Doubling Down For Health and Freedom - Purity 1436

Welcome to the MT for Christ 247 podcast. I'm M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or tune in on YouTube. Uh, good morning. Today's photo of the setting sun, uh, blasting through an impressive cloud formation over the Hudson River comes to us from yours truly, uh, as I was moved to capture this magic moment back on August 31st of 2021, um, near Castleton-on-the-Hudson. Well, today is Tuesday, and although I proclaimed my healing from cold symptoms yesterday, there are enough lingering signs of a disease to, uh, to show me that, uh, just like our freedom in Christ, my healing is a process, uh, that needs to be fought for and maintained. I may have been premature, premature in claiming complete healing, or I may have foolishly given up fighting my illness in earnest thinking the battle had been won. But despite having easy breathing yesterday, this morning I was huffing and puffing and coughing and hacking and sweating buckets during this morning's workout, indicating that the battle with this late summer cold isn't over. I am hopeful that this will be the, the beginning of the end of something that I thought was already gone. But I'll be resuming my vitamin C, zinc, and water infusion throughout the day, and throughout the day until any remnant of disease is gone. As I teach my life coaching clients and students in the Freedom in Christ course, sometimes we have to continue fighting for our freedom. We have to keep reminding ourselves with the truth of God's word of who we are in Christ, and we have to choose to live according to our faith um, to demonstrate that yes, I really am a Christian, and yes, I really have been set free. Just like my re-emerging cold symptoms want to shake my confidence in my physical health, and thus I am doubling down on good physical health practices and remedies that have proven to be effective in the past, I have faith in the Lord using these practices to aid in my healing. Um, you know, The enemy of our souls, the devil, loves to sow seeds of doubt, uh, doubt and fear regarding our spiritual health and identity in Christ. Satan will tempt us, give us disturbing thoughts, and may even lure us into sin to try to make us believe the lie that we are not free, we are not new creations in Christ, and we may not even be saved at all. Satan takes our fears, doubts, and failures and seeks to destroy our peace, our testimony, and our very lives if he can. If he gets us to believe the lie that we are not alive in Christ and therefore not set free, he can keep us in bondage to the flesh and keep us from the abundant life of freedom and purpose that God has for us. You know, today's Turning Point devotion with David Jeremiah speaks about putting the old— putting off the old The Old Man Today, and I'm sharing it on the blog to remind us that we are new creations but remain— but have to remain diligent realizing our new lives. Um, David Jeremiah writes, The Old Man. The Bible tells us to put off the old man. What does that mean? It doesn't mean tossing Grandpa out the door. It means we're, we're to turn away from the flawed traits we had before coming to Christ and from the corrupt nature we inherited from Adam. Perhaps you've chosen to follow Christ, but you know there are some things you must toss out, some habits you must break, and some sins you must confess. You're not alone. Paul was speaking to the Colossians and to all of us when he said, put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another. Since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him. Colossians 3:8-10. You have a new nature, a Christly calling. If there is an area of residual sin in your life today, ask God to help you toss it out of your life. You can do it in the power of Christ. And then he shares a quote from Jerry Bridges that says, God's ultimate goal for us is that we be truly conformed to the likeness of his Son in our person as well as in our standing. And I say amen. Well, I say amen eventually. Amen. The Christian life is often referred to as spiritual warfare, and the truth is we have to battle the world, the flesh, and the devil to become the people that God created us to be. Christ has made us new and given us the indwelling, uh, presence of the Holy Spirit to empower our new lives of faith when we put our trust in him. The Christian life is based on believing the truth that the miracle of salvation and a new life has happened to us and is realized by choosing to live according to who we are now in Christ. God has given us the victory. We just need to believe it to receive it and choose to live it to see it. Today's Bible 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, uh, the forgiveness of sins, and today's verses are Romans 3:21-25, where the word of God says, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For the— there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Today's verses are the first of 3 passages of scripture that, uh, fall under the 15th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sins. And that 15th point is: we are justified, cleared of all guilt by faith in Jesus. In him we find peace. And, uh, I say amen to that. Today's verses document the truth that is by grace, as a gift that we are redeemed and forgiven of our sins. Christ paid for our sins with his life's blood, his life for ours. Our debt is paid, and his righteousness comes to us when we place our faith in him. The law demonstrated that we could never save ourselves, and, um, and well, but, but God's righteousness was made manifest when Christ came and lived a sinless life to be sacrificed for us. God makes peace with man through Jesus Christ. Our jobs as Christians is to accept God's gift of grace and to share the good news that although we all fall short of God's glory, we can be saved, forgiven, healed, and made new through faith in Jesus Christ. As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, 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 According to Your The Word Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And in Alford's devotion, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture, and the chapter today is 1 Timothy 5. And from that chapter, he shares a portion of verse 22, which says, keep yourselves— keep yourself pure. And Stephen Alford writes, the apostle gives this exhortation twice in this same chapter. First It is in connection with speaking to sisters and then in identifying oneself with men generally. The principle behind this injunction is this: To the pure, all things are pure. Titus 1:15. That is to say, if I am personally pure in my life and outlook, my connections with others, whether saved or unsaved, or with men or women, it will be with all purity. 1 Timothy 5:2. Stephen Alford also writes, surely this is what the Lord Jesus meant when he said, if therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. Matthew 6:22. Uh, that is the eye of purity. Of course, this purity involves moral, physical, and spiritual purity. And then Alford prays, Lord, help me to live pure before the world so that your light will shine forth. Amen. Amen. And, uh, you know, the reason I— if you didn't know, um, we call our daily message Purity, um, because we want to be pure in our intentions and in our life. And, and, you know, is that just giving lip service to purity? No. Um, You know, the whole Purity Messages, um, that began, um, this podcast was, uh, was originally a text. Um, I did recovery ministry, and I was encouraging people in their, uh, in their, in their pure— in sexual purity. I was encouraging other men in sexual purity. And what I did was, after I had years of sexual purity myself, I felt, you know, confident enough to try to coach or, you know, encourage people in, in their sexual purity. And so I I would text, text guys, um, these little devotional messages basically to encourage them in their sexual purity and to show them, you know, basically that there was hope and, you know, to try to teach them what I did to get sexually pure. And, um, and so thus it's Purity— whatever it is today— 1436, I think, is the message. So, so from day one, that first text, uh, there's been 1436 messages that have gone out. And obviously they've touched on all kinds of things other than just sexual purity, but it is the pure intention to live our lives as Christians and to be, to be real, um, to actually follow Jesus Christ as a disciple. Um, and that means in all ways to be more conformed to the image of his Son. And to do that, we have to you know, surrender to God, fully surrender. That's why it's empty for Christ. We empty ourselves to be filled with Christ and to be filled with his Holy Spirit and to be filled with this God's plan for our life. That's what this, this discipleship path is all about— surrendering our wills for God's will. And when we do that, that makes a big difference. God leads us into sanctification. We walk away from the sins of our old man, and we walk into the new life that he has for us. And when you do that, he'll give you things to do. For me, um, the, you know, the recovery ministry continued. Uh, there was a break in 2020 to 2021 where I did freedom ministry, um, and there was a break until I started picking up the— this, this new, um, this new ministry at Starpoint Church, uh, which began last year in 2023. Um, but you know, the freedom message is going forth, and we carry it with us to celebrate freedom. Wednesday nights at Starpoint Church, we don't just do Christian recovery, we do discipleship. We want to teach people how to live this new life in Christ, and so we go beyond, um, just the Celebrate Recovery teachings that we give and teach people how to walk in the Spirit. Well, at least we try to. We believe that a life of purity is possible and it's good, um, and it's empowered by the, the Holy Spirit. So we try to teach people to walk in the Spirit. So if you're in the Capital District of Upstate New York and you want to know how to walk in the Spirit and get set free of those old habits, uh, of the old man, uh, come, come join us Wednesday nights at, uh, Celebrate Freedom. In the meantime, if you're not in the Capital District, well there— the freedom message is shared in the Freedom in Christ course, uh, that's available through Freedom in Christ Ministries. Uh, we recommend, uh, going to ficm.org and going to their, their store and checking out the Freedom in Christ course or the Bondage Breaker or Victory Over the Darkness. Um, currently there are classes to sign up for, uh, for the fall. Um, they start next week. Um, I think you can still register And if not, like I said, you can buy the materials through the bookstore. And the good news is, if you can't get into a class, we offer— we offer Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ all here at the M.t. Clark 247 YouTube channel. Uh, look at our playlist, you'll find those courses, and you can listen to the whole thing. Um, you know, basically that we podcasted originally in 2021 to sort of really you know, began the podcast ministry was, uh, our decision to do a freedom, you know, freedom in Christ, you know, course, a freedom, a freedom ministry as they say. Um, anyway, um, that was then, this is now, and today's the day. So, uh, we're getting over our cold, we're claiming complete health. Uh, when, when it's fully realized, we'll let you know. But in the meantime, um, and we'll just say, keep on walking and talking with God, and we'll pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do for us, Lord. We thank you for the victory you've given us in Christ, the, the healing you've given us in Christ, the new life you've given us in Christ, and the purpose you've given us in Christ, Lord. Um, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today because we always need your help. Show us the way to go, um, open our eyes to things you want us to see. And, uh, Lord, while you're in it, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading, uh, today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer request and their walk of faith, Lord. Because we're all in this together as we try to follow you, Lord, and we all need your help. So we ask you to help us today, Lord. We thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.