In this concluding devotional, M.t. Clark wraps up his series on "friendship myths" by drawing on Sarah Epstein’s 2022 Psychology Today article and a biblical worldview. He emphasizes that friendships, while valuable, must remain subordinate to a believer’s primary relationship with God, urging listeners to examine and challenge both cultural myths about friendship and theological misconceptions about faith. Clark cites 1 John 3:1‑2 to affirm believers’ identity as God’s children and the future transformation into Christ’s likeness, and he shares a devotional excerpt from Stephen F. Alford on David’s heart‑after‑God‑alone. He then offers practical counsel on battling the flesh—addressing sexual purity, addiction, and other sins—encouraging intentional, “crucifying” discipline and reliance on grace. The message ends with a heartfelt prayer for spiritual growth, freedom, and the ability to represent Christ during the weekend. Throughout, Clark interweaves scriptural exposition, counseling resources, and personal exhortation, inviting listeners to visit his ministry sites for further teaching.
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To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or go to mt4christ.com as well. Good morning. Today's photo of a hazy late afternoon sun and what appears to be low-flying clouds or a fog bank on Lake Ocoee, aka Parksville Lake, comes to us from Fred Demick, who shared this scene from his visit to the oldest lake in the Cherokee National Forest on social media back on April 20th. 20th of this year. Well, it's Friday, thank God, and Fred's photo just says peace to me, and that is my prayer for all my friends today and the weekend ahead. As we draw to the end of another work week, we also draw to a close to our current series on friendship myths, and I want to say— I want to thank Sarah Epstein for her 2022,000— 2022, um, Psychology Today article from which we have drawn inspiration in much of the content of our study on the destructive beliefs we can hold about friendship. So as we walk away from the topic, I felt moved to share Epstein's opening and closing comments on the matter to bring us home. Epstein wrote, our messaging about friendship is one-dimensional. We can— we often speak of friendships in platitudes like best friends forever and ignore the complexity of these important relationships. Out of the simplicity, myths have emerged, and we've spent the last 9 blog posts presenting and doing our best to debunk those myths from a biblical world perspective. And we hope we have put friendship in its proper place as something good that can be twisted and distorted by false beliefs to cause pain or separation, but that shouldn't shouldn't take the place of a relationship with God. Friendship with our fellow man should be subservient to our relationship with God, and likewise, our evaluation of this world should also fall under the truth of God's Word. Common sense is a good thing, but biblical truth is better, and Epstein's concluding remarks about the danger of myths or destructive beliefs gives us an insight as to why that is the case. The marriage and family therapist concluded her article by writing, "What is the real problem with these myths? They are blanket statements. No relationship will ever adhere perfectly to them. Those in the friend— those in the friendship will have to examine their beliefs about friendship, challenge myths and stereotypes, and build the kinds of relationships that works best for them. Common sense and blanket statements usually fail to cover everything adequately." and are often threadbare when it comes to dealing with the complexities of life. Epstein's advice about friendship relationships could just as adequately describe our Christian experience and our relationship with God and the world. As Christians, we will have to examine our beliefs. We need to not only know what we believe and why we believe it, we have to know what the Bible actually says by having a relationship with it, a relation— a regular, if not daily, spiritual practice of reading and studying its wisdom and working to apply its wisdom to our lives. And we'll also have to challenge the myths and stereotypes about faith and being a Christian. Paul spoke about Christian maturity, that many were still babes in Christ, and we can grow a lot in our faith when we actively engage in walking in the Spirit by challenging the status quo of churchianity and seeking the Lord's will and ways for our life in earnest. I'm not telling you to question the authority of the Lord, but we should consider following Jesus' example by challenging the people and institutions that practice legalism, manipulation and control, and/or the opposite extreme of false doctrines and licentiousness. And we will also have to build the kind of relationship that works best for us and God. Our faith, um, our faith life is personal. It's not about the things we do, as, as in a list of rules of dos and don'ts, or a set of practices that we must do to be a Christian. It's about having a deep relationship, personal relationship with the Lord, a friendship with Jesus, if you will, that is defined by our love for him and the various ways we can express it. With this, we shouldn't worry about how our relationship with God measures up with other Christians, but only seek to follow where He leads us and to share the love we receive from Him with others. So, have a wonderful weekend, and go out there and experience, uh, the joy of the life God has given you in Christ, and be bold in sharing His love with those you meet along the path of Christian discipleship. Today's Bible verse, uh, verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on death and eternal life, and today's verses come from 1 John 3:1-2 from the New Living Translation. The Apostle John writes, see how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children. And that is what we are. But the people who belong to the world don't recognize that we are God's children, because they don't know him. Dear friends, we are already God's children, though he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. Today's verses fall under the 21st point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on Death and Eternal Life. And that 21st point is: After Jesus comes again, believers will be like Him. Today's verses confirm the precious promises that come from our faith in Jesus Christ. If we have faith in Jesus, we are children of God, God loves us, and He will change us to be more and more like Jesus. God's love for us is apparent in the coming of Jesus. We share the truth about life and death. And having a relationship with God, and then sealed our way of salvation by paying the penalty of our sins on the cross. Jesus then rose from the dead to show us that, yes indeed, he was more than a good teacher. He was not only the Son of God, he was God the Son. My Lord and my God, as the Apostle Thomas said when he met the resurrected Christ. So the gospel is true. When, when we put our faith in Jesus, the Apostle Paul The Apostle John assures us that we are children of God. And beyond that, John tells us that God will change us here on earth through sanctification, becoming more holy and less sinful, and in eternity where we will have a resurrected body of our own, just like Jesus. So rejoice, brothers and sisters in Christ, rejoice! As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com, 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. Allford. And in his devotionals, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture each day. And, um, it— today's chapter is Acts 13, and from Acts 13, he shares a portion of Acts 13:20 to 2:22, which says, "A man after my own heart, who will do all my will." Stephen Alford writes: With all David's failures, he was still a man after God's own heart. The reason for this lies in the fact that David's heart was always set on fulfilling all the will of God. Though he very often failed, and on one occasion grievously sinned, The real attitude of the heart never changed. This is a fact that must be assumed, for God would otherwise never give utterance to such words as these: Moreover, while man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. The heart here means the affections or desires. David had set his affections on things above. His desire was to fulfill all the will of God. That good and acceptable and perfect will of Him. And Alfred ends by praying, 'Enable me thus to live, O Lord. Amen.' Yeah, we just want to do God's will. Um, when we know Him, we love Him, and we want to please our Father in Heaven by being like Him and following where He would lead us in doing the good things He wants us to do. That's how we have harmony with God. And guess what? When we have harmony with God, we have peace and we have joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. Patience in there too. Patience and self-control. Yeah, it's the fruit of the Spirit. And when we live a life that's not, you know, caught up in the things of this world but are caught up in following the Lord, that's what we experience. It means turning from the world's ways to God's ways, from our sin to his faithfulness. And, you know, no one's going to do it perfectly. We'll all have some sin in our life. And get me straight on this, you know, we don't have to be like, we all sin in our life, so I'm a shoplifter. You're like, no, no, no, no, just accept it. I'm a shoplifter. The word says we will all sin, so deal with it. Um, no, no, no. Um, the book of James, I believe, references that, you know, when we know something is right and don't do it, that's sin. Now that's that, that's it. And we might do it by, you know, our ignorance or our lack of faith, but, uh wantons and we can try to turn from, you know, volitional sin. Um, I, I, um, I encourage and, um, I'm a mentor for a Christian men's purity group, and, um, that's a struggle of the flesh, and the struggles of the flesh are hard. Um, and as much as we can cast out the enemy and pray, uh, a lot of our victory from, um, over the flesh is going to come from crucifying it. Being intentional and aware and committed to not giving in to the sins of the flesh, be it alcohol, drug addiction, sexual immorality, or eating too much. We have to make a decision. We have to A, be aware, you know, what am I doing? B, what am I supposed to do, or what am I, you know, what am I being called to do by the Lord? And see, you know, be committed to not do the things that we're not supposed to do. And, you know, we can always have an excuse to fall or fail, but we have to become a little, you know, crucifying the flesh sounds pretty harsh, so we might have to be a little harsh in dealing with ourselves when we come over it. I forget Levi Lasko's book, Shoot, I declare war. That's what it was. I declare war. Well, we declared war on our old self and, you know, we overcome. So it's a battle with the flesh, but you know, there's grace. If we can increase the amount between our falls, we can eventually get to a point where we would not fall at all and keep going and keep walking with God and victory itself. Freedom. And so that's what we are here to encourage, a life of faith and overcoming, because we've learned it's possible. And that's the biggest secret out there, because unfortunately even most of Christianity will tell you, will agree with the world's lie: you will always struggle with this. Uh, I suppose that's true to some, some degree, but My struggle is, well, I have a history, that's in my history, and if I'm not careful, I can fall back into it. But that's the amount of my struggle, that it's there. When we redirect our mind, take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, it doesn't afflict us mentally. And when we cut it off physically, it's not there if you don't do it. And if you don't do it, you don't give a foothold to the enemy to afflict you and torment you. So believe me, it's true. It's freedom and victory is possible in Christ and faith. So that's what we're here to encourage you to do. But it's the weekend, so if you want to take it easy, take it easy. But, you know, never take it easy and follow the Lord. As far as I'm concerned, that's the way to peace. So that's a light burden, and it's a, it's a wonderful life. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us and will do for us as we trust you. And we know that you're making us more and more like Jesus. And one day we're going to be transformed in our bodies because we're children of God, and we're going to be like Jesus who had a resurrected body someday. Well, he had it— will have a resurrected body someday, Lord. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests, and that you'd bless their life of faith. And Lord, we just, uh, pray for you to go before us today, lead us in the way we should go, open our eyes to the things we should see, and help us to do the things we should do. Because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord, and we need a lot of help with that. So We pray for you to help us and, uh, and be with us today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
