Exciting Moments of Joy - 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 22 – Purity 1078

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 my brother-in-law, niece, and nephew scanning strawberry fields under cumulus cloud-filled skies, um, comes to us from Megan Seguin, who captured this gathering, uh, photo of her family yesterday on the way home from my birthday celebration, proving that those who seek find, and that a lot of fun in life comes from being spontaneous. Strawberries are in high demand and in low supply in our neck of the woods this summer, and although this farmer's sole advertising was a simple sign proclaiming "Berries," Megan decided to check it out, and what was just going to be a drive home from a birthday party turned out to be a family outing and good news for all of Megan's strawberry-picking friends, as she shared her good fortune on social media. Well, it's Monday, and just like how my sister-in-law had to share the good news of where she found fresh fruit ripe for the picking, I write this blog and produce this podcast to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how the fruit of the Spirit is available to those who walk along the path of Christian discipleship. Although I had to walk through a fair share of adversity, mostly caused by my own ignorance and selfishness, to get here, I can tell you that the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self-control are always in season and ripe for the picking. And, um, and only two things are required to reap an abundant harvest of them. This discipleship two-step consists of: one, putting your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and two, making the daily decision to follow him continuously and progressively, forever and ever. Amen. While I know the strawberry fields that Megan and her family picked from yesterday will not last forever, the abundance of blessings that come from living by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit are infinite. Yesterday was my 51st birthday, and so I reflected on my life a bit. And frankly was overwhelmed with joy and humility after I pondered my broken road to salvation and how, despite my foolishness, ignorance, and selfishness, I have had and currently enjoy a wonderful life. Earlier this spring, as part of my training as a student of Deeper Walk International School of Prayer Ministry, I underwent a series of prayer ministry sessions with Christy Edge in which several traumatic More embarrassing moments of my past were brought to the Lord for healing. And in that process, secrets were confessed and the resultant lies I believed were exposed. And I walked away from those sessions with— is it possible?— more freedom than I had before, and now continually walk in an enduring sense of peace and joy whenever I ponder the fact that the Lord has been with me all my life, and that there has been an abundant presence of love in my life, which I had known through my family and friends. When I think of the love, of the joy, the love of the Lord and of the people in my life, I am filled with joy. And that brings us to our current series where I'm walking through the 28-Day Joy Challenge because we are encouraging ourselves and others, you, to find peace in our lives by increasing our capacity for joy and by building our emotional resilience through simple practices of quieting and appreciation. The 28-Day Joy Challenge is based on Dr. Marcus Warner and Chris Courcy's latest book, The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People, and you can sign up to take it for free and purchase a variety of books from Warner and Courcy on the topic of joy by going to 4habits.org. So let's jump into Day 22, uh, which will direct us to reflect on an exciting moment from our past that gave us joy. And the, and the 28-Day Joy Challenge says, Day 22: Playing and Joy. Welcome to Day 22 of the 28 Days to Joy Challenge. Today's encouragement Several of the exercises this week will be remembering joy, joy-based. Let's see. Oh, sorry. Several of the exercises this week will be remembering joy based on personal hobbies and interests. If one of these doesn't resonate with you, feel free to modify the exercise to meet your needs. The goal is to reflect on enjoyable times in your life and practice sharing those with others. Enjoy this trip down memory lane. Today's practice, Exercise 22. For our practice today, we will remember a joyful experience and practice putting it into words. How this ex— exercise will benefit you. Group events like sports can play a major role in life for our ability to share joy. Have some camaraderie, and strengthen belonging with a group. People love their sports teams. Exercise steps: For this practice, think about a time when you felt excitement around a sporting event or game. If sports are not your thing, reflect on a favorite live concert performance or even an experience in the outdoors where you enjoyed nature. Share your reflections with another person. Have fun with this exercise. We pick up tomorrow with more joy practice. While I can understand why the people at fort-habits.org gave a multitude of options for today's joy practice, I really wish they hadn't. Part of my struggles in life is the inability to focus on one thing. I struggle with attention deficit disorder and often find myself being pulled in many directions at once when there are a multitude multitude of things to do or think about. So while I began to think about a time I felt excitement around a sporting event, I considered other options and wondered if I should reflect on other moments of my life. I've been to, to many exciting concerts and shows and have had some thrilling times out in nature. So what shall it be? Just this winter, I went to see my first NCAA basketball game live as the Syracuse Orange Men pulled out an upset victory over the North Carolina State Wolfpack at the Carrier Dome. Although the experience was, was a little lonely as I went solo, I quickly got caught up in the excitement of the action and considered the SU fans to be my people as we joined together to root on the home team and rejoiced when they won. I hadn't watched the game in in a while, and I was reminded of just how much you can invest yourself in someone else's accomplishments and a community of support to feel the thrill of victory. Such a rush and joy. But I also recalled seeing John Reddick, Big Daddy Weave, Dante Bowe, and others perform live at the River Rock Christian Music Festival last year, and how there was such pure peace and joy in the praise and worship. Very exciting and joyful. And I also experienced the excitement of trying something new, as Tammy Lynn and I tried our hand at backpacking over the Memorial Day weekend at the Merck Forest and Farmland Center in Rupert, Vermont, where we discovered the joy of God's creation, each other's company, and over the fact that we can do this. So I spent my joy practice cycling through these experiences and others, and it was both a little annoyed over my lack of focus, and overjoyed that I had so many options of what to think about when it came to exciting or joyful experiences. So what about you? What exciting experiences come— experience comes to your mind? Whatever it is, I hope you remember the joy and that you feel it today, that it inspires you to make plans to do more exciting things that can bring joy in the future. That's the point of these practices—to increase our capacity for joy and to change our perspective, where instead of focusing on the bad things of life, we remember the joy and seek out joy for now and for tomorrow. Regardless of the things we may have to face or overcome, even in the midst of trials and suffering, we can find peace and joy if we remember to look for them. And actively seek them out. So even though it's Monday and it's back to work and back to reality, let's all be on the lookout for joy and share the good news when we find it. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:18, and the Word of God says, be thankful in all circumstances, For this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. Today's verse is our instruction as disciples of Jesus Christ. We have been saved. We have been forgiven. We have been given new life. Thus, in all circumstances, we can and should give thanks. We belong to Christ Jesus, and God's will for us is to be thankful. When we are thankful, we do God's will, and when we live with an attitude of gratitude, we become more loving and more likely to perform the good works God created us to do. Thankfulness lies at the heart of who we are in Christ and causes us to live out our purpose in Christ. So give thanks in all circumstances. And I would like to thank my wife, Tammy Lynn, for giving me the New Living Translation Bible Promise Promised Book for Men as a gift. We have come to the end of that resource, if you can believe it. I have been carrying around that little book for a long time now, misplaced it more than once, but now we have reached its last verse, and I am thankful that it reminded us all to be thankful. So, so thank you, New Living Translation Bible Promised Book for Men. I will have to look elsewhere to get the verse of the day for tomorrow.— but we appreciate you faithfully encouraging us for this stretch of our journey of walking and talking with God. 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 The Holy Spirit by A.W. Pink as we continue in chapter 10, which is on the Holy Spirit regenerating. And today's section is, um, examining manifestations of regeneration. And so if you want to see how the Holy Spirit manifests regeneration in our lives, uh, or see what A.W. Pink has to say about that, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship, uh, because of the joy that comes and, you know, from living in the Spirit. God directs us to be thankful for what he's done for us, and we have to share the good news that there's hope. Not only hope for, you know, life everlasting, but that your whole perspective of life can change when you walk in the Spirit. That our faith isn't supposed to be just for a little portion of our lives on a Sunday morning. That it's supposed to be an enduring, you know, all-encompassing aspect of who we are. And that's what God invites us into. And so I pass on the invitation because I've received it and received its benefits. So until I collapse, as I said the other day, I'll be encouraging people to put their faith in Jesus and to follow him. Yesterday I made a poor decision to watch a horror movie, which will remain nameless because I don't want to endorse anything. But it was utterly hopeless. It was just a, it was just a gore fest, and it was just sort of, it was about demons, and the people that they were tormenting absolutely had no faith and really no hope for survival. Um, and it just was sad. I was freaked out by these people's lives before the demons showed up because they just were like so caught up in the world and so without God that I didn't care what kind of little cool existence they had before the demons showed up. They really were, you know, lost the whole time. And then the demons showed up and that wasn't good. And that it was a big picture, you know, basically that if we don't, if we don't have faith, you know, that we're demon, we're demon fodder, you know, basically that we're, you know, if we don't have faith, we don't have hope, and we don't have victory, we don't have freedom, and whether the demons show up or not, we're done for. You know, God calls us to life and purity for a reason. You know, we're not supposed to live so much in this fleshly world, and that's where these people were getting their identity from, from tattoos and music and, you know, sexual experiences and all these things that define their lives. And it was— they were all experiencing broken lives. You know, that's what they were identifying themselves with, and there's really nothing behind all that. And so it was disturbing on several levels. I won't be watching any horror movies anytime soon because of it, but it reminded me, you know, that it's sort of horrible when people don't have faith. As nice or as quaint or as cool as you might seem, Without God, you're living a hopeless, hopeless shame, basically. And, you know, and you might struggle to find something good in life, but when you, when you know the truth of the God who loves us and who sent His Son to die for us, to save us, you know that there's love and there's hope. Because someday God will reclaim everything. It'll be very clear that the value of our lives is only redeemed when we put our faith in Christ and come to live with God and for God. So we encourage that. As you can hear, my voice isn't 100%, but I'm receiving healing every day, a little bit more, I think. And, uh, hopefully by tomorrow any sign of my sore throat will be gone. But that's another thing, you know, we don't know what our health will go or not, um, but we can be thankful in every day when we remember the love we've had. Um, if you had a family, if you had friends, if you had, you know, spouses or loved ones or whatever, um, whether they're here with us now or gone, um, We've known love, and that was all a gift through God, through his creation and his circumstances and shaping our lives. And if we know the Lord, you know, that's, that's the hope that should buoy us for all our lives, regardless of the circumstances we face. So I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God. Read your Bible and, uh, know who you are in Christ. Believe it, receive it, and live it. You know, and keep going. Anyway, we encourage you, if you don't know what I'm talking about, maybe the discipleship classes I did online could help. Basically, they're Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're all available on our podcast and YouTube channel. And also we offer a Bible study. Yesterday we did a Bible study on time passages And that's available to you. So read the Word of God, discover its truth, apply it to your life, and, you know, repent of your sin and start living according to God's way, and you'll see the fruit of the Spirit grow in your life. It's all there, fresh for the picking. You just have to follow, follow, follow your Lord and Savior, and he'll show you the way. All right, well, it's off to work and all that. Uh, I pray everyone has a good day. So let's actually pray for that. 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, Lord. We thank you for the love that you've given us, um, because of who you are and, you know, through all our friends and family. Um, Lord, we're greatly humbled when we consider how fortunate we've been with our lives. And Lord, we just pray for anyone listening our friends from all across the world. Um, we pray for, pray for anyone listening or reading this message today, Lord, that you come alongside them and let them know how much they are loved by you and by others. And, uh, Lord, to give them a hope and a future, uh, that they can walk in the Spirit and let go of the hurts of the past, to, you know, accept the joy and the pain, knowing that, uh, You work all things together for good. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. But we, we do call, ask that you go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see and the things you want us to do, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord. And all these things we pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.