“Do Well” - Purity 837

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 breathtaking forest scene of a short shoreline path leading to the splendor of the heavens reflected in the surface of Louie Lake comes to us from a friend who is vacationing in the heart of the Adirondacks and shared this photo on social media on Monday. Well, it is Thursday again, and our friend's photo is so awesome I decided to use my imagination and see that narrow space between those rocks and the grass as a pathway that looks like it could somehow take us into heaven itself, like some upside-down portal to God's kingdom. I look to share pathways on Thursdays as tradition now to encourage people to get on or stay on the path of Christian discipleship. Uh, which is my way of saying we should follow the call and example of Christ, uh, Jesus Christ with the way we live. Why? Uh, do I have a church? Am I looking for donations? Uh, no. The reason why I encourage people to follow Christ is because for most of my life I didn't, and I suffered because I lived only to please and affirm myself. Turns out my wisdom wasn't very wise. My philosophy of life to, quote unquote, do whatever I want and to, quote, break rules but not get caught, uh, led to addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and hopelessness. My decision to build my life around the things, quote unquote, I like was doomed to failure in a world that constantly changes and where even the activities and things we love the most can lose their luster and ability to satisfy us over time, and especially when we live independently of God. The questions of why I am here or what is the meaning of life are never satisfactorily answered when we fail to consider God, although people will try. Life is about family. Life is about what you do, your work. Life is about having enough to provide for security and fun. Life is about the people you love. While all of these statements have elements of truth and can be a part of a quote-unquote happy life on earth, they don't address eternity, and they don't address the concept of right and wrong. How are we to determine the answers to those questions? What happens after this life? How should I live my life? My silly self-serving philosophies of life before coming to Christ were all based on things I had seen others do in the world, either in person or on TV or in books. Those are all worldly wisdom sources, and like any good lie that would lead you astray, they contain some truth. My exposure, exposure to religion in my youth introduced me to God and Christ, but I— it seemed like a separate thing that we visited once in a while that had good ideas, but that weren't really practical in the real world. Christianity seemed just like another option of life that I can consider and choose to accept or reject. And because its commandments seemed to limit my freedom from things I wanted to do, I decided that it was better to believe it was not true rather than consider the consequences of living outside obedience to its quote-unquote rules. But, as I stated, turning away from God did nothing to give me peace, meaning, or purpose. Without him, everything was debatable, and without, without God, nothing really mattered. In the atheistic worldview that I held, there was no life after death. There were no rules other than what those that society instituted to control us. And there was no justice because people literally would get away with murder and get rich from criminal means. Thankfully, God revealed himself to me, and to all of us, with his word and the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. When I heard the gospel message that saved my life, all those perplexing questions of life meaning, purpose, and debates about how to live were answered. Why are we here? God made the heavens and the earth and made man in His image to have dominion over it. What happens to us after death? God is waiting in eternity to meet us, and He will accept those who put their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior into His kingdom. How should we live? We should live according to the Word of God and the example of Christ. What's right? What's wrong? God's Word teaches us that. And when we fail to follow it, we suffer the consequences. From these questions and answers, you could condemn yourself because you could see the implications that if you fail to make Christ your Lord and Savior and live according to God's word, that you'll be punished. And you might not think that's fair, um, like I did. So you will make up your own rules and make your own gospel about what happens in eternity, or adopt some worldly or other religion that is more palatable. But instead of being angry or afraid of God because of the possibility that we won't believe or follow Him, I invite people to discover what happens when we do believe what the Word of God says, when we do put our faith in Christ, and when we do try to live in His ways. I was so busy rebelling against God and any authority, really, that I never stopped to consider what would happen if I did believe. Or I did obey. In Genesis 4:6-7, God said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it." It took me most of my life and a radical encounter with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I I have come to know that I was busy not doing well, and subsequently sin ruled over me. Instead of turning from it, I turned to sin again and again and suffered greatly. But by the grace of God, the Lord showed me that if I simply followed him, he would take away my guilt, my shame, my pain, and in its place give me peace, love, and joy that comes from knowing that this life has a meaning and a purpose that is defined and established by God, and by choosing to live by it and for it. I'm still a work in progress because I'm continuing to discover that the simple injunction to "do well" by God applies to every area of my life. That could seem daunting, but as I have walked with him since 2010, I've just— I've discovered that his all-encompassing command to do well, when obeyed, results in blessings and peace. So keep walking and talking with God. If you don't have peace, consider surrendering your will for his. Consider making the daily decision to stop living according to your own philosophies and choose to do well by living with God and by living the way he would have you go. Well, once again, uh, I spent some time this morning preparing for tonight's presentation, uh, for the Bonhoeffer discipleship course that I'm doing on Zoom for the M.t. for Christ 24/7 podcast and the M.t. for Christ 24/7 YouTube channel. And so my time is limited again. And we will skip the verse of the day for today, but hope to share one from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men again tomorrow. And I'll try not to lose my place. I think I have a bookmark in there. Um, yeah, it's just, uh, this morning I decided to read the, uh, second chapter of, uh, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship, and it wasn't short. Um, Luckily it's sort of a Bible study exposition of the rich young ruler passage, and so I'm counting that as my Bible study today too, because it was, you know, it was such a long time in prayer and reading that this morning that I'm short on time. But I wanted to do it because I want to be prepared for my presentation, because it's really, you know, I made a PowerPoint presentation and it's really just a lot of copying and pasting of Bonhoeffer's words. But, um, uh, you know, I want to be familiar with what I speak about tonight and, uh, and try to put in the context of discipleship. You know, that's why we're— we're— we decided to do that study. Um, there hasn't been a lot of downloads of the class, so I guess I'm doing it for myself and for, um, Peter James and Mike Thomas who joined me last week. Um, but, um, you know, I'm going to be faithful to what what God put on my heart and to, you know, encourage myself and these other men, if nobody else, you know. And that's it, you know. We really have to have the, you know, the disciple's view. If we can just help one person, it's— we're doing the will of God, and that's okay. And that's why we do our podcast and our blog and and the YouTube channel is basically to encourage people to discover the simple truth of the gospel and how, you know, not only is eternity taken care of when we put our faith in Christ, but when we follow and obey God's commands and, you know, principles in the Bible for living, we discover that we get set free from the world itself. We discover peace, joy, and and love that go beyond all understanding. And even in our hardships, we can have peace, um, and freedom, you know, freedom from sin, um, are all possible when we walk in the ways of the Lord. Um, you know, I don't know if you're hearing that in your church or, or what, but, uh, that's why I'm sharing the message, you know, of freedom in Christ. That's why I, uh, I do— I've been blessed to do a ministry with freedom in Christ. Um, you know, I've discovered the freedom message in life for myself, and, uh, I figure it's, it's my purpose in life to share this information and encouragement with other people. Um, as always, we invite you to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ. Um, today we're sharing from— we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship. And today we start Chapter 2, The Call to Discipleship. And don't worry, I didn't share the entire thing, uh, that would take quite some time to read. Uh, I only shared an excerpt of it, uh, to get you started, and we'll be continuing to share that until we get to Chapter 3, and you know, we'll see how that goes. But Bonhoeffer doesn't pull any punches in terms of following Christ, and I really recommend Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship, or Discipleship depending on where you buy it and what form, because his His book really encourages us to follow the Lord, and it's not just following— like, I say to follow the ways of the Lord, but it's really following Jesus, you know, following the person of Christ, answering his call on your life, you know. Um, so, uh, you know, check that resource out on the blog or, or get it for yourself. As always, we encourage people to follow the Lord, No surprise, that's the big thing that we do here. And part of our encouragements basically include the, the classes we taught from Freedom in Christ Ministries back in 2021 at our local church. We did a, a teaching on Victory Over the Darkness, the Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ. They're all available on the podcast and the YouTube channel. And I've had people reach out to me and get asked for the resources 'Hey, you had handouts in your class, you know, I'd like to see those.' And, you know, I ended up sending them the entire thing. I'm greatly encouraged to find out that people are actually, you know, watching and listening and learn— you know, hopefully learning from those courses on YouTube. You know, like I said, one person is all I need to encourage me, and I get that, and I get that, and I get comments on these purity, these little messages I do in the morning, and people saying thank you or right on time, and I'm like, you know, humbled by it greatly, you know, and I'm like, that's all I need because I get a lot of that out of this anyway, to just speak the truth of how good God is every day, to send me off into the world in the right frame of mind. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, this— I guess you'd consider it journaling as part of a Christian discipleship principle there. But yeah, that's what I'm doing here, and, you know, encouraging others, encouraging myself in the Lord. And so let's pray and do that discipline. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you've done for us. By revealing us the truth of, uh, who Jesus Christ is and, uh, giving us the grace to make him our Lord and Savior. And Lord, just, uh, we pray for everyone listening today. Lord, we pray for you to come alongside their prayer requests. We prayed for Steve Topper, uh, as he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. We're praying for his healing today. We're also praying for Dave Hayward, who has heart— open heart surgery this Friday. Um, and Lord, we're praying for, um, all the members of my Freedom in Christ course, um, basically that they be encouraged as we enter into week 3 next week, um, on, uh, choosing to believe the truth. And, um, Lord, we just pray that, uh, we never forget your truth and that you lead us into more truth through your Holy Spirit. Lord, we pray for you to go before us today and to open our eyes to the things you want us to see, the things we need to know, and to guide us into the things you would have us do in this day to best represent you on the earth in your kingdom and your hope and your love. Lord, we, we thank you so much for all that you do, and, uh, Lord, we love you, we praise you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.