil scene that fills me with joy and keeps me looking ahead to the spring and summer. Well, it's the last Saturday in January, rejoice! And I guess I have to admit it, I prefer the months of the year where winter is a distant memory. Whether it's the first green of spring, the thriving life of summer, or even the fading colors of autumn, I prefer them all to the cold, harsh, barren landscapes of winter. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the beauty that can be seen after freshly fallen snow, or the silent stillness that is unique to winter, but during a morning meditation exercise where I was directed to think of my Eden, visions of winter landscapes did not come to mind. The meditation exercise, which is a part of the 30 Days to Resilient program on the One Minute Pause app, comes to calls you to think of places you'd like to go on vacation, places in nature that you appreciate, indicating that the joy found from contemplating your favorite places resonates with us all as the desire for Paradise Lost, our joy we experience when, when we contemplate the different places we enjoy on Earth supposedly is deep in our souls because we are longing to be restored to Eden. During my meditation, I thought of various beaches in upstate New York, hiking trails, the beaches I knew as a child on Cape Cod, Pike Peaks in Colorado, beaches and parks in Florida, and views from a big— from a trip to the Big Island and of Kona in Hawaii. But when the meditation directed me to ask Jesus to reveal the Eden he was making for me, I was a little shocked, uh, to realize I was brought back to a memory from my past of my backyard when I lived on Oak Hill Road in Cloverick, just a couple of miles outside of the village of Philmont, where my spiritual journey with the Lord had begun. My backyard on Oak Hill Road was a clear open space that featured an above-ground swimming pool with a big clear view of the sky above, with all the trees typical of upstate New York on the borders of the property. I spent many summers in that pool looking up at the— to the sky with my children through the years, uh, through the years there. And when directed to be brought to Eden, I was taken there. Uh, it was at Oak Hill Road that the biggest tragedy of my life happened. My son Holden died there. But because of that tragedy, my search for the meaning of life began there too. In the wake of that loss in 2002, I was lost in a few years of depression and going through the motions of living when I eventually started asking the big questions. Or at least started looking to answer them. I was too damaged from the trauma of the loss to turn back to Christianity, and so started examining life on a base level of scientific speculation accompanied with the theories posited by Buddhism. And so I really started looking at life with an inquiring mind. Eastern mysticism just keeps you— just keeps you looking at what is and invites you to see the realities of impermanence and interconnectedness, to investigate the mysteries of creation, all the while never pondering the Creator. I spent years rejoicing over the mysteries of how things come into being and fall apart, and how with focused attention you could find peace in the present moment. Although I am sure I probably thought my contemplations of the universe and how things really are were deep, uh, the truth is when you only focus your attention on the universe and life on Earth without including God, it's like you're examining the bark of a— on a tree and become very familiar with all the contours and grooves of the bark on the tree, but you are failing to notice that you are standing in a forest of trees. There's a great big sky overhead and the reaches of outer space and all the expanses of the galaxies and universe beyond. Without including God and the person of Jesus Christ in your contemplations, you can't see the forest for the trees. Your view of life is incomplete and you are lost in the woods. But hey man, I was digging the bark on the tree. I was just loving it and probably would have stayed lost in the forest of the contemplation of the universe, the passing of my breath, and my own wisdom forever because due to my pain, I didn't want to think about God. I decided that there wasn't a God. Life was just a mystery, and I was destined to die and become one with the universe and possibly be born again through some magical reincarnation. I decided that Christianity was just a myth created by men to control others. I decided it wasn't real. I never counted on a personal God who would call me on it, but that is what happened. Through a radio message in 2010, the Lord revealed the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ And ha— and has been— and having been shown the forest, the sky, and the Creator God above it all who loved us enough to come to earth and to die for us to save us, I put my faith in Jesus immediately. And the journey of my life has been a wild one of progressive goodness ever since. So why did Jesus bring me back to Oak Hill Road during this morning's meditation? Why would he bring me back to the place where I spent endless hours rejoicing in the universe and mystery of life, irrespective of him? Why would he bring me back to the place of my largest loss? I think he brought me back there because it was while I was living at Oak Hill Road that I surrendered my life to him. I was saved in a parking lot on Aviation Road in Albany, uh, on a Friday in March, but I eventually went home to Oak Hill Road with my, with my born-again faith in Jesus. Those were obviously confusing days back in 2010. Having been a full-fledged practicing Buddhist of the Kaiju Mahamudra Tibetan tradition for 5 years or so, I had to figure out how to be a born-again Christian. My last Christian experience was in an an Episcopal Church, but my congregation was ultra-liberal, and I knew that rejoining my previous church that had homosexual reverends was not the way to go if I wanted to follow the Bible, which I had been reading in earnest. Sorry. Uh, while we are all forgiven of our sins when we come to Christ, no matter what they are, we are called to repent of them. I didn't go to the church that featured reverends that were into adultery, murder, or theft either. No matter how nice they profess— that they might profess to be. I eventually found a Bible-believing church where I learned to be authentic in my Christian faith, to live according to the Word of God. But in those early days of my born-again Christianity, I was just trying to figure it out. Having read the Bible, I knew that baptism was an important part of being a Christian, and it was sometime in the summer of 2010 that I decided to baptize myself. Taking the Book of Common Prayer that I had from my Episcopal classes before my confirmation, um, one summer day I read the prayers for the rite of baptism and immersed myself in my swimming pool, baptizing myself before the Lord to demonstrate to God that I was serious about my newfound faith. I sort of forgot about this little episode in my life. I was actually later baptized by members of Hillsong Church while on a work assignment in the spring of 2013 on the day of the Boston bombings in New York City. Well, not that the Boston— yeah, that's too many, too much details all at once there. And I point to that day of the day of my baptism. I had more or less forgotten all about that the dunking and baptizing myself back in 2010. I guess it— I wasn't sure that I counted, but God didn't forget. I think I was brought back to Oak Hill Road in this morning's meditation session because that impromptu self-baptism counted with God. God took me back to a place where I enjoyed many summers in the splendor of his creation, and it just happened to be the place where I did an outward expression of my inward faith even though there was no one there to see it. Jesus brought me back to my Eden, the place where I did a simple act of faith without witnesses that told God I was His. So, have you been baptized? Have you chosen to die with Christ and to be raised to life again? A lot of people who have been baptized as babies will tell you it doesn't matter. But I believe it does. I believe that we can't choose the new life that Christ has for us by proxy. I believe we all have to make a choice to die and live for him. So I invite you to seek the Lord and to make sense of the mystery of life by contemplating it all and bringing it all together: the wonders of the universe, the Creator God who made it, and the person of Jesus Christ who came into it to tell us of God's love and to make a way to have peace with Him. Only when you knock down the four walls of the church and your limited understanding of life and the way things are and contemplate God and Jesus Christ can you make sense of it all. So keep walking and talking with God and invite Him to show you your Eden and to be restored to the life that He has for you. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Psalm 40:2, uh, and the verse says, "He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along." Today's Bible verse reminds us how the Lord will save us and pull us out of the dirt of our darkness and the depths of despair to give us a new life to walk into. Today's verse should speak to all of us who have come to faith in Jesus when we realize just how lost we really were and how our faith caused us to repent and walk away from the dark ways of our past. This is a rejoicing verse if there ever was one. So rejoice! God lifted us out of our muck and mire. He took us out of the pit of despair, and He has put us on the solid rock of faith in Jesus Christ, Christ, and invites us to walk it out. So keep on walking and rejoicing over what God has done for you. 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're continuing in chapter 5, which is the Sovereignty of God and Reprobation. So if you want to hear about being a reprobate, go to mtforchrist.org and read what A.W. Pink has to say about that at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship by knowing who you are in Christ and experiencing your freedom in Christ. Christ. And, uh, to do that, we invite you to check out the discipleship classes we taught back in 2021 that we podcasted. Uh, they're on the podcast and our YouTube channel. The classes we did were for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, uh, which are all based on the word of God and the teachings of Dr. Neil Anderson of Freedom in Christ Ministries. So, um, we invite you to do that. And, uh, as always, we invite you to read the word of God. Um, you know, the truth of the word of God is what we need to apply to our lives. So we should have a daily spiritual practice where we read some of it and begin applying it to our lives. We encourage Bible study by, by sharing our Bible study with you that we do once a week with Arthur and Susanna Zinkadi. So if you want to check those out, we have a whole archive of previous studies on the blog on the podcast, the blog, and the YouTube channel, uh, all under the heading of Bible Study with the Cincottis. So we invite you to check those out. And, uh, well, it's Saturday. I have to work. I hope most of you have the day off. Um, but God is good because at the end of the day, I will be going north to my countryside home to be reunited with my lovely wife Um, and I can't wait until the end of the day, so let's get to it, um, by praying. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for everything you do for us. We thank you for taking us out of the pit of despair, taking us out of our muck and mire, picking us up and washing us off in the water of baptism, and inviting us into the new abundant life that you have for us when we, when we follow you. Um, Lord, so we pray, uh, for anyone who might be listening or reading the message today, Lord, that you would bless them and that you would guide them in the way they go, that you would come alongside their prayer request and show them what they need to know. So, um, we want that for ourselves too, Lord. So we pray for you to go before us today. If you can make it an easy day at work, Lord, we would appreciate it. Um, we know you're sovereign, so anything happens is certainly, you know, you're certainly aware of, and I believe you're directing things. So we're going to ask you to go before us and make it a good day and bring us safely to where we want to go at the end of the day. So let's pray. Lord, um, we just pray, um, for you to show us the things you want us to see today, help us to do the work we have to do, and, um, and guide our path and to best represent you, uh, here on Earth. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.