Draw Near to God and He Will Draw Near to You - Purity 1324

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 Canadian goose on the shores of a tranquil lake at the early hours of sunrise, or the late hours of sunset, comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who shared this photo on social media on or around May 15th, 2021. This magic moment was yours, give me a heads up and I'll update the blog to photo credit you after the fact. Well, it's Friday, and as I enter into the last workday off of my week's staycation down by the river, I am thankful for the opportunity to find rest and to be restored after a busy Freedom in Christ season. Last night I met with Sue Huber, FICM's National Course Coordinator and, um, other online course facilitators to debrief and to celebrate another round of discipleship courses that led our students to know who they are in Christ and to experience for the first time or to increase their freedom in Christ. As our ministry is a discipleship ministry, teaching people what we believe, why we believe it, and applying it to their lives. It's repentance, where we actually encourage people to turn from their behaviors and beliefs that are contrary to God's word and will for their lives. And of reconciliation, where they confess their sins, accept God's forgiveness, and forgive those who have sinned against them. Sue Huber perhaps said it best last night as one of her counseling— one of her concluding statements was, "Our ministry is the gospel." All we do as Course facilitators is to lead people to understand it, uh, to choose to believe it, and to let it work in their lives by going to the Lord in prayer and resolving all the areas of personal and spiritual conflicts that have been keeping them from living the Gospel. Our faith in Christ should change us. It should give us peace and joy, and when we get real with God and surrender to his will and ways for our lives, we can experience it. Even though this Freedom season has presented some real challenges to my sense of peace and joy at times and made a week's staycation absolutely necessary, I am rejoicing over the work that has been done and the rest I have enjoyed over the last few days. Peace and joy are never far from those who know who they are in Christ and who keep on walking and talking with God. James 4:8, 10 8 through 10 tells us to draw near to God and He will draw near to you. It also says, cleanse your hearts, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. I know we, we would love to cherry-pick the good sentiments from these verses and exclude the ones that chastise us. But in order to be lifted up by the Lord, we must be cleansed. We must purify our hearts and change our double minds. We must lament, mourn, and weep over our sins to be woken up from the joy of the world's sinful hilarity and to see we have gone astray. We must repent, and then the Lord can lift us up to new heights of joy and peace that come from being reconciled to the Lord and living in harmony with him. In the Freedom appointments I've concluded over the last month, I watched men humble themselves and lament over the sins of their pasts, but at the end they reported having a quiet mind and a new sense of peace that come— only comes from the Lord when you draw close to him and he lifts you up in freedom. These men got real before the Lord and they walked away with a real sense of freedom because they're reconciled with God and their healing is real and they can enjoy it for the rest of their lives. They simply agree to choose to believe it, tell others all about it, and keep on walking and talking with God. Today's Bible verse, um, verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crowes. And this morning's verse— actually, verse, not verses— is Revelation 14:13, and it comes under the section on death and eternal life. And Revelation 14:13 tells us, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. Today's verse falls under the 6th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on death and eternal life. Today's, um, and that 6th point is: Those who die in the Lord are blessed. Today's verse tells us that those who die in the Lord really can rest in peace. We may rest from our labors For our deeds follow them, or us, meaning that the good work we do for God's kingdom will not be forgotten or lost at the hour of our deaths. They will follow us into eternity and be rewarded. Some Christians hesitate to read Revelation because of the apocalyptic end-time scenes that tell us of the Great Tribulation that is to come. But as today's verse, verse challenges us to understand, we may not fear death For we who are in the Lord, in Christ, are not cursed but are blessed at the hour of our death. We don't need to ask Mary to pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death because we are forgiven and free in life and blessed when we die physically because we will live spiritually and receive glorified bodies just like Jesus' resurrected body when we are called into eternity. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.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 According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And today's devotional, uh, Alford directs us to read chapter 16 of the book of John. And from the book of John, he shares from verse 2, which says, whoever kills you will think think that he offers God service. And Stephen Alford writes, here is certainly a sad state of spiritual affairs. There is coming a time, and in fact in some places it has already come, when the departure from truth shall be such that men who will not accept the real truth will persecute and kill the very servants of God. Of course, this primarily applies to the time when the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel and our Lord will be set up in the temple at Jerusalem and the Great Tribulation shall take place. But even now it is possible to be so misunderstood by those who profess to bear the truth as to provoke hatred and persecution. And Alfred Preiss: Enable me to stand for you whatever the odds. Amen. Yeah, um, Stephen Alford talks about, um, you know, the persecution that comes to us. And, you know, John's verse, um, Jesus tells us that people think that they're actually serving God and seek to kill him. The Pharisees thought they were serving God when they killed Jesus. Boy, were they wrong. But they You know, that's what they thought. They didn't think Jesus was the Messiah, and if he wasn't, I guess they were doing the right thing. It was blasphemy in the Old Testament law. You know, anything was blasphemous, you had to kill the guy. Ah, but in our modern society, there are people, you know, Islam is the, you know, it's not far. It's like, hey, who would that describe possibly in our times? You know, the more militant versions of Islam who kill Christians would believe— they fully believe they're serving their god, Allah. But in a sense they are, but unfortunately it's the devil. Any religion that's not pointing to Jesus Christ as God, as the Messiah, is the spirit of Antichrist. And so it's not God, it's demonic. It's not another expression of God, you know, in a different form. You know, logically that doesn't make any sense because, you know, you know, we can think of that. Hey, it makes more sense God would want to show up in different forms, right? Um, no, the whole gospel, um, you know, puts forth that Jesus, you You know, he says in John 14:6 that he's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the only way to the Father. So, you know, otherwise we wouldn't have to believe in Jesus and he would have died for nothing. We could have, you know, prayed to Buddha or followed Muhammad or whoever, or, you know, prayed to, you know, the earth or the stars above. You know, all those other ways of worship are false ways of worship. And they must be renounced. You know, so that's one of the steps to freedom in Christ. The first one is to renounce all false religions. And so as much as we believe in diversity in our society, the things that are diverse would have to be renounced and rejected in order to experience your freedom in Christ. We can all get along, but those who get along in different religions are headed to hell. And as much as we, you know, can get along on earth, it's actually unloving to not share the gospel and let them know that it's through Jesus that they, they can only be saved. And we can live in peace with them, but that's, that's, that's the good news that we have to share. And, and we have to share it with Christians because they can believe, yeah, I believe in Jesus, and then one day we'll go to heaven. Meanwhile, they don't live according to God's Word and they don't walk in the Spirit, so they're not experiencing the peace, joy, love, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that's available to them when they walk in the Spirit. And so, you know, they don't believe they can do it. They believe they're different. They don't believe that Christianity can work for them. They believe it is good for, you know, weddings and funerals and and for major holidays, but that's it. They don't let it touch their lives. Holy Spirit's living in them, but he's being quenched. He wants to move, but if they're deceived, like they are by the world, the flesh, and the devil, they won't live according to their faith. They'll live according to the world. They'll be practical atheists. And that's how I used to live. I was grown up in a liturgical church tradition where I had the gospel right in front of me, or at least the form of it. And I'd like to believe, but I didn't think I was any— I had a sort of a false gospel given to me that mixed grace with works. And so I heard about Jesus, but the implication was I still had to be a good person and I had to not sin and be perfect, otherwise I would have to worry about going to heaven or going to hell for a temporary time, which really doesn't fly with scripture. So we have to know what the truth is. We have to know what we believe, why we believe it, and live according to it. And that means repentance. That means cleansing your hearts, your hands, you sinners, and purifying your hearts and renewing your mind. And we renew our mind by the Word of God and coming in agreement with it. When we do that, we can experience freedom, and it changes who you, you know, how you think about the world and changes how you think about yourself. You accept your identity in Christ and rejoice. So that's what we do. That's what we do. That's our ministry, one of encouragement, reconciliation to point people to Jesus, and repentance to experience salvation and sanctification. So that's today. Today, I don't know, we're gonna, we're I'm gonna do some work here and been doing some mental health coach— coaching training that, um, one of my pastors basically pointed to. And so I'm like, I could be equipped and better, you know, better equipped to serve the body of Christ, so why not learn more? So I'm doing that today, and then I'll be heading up to my countryside home to see my wife. Be getting out of work and spend the weekend together. So I don't know what the weather is going to be like. I guess it's not going to rain today. It'll be in the 60s, and that sounds good. And, um, but regardless of the weather, I'm feeling great after a few days rest and look forward to, I don't know, the continuing ministry that I do. Freedom in Christ course that I'm sitting in on with Peter McCabbage on Tuesday nights. If you want to be a part of it, you can be, men, by signing up. Just look back in the blog and you'll see the Way of Escape Freedom in Christ group. Follow the links to sign up. And as for— and then I'll see you Tuesday nights. And then I have the Freedom in Christ— well, no, Celebrate Freedom Recovery group, basically, that meets at Star Point Church on Wednesday nights. So, or the Capitol District, you know, we can hang out. Yeah, that's everything. So, I have those things going on. I am continuing to get trained and equipped in all the areas I can to better serve the body of Christ. So, your Christianity should not be a boring thing. It should be your life's purpose, because we're going to be in eternity with Jesus. So, Why not? Why not start, start working for the kingdom now instead of later? So that's that. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the ministry you've given us, the ministry of encouragement, the freedom you've given us. And, uh, Lord, we just pray for you to come alongside anyone who might be reading or, uh, or listening to today's message, that you bless them and their prayer requests, their walk of faith. And Lord, as always, we ask you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. Because all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom, Lord, and, uh, we really need your help with that. So please help us, Lord. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.