Excellence, Perfectionism, and The Full Blessing of God - Purity 1742

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. Good morning. Today's photo of a small boardwalk path leading to a tropical beach between a pair of palm trees and a few scattered lounge chairs comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who shared this scene on social media back on August 18th, 2020. If this memory is yours, let me know and I will photo credit you on the blog after the fact and also will ask why you didn't arrange those chairs to stage your vacation paradise scene more perfectly. Well, it's Friday and, um, thank God, and it is my hope that our unknown friend was too busy enjoying the moment to think about impressing others by staging their view of paradise. It was 2020 after all, and maybe they were so ecstatic about being on vacation that they weren't concerned with what anyone else thought about what they were presenting. Similarly, it is my hope that those of us who have put our faith in Jesus aren't too overly concerned with presenting a picture-perfect presentation of the Christian life as much as they are concerned with being surrendered to God's will for their life. I think one of the biggest problems that the modern church has is its tendency to be overly concerned with optics and trying to sell themselves to the world at large as a hip or cool option for living, rather than being the place where we lay our lives down for the cause of Christ, to love God above all things and to love our neighbors as our— as we love ourselves, rather than being overly concerned with impressing them. As Christians, we want to attract people to the church, but we also don't want to give them a false impression of what the Christian life is about, or become overly concerned with presenting well or quote-unquote being perfect to the point that we stop being real or genuine and expressing the Christian disciple's purpose to follow Jesus beyond a surface deep appearance. We don't just want to look good, but we want to represent the, the one God who is good. The concept of Christian excellence, which in its biblical context means to strive to reflect God's character through diligent effort and integrity in all aspects of life for God's glory rather than for personal gain can easily be corrupted by the pride of perfectionism, where we can become exhausted in our efforts to do everything right and begin to criticize ourselves or anyone else who, who, um, anyone else when our performance is anything less than stellar. When our desire for excellence becomes more about ourselves or a religious standard, pride replaces grace, and performance-based religion replaces the genuine relationship with God that a surrendered life of a disciple longs for. Speaking of surrender, the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotion, uh, speaks about the surrendered life, and I am sharing it on the blog today to encourage us to be real in our commitment to follow Jesus. And Charles Stanley writes, God's Condition for His Full Blessing. It's your choice. Will you trust Christ enough to accept his will for your life? The Lord wants to give each of us an abundance of blessings. Today's passage clarifies the one necessary condition for receiving his best: surrender. Every aspect of our being—body, soul, and spirit—is is to be a living sacrifice. In the Old Testament, sacrifice was commonplace. To atone for sin, a person could bring an animal to the altar. It was set apart for God's purposes as a holy offering, and through its death, restitution was made. When we give ourselves as a sacrifice, there is thankfully no need for our blood to be shed. Jesus died to atone for all of our sin. So out of love and gratitude, every aspect of our life should be dedicated to him. What does a surrendered life entail? Most importantly, it involves commitment to Christ. God's Spirit guides us, and his will is, is the goal. Yielding to him means following his way in attitude, words, thoughts, and deeds, and doing so unapologetically, unwaveringly, and fearlessly. Complete surrender is not an easy road. It means dying to your desires and selfishness. But remember that the Lord is willing and able to do more than we can ever imagine. That was from Dr. Charles Stanley. I say amen. You know, lately I've been sharing a lot of David Jeremiah's Turning Point Ministries devotions, um, and, and I, and I would encourage you all to check out today's offering on deliverance that they present because it's a good one. But I decided to share Stanley's message today because it— I believe that our decision to surrender to the Lord's way for our lives leads to the blessing of deliverance that so many desperately hope for. God delivers sinners from the judgment, from the judgment, the judgment, when they surrender to the Lordship of Christ. But even through his common grace and mercy, God delivers peoples from harm and bondage. Because of God's love for all mankind, he will often bless the non-believer alongside of his faithful., through the events of history, or when the non-believers, quote unquote, surrenders to the general principles of life that are founded and established by God's word. Even the non-believer can be blessed by acts of repentance and forgiveness. When non-believing addicts turn away from their bad habits, they are sometimes delivered from their addictions. Why? Because God wants people to be free, and even though they may never bow the knee to Christ, that he could receive the blessings of God's common grace that is evident in God's created order. Likewise, the non-believer can be free of the bondage of bitterness to some extent when they surrender to God's wisdom of forgiveness. I am sure we have all encountered some non-believers that seem genuinely kind. We can make sense of this because of God's common grace. These kind heathens quote unquote, have unknowingly surrendered to biblical principles and have benefited from the cause and effect relationship that God has established. However, to experience the full blessing of God, it's not enough to surrender in part. To receive the full blessing of God, we need to not only surrender to his principles, we have to fully surrender to his plan for our redemption, to put our faith in Jesus and to follow his example in the way we live our lives. In my experience in recovery ministry, I have unfortunately seen countless examples of people who want to be set free but who stop short in their surrender to the Lord. Some have surrendered to the idea of sobriety and a general concept of a higher power but refuse to put their faith in Jesus. These quote-unquote pagan overcomers may be free of a certain substance but generally are still in bondage to sexual immorality, legality, other less lethal substances, or their own pride. They often speak in terms of quote-unquote "my recovery" and will unfortunately take their victory over their addiction all the way to hell. They may stand as someone who supposedly conquered their demons on earth but will only prove to be an example of Satan's counterfeits in eternity. I have also seen Christians, people who have put their faith in Jesus, who have failed to receive the full blessing of surrender because they may have bowed the knee to Jesus as Savior but haven't made him Lord over certain areas of their lives. I have seen Christians get set free of alcohol or drugs but who are still in bondage to sexual, sexual immorality, and vice versa. I have seen Christians who can proudly claim to have never given into drunkenness or obvious sexual sin but who are bondage to food or depression or anger or fear. The word tells us that perfect love casts out fear, and it also says that love covers a multitude, multitude of sins. And it is only, and it is only through a full surrender to God that we will be able to experience the full blessings of these spiritual realities. So if you want deliverance from sin, from broken relationships, or just from bad circumstances, let me encourage you to step towards full blessing that God has for your life by progressively and continuously adopting a mindset and lifestyle of full surrender to God. Amen. That was it. Yes, that was the end. That was a nice wrap-up. Anyway, yes, usually there's more, but there wasn't in this case. But there is more because there's a Bible verse that we give out. And today's Bible verse comes from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. And this morning's meditation verses come from the section on peace or rest. And today's verses are Matthew 11:28-30, which say, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Today's verses fall under the first point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on peace or rest. And that first point is Christ gives peace and rest to all who come to faith in him. To him in faith. Yeah, to him in faith. Uh, anyway, today's Bible verses are Jesus's invitation to all of us to surrender and to find our rest in him. There is so much love in Christ's call to us. He recognizes our plight. He sees our pain. He longs to help us. This is God meeting the human condition with kindness and compassion. To hear these words and to not be stirred to follow him— oh, the sadness of being unable to trust him and to accept his love and leadership. May it never be. Our surrender to the Lordship of Christ is the pathway to peace, and it is the way that we can be fully and yet continually restored. So never stop seeking Jesus Christ and the rest he has for you. 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 Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams. It's a 365-day devotional and we're on day 241 where Adams shares a portion of Luke 22:36 which says, and the one who doesn't have a sword should sell his coat and buy one. And J.E. Adams writes, what an interesting missionary text. Did you ever hear a mission sermon from it? Neither have I. Why not? Possibly because the leaven of modern Sadducees has filtered into the true church. Who are they, you ask? The liberals and the do-gooders who don't believe in fighting of any sort. There is clearly no place for pacifism in this text. Jesus is plainly telling the disciples to wear a sword when they travel for him preaching the gospel. Why? The roads they would travel were full of footpads like those who beat and robbed the man, the man that the Good Samaritan helped on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. They were busy. They were to buy swords in order to defend themselves. They would not use them as Muslims do to force men to surrender to Allah or be killed. But clearly Jesus believed that it's isn't wrong to defend yourself. Amen. And yeah, evil men will do evil until their evil is stopped, right? Um, and so sometimes, as much as we try to be peacemakers and make peace with people, when we see acts of violence, we should try to stop them from happening. We should go in to protect people who are being beaten or hurt or murdered. And you know, we can use, you know, we can take this text to, you know, allow for the protection of others through violent means if necessary. But as much as— so I'm not one— I for one haven't exercised the right to bear arms. I don't own any guns. You know, I was formerly a liberal, but I fully believe in defending yourself and would I would do so if needed, as much as I can. But I believe in defending ourselves spiritually as well against the snares of the evil one. And that's why we always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? It's sort of a theme today. It's sort of a theme every day as we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship and a full surrender to the Lord to find your peace and purpose in life. Part of my purpose is beyond encouraging people on the blog and podcast is one of them is to lead— I lead the Celebrate Freedom support group. It's a Christian recovery and discipleship support group at Starpoint Church. We meet on Wednesday nights at 6:30. You're invited to come join our fellowship, and we're in the K-3rd grade classroom is where you can find us. Beyond that, I did recently volunteer to be a part of one of Reno Barre's book club for 2025 to 2026, and I got a discounted rate for joining when I decided to lead an online discussion group. So I've decided that I'll lead a monthly meeting on Mondays, the third Mondays of each month from May— or from October to May. And, um, you know, if you're not familiar with Reno Barre, it's a spiritual Christian spiritual formation ministry, and their books encourage you to, you know, to have a deeper, more transformative life with Jesus, as this promotion says. And if you can see that QR code, you can scan that and find out about Renovare's book club. And I think at this point you just sort of put your email in there and they'll let you know when it's open for registration. So I decided to start promoting this today, sort of prepare myself for it, and you know, get psyched. I'm still waiting on that first book to be mailed to me, Renovare. So I don't know what's up with that. Um, maybe I misunderstood, but yeah, I thought I paid for the membership where you get the first book included. But anyway, um, if you're interested in spiritual formation and following Jesus, um, I recommend Renovare's book club, whether you join my discussion group or not. And, uh, So there's that. Beyond that, I encourage you to check out the material I do produce on the blog and podcast by going to our YouTube playlist page or to mtcouragereace.com to find a list of our playlists that include all our messages and specialized teachings like the ones I've done on Christian discipleship and Christian recovery. And we do a weekly Bible study with Arthur and Susanna Sankhathi. So we encourage you to check those out because we believe that'll encourage you in your faith and very well could help you to increase your freedom in Christ. Um, beyond that, you can, you can text me, um, or you can go to mtforchrist.com to discover how to give us a donation, um, to support our ministry, and we greatly appreciate your help. Um, beyond that, we end every message with the encouragement, along with the question, are you empty for too. What does that mean? It just means, are you fully surrendered to God? Are you trying to empty yourself of the things of this world and be filled by the Holy Spirit and the things of God? If you are, we say great, keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we encourage you to pray and seek the Lord, because we know if you seek the Lord, you'll find him. And if you pray a prayer to make Jesus your Lord and Savior, everything can change. Everything does change. And we encourage you to seek that for yourself and seek the Lord's help. We know that prayer works, and that's why we pray every day, because we need the Lord's help, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we pray for healing in our leg that is injured, and we pray for you to help us to make it our way through the day today. Open our eyes to the things you want us to see. Lead us in the way we should go. Because we just want to do your will and your will only. Uh, Lord, we also pray for anyone reading, listening, or watching this message today, that you bless them and their prayer request, their walk of faith, because they need your help too. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.