Don’t Fear the Reaper A Harvest of Repentance Purity 880

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's rather dark photo of a recently harvested cornfield set against the contrast of thriving green of what I believe to be winter wheat comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene while out for a walk along Waite Road in Easton yesterday as the sun was dipping into the horizon. Well, it is Friday, so thank God and rejoice over the last day of the work week, if that applies to you, and for all that the Lord has done to make your lives new. While today's photo isn't particularly spectacular, I thought it was a good visual representation of us transitioning into the life of the weekend. And because I will be leading another man through the Steps to Freedom in Christ today, and I hope to see the Holy Spirit reap a harvest of repentance as we meet later this morning in prayer. For those who follow the blog, you may remember I already shared a photo of this field and the contrast of corn ready for harvest and the humble beginnings of the sprouting, sprouting winter wheat. But yesterday I say I saw that the Farmers had completely cleared the cornfield of its harvest, and I am sharing this photo today because it reminds me of what the Lord can do with the unruly, overgrown messes of our past. Just like that cornfield, our past can be an a substantial, uh, unruly mess. And the sheer volume of it and all its accumulated trauma, sin, and bitterness can seem like it's just too much to deal with, and it is something that we should just ignore and keep walking past. But just like that cornfield, if we don't clear the land of our past and use the things in it to nourish us, it's just a waste. And we can't just pick and choose the good things of our past to be able to walk free from of it. Just like the reaper took the corn, the ears of corn, and all the stalks, leaves, and ripped out the roots of the corn. In order to adequately be free of the pain of our past and to be able to grow anew, we have to take all of our past and give them to the Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to process it all to make us grow. With the Lord's help, we can acknowledge it all. All that did happen to me Some of it was good, but some of it was bad. Some of it just wasn't right. The things I did weren't right. The things others did to me weren't right. And some of the things that happened to my friends and family, or by my friends and family, weren't right either. While the world would suggest either to move on from your past by just forgetting about it, or by setting scores and by getting even, The Lord wants you to get— to process— to process your past. Well, he wants you to get— process your past, your old life, by living the new one he has for you. And the new life that the Lord has for you commands that you enact the Lord's solution for your problems. Past and present. His solution is forgiveness and repentance, and the Holy Spirit in every Christian is the one who can help us reap all of our spiritual and personal conflicts according to God's wisdom and love to clear the land and allow you to sow the seeds of a new life that will not be choked out by the weeds of your past. Going to the Lord and confessing your sins and then making the decision to live for Him and according to his ways. To learn who you are in Christ and to follow the example of Jesus is the way to the new life, and it's a process of prayer, faith, and action. We can't just reap our own harvest. Repentance is granted by the Holy Spirit alone, and it is with and through him that we can be healed of our hurts and give the power— and be given the power to transform our lives. Uh, so for those who have already had the Lord clear the fields of your past, rejoice! Your victory and freedom need never end as long as you keep on walking and talking with God. As for those whose past still have a tendency to loom over you, I suggest you go to the Lord and ask Him to help you to clear your field. The Steps to Freedom in Christ is one way you can do it. The steps guide people to pray to the Lord and to ask Him to help them repent and deal with the hurts of the past. The steps are just a roadmap, but you invite the Lord to walk through them together in faith. The Lord has been known to use them to set people free. I have seen it happen to others, and I have seen the Lord do it for me. But hey, I am just suggesting one path of many, right? I guess that is true, but just like our paths are filled with choices to many paths we wish we never took, sometimes we know there really is only one right thing we should do. I pray that the Lord reveals the truth of the Way, the Truth, and the Life of Jesus to you. The Lord is patient and loving and He will not force us to do anything anything. But man, if you accept Jesus's invitation to follow him, you will discover just how good walking and talking with God can be. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Romans 12:20, and it says, instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Today's Bible verse encourages us to show love to those who would despitefully use us, to put into practice Christ's command to love our enemies with the expectation that love can conquer hate. I have to thank God for the godly men that he has put on my path of Christian growth. While some Christians are known to quote Bible verses chapter and verse, some of these zealots give Christianity a bad name because while they can accurately state the word of God and obviously have it in their heads, there unfortunately seems to be a disconnect with the heart as they use the word of God to chastise, criticize, manipulate, and control others. They have not allowed it to produce the spiritual fruit of love in their lives. And in some cases, the knowledge of the Word is only a sheep's covering that is used to conceal secret sins and a hidden agenda. But then there are those Christians who not only know the Word of God, but seek to understand it and apply it to their lives and how they interact with others. Today's verse reminds me of my mentor, Bob, uh, Pastor Bob Costello, and our days serving together in Celebrate Freedom, the now defunct, uh, recovery ministry at my former church. In the real— in the early days of that ministry, a homeless veteran of the Gulf War with physical, mental, and spiritual problems came to our church's attention, and Pastor Bob was given the task of trying to help this troubled man. Although this man served our country and professed to be a Christian, he also served his flesh and didn't always express gratitude for Bob's companionship and efforts to help. The veteran had addiction issues, physical disabilities, and a history of prison time. So like a wounded dog, he would often bite the hand that literally fed him and would periodically run free and make a mess of things. I know Pastor Bob to be a man of great patience, but this man's ungrateful attitude and unrighteous antics tested his limits, so much so that he took his concerns to the senior pastor, who suggested that Bob apply Romans 12:20 to the situation. As much as Bob wanted to complain about this man and wanted to just shake the dust off his feet and walk away from the whole situation, The Word of God convicted Bob to forgive much because he himself had been trouble in his youthful days back in the Bronx and had been forgiven much by the Lord and other Christians. And the Word of God really did a work on Bob. He didn't just begrudgingly keep on trucking along out of some sense that that was what he was supposed to do. He applied he took that verse to his heart and it changed everything. Instead of seeing this troubled vet as a big problem, Bob started to see him as one of God's children that needed love. So Bob just kept serving him and showing him compassion until something amazing happened. Things got better. The vet entered into our recovery ministry and resisted the real and present danger to relapse. Bob and the church eventually connected him to resources and provided him with financial assistance to get him his own apartment. After a while, this vet was actually walking in sobriety and was so grateful that he decided to lead worship at our recovery ministry with a soulful rendition of Chris Tomlin's "You're a Good, Good Father." The heaping coals of kindness on this man's head had worked. The love that Bob and those at the church had given this man had shamed the evil in him and caused him to repent and start walking in the way the Father would have him go. This man had been a hostile combatant against the world for the pain he had suffered, but the love he received caused him to literally sing the Lord's praises. So, feed your enemies. They are thirsty, give them something to drink. Because love is greater than hate, good is better than evil, and the light of God's love that we allow to shine through us will dispel the darkness. 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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship. Also known as The Cost of Discipleship. And today we continue, um, the section from Matthew 6, uh, on the hidden righteousness. And, uh, we're actually concluding that section of Bonhoeffer's work today. So if you want to see the last bit of the hidden righteousness as written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. Also, at the end of today's blog post, you'll see links for our podcast and our YouTube channel and our new YouTube channel handle. Instead of a mess of numbers and letters and, and things, it's, it's now youtube.com/@mtforprice247. So pretty cool. It's my YouTube handle. Apparently. So, so if you, if you want to check it out, uh, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see it. Or you can just type it out, youtube.com/@mt4christ247, um, and you'll get to our YouTube channel. And at our YouTube channel, you'll, you'll find all of our— well, not all of our messages, but, uh, a good, a good some, some of our encouragements from the podcast history. And you'll find— but you will find all of our discipleship classes that we did for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. And you will also find all of the Bible studies that we've done, our Bible studies with Arthur and Susanna Cincotti. Arthur is actually under the weather currently. He said he hasn't been this sick in 25 years, so that alarms me. I just discovered it yesterday. So we're lifting up Arthur Sankhadi in prayer, and he's on the mend, so we suspect that the Holy Spirit will do a mighty work and he'll be showing up Sunday morning with another Bible study. If not, I guess that'll be the— well, It might be— I'm not sure if it'll be the first, uh, but it'll be atypical that we don't meet for Bible study. But, um, you never know. So we'll have to, uh— so I asked for prayers for Arthur Sincotti. I've already prayed for his healing myself, and I, I intend to do it for tomorrow as well. And then Sunday morning we'll be here and we'll see what happens. Um, I suspect he'll be all right. But we'll see. I think he's past the worst of it, but I guess we'll find out. Anyway, I'm also lifting up prayers for all of you, everyone who's listening or reading this message. Although if you're reading it, you don't know I'm praying for you. If you're listening to it, then you know, you know far more than the people who just read it because you get you get the stuff I don't write down. Um, so, you know, today is Friday. Uh, as I stated, I actually work tomorrow, so I have today off. I'll be leading a man through the Steps to Freedom in Christ shortly, and I pray for— if you're hearing this before 9 AM, I pray for you to pray for the process to go well. Otherwise, it'll be well past it anyway. Let's pray because I got to get I gotta get— prepare myself for this. And, uh, I, I pray that, uh, well, let's pray it and I don't have to tell you what I'm praying. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for all that you've done for us in our past and our present, um, that, that has shown us the way to follow you. And Lord, for the mighty work that you've worked in our lives, you reaped a harvest and you've forgiven us of everything, and you lead— led us in the pathways of peace. Lord, we pray for everyone listening today. We pray for them to be blessed. We pray for you to come alongside them and their prayer requests for them and their families, or whatever is happening in their lives, Lord, you know. And we pray for you to strengthen them and guide them and bless them along their path. And Lord, as always, we pray for you to open our eyes to the things we need to see today And we pray for you to lead our path into the way we should go. Um, we need your help today. Uh, we need your protection, we need your guidance, and we're praying for it, Father. Um, so please help us. And, uh, Lord, we, we thank you, we praise you, and, uh, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.