Grace, Love, and Overcoming Failure - Purity 1507

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark and this is today's photo. Uh, to see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a full moon over Willard Mountain comes to us from yours truly as I captured the scene Friday after sunset while heading east on Waite Road in Easton, New York. And the picture doesn't really do it justice, but, uh, there it is. Uh, anyway, today it's Tuesday, and I'm basking in the glow of God's grace this morning as last night's first meeting of my online teaching and support group, Grace for the Holidays, kicked off. And it really encouraged me to rest and rely on God's grace to lead me in the way I should go. Not only is this latest ministry venture a new chapter in my Christian life coaching practice, but it couldn't come at a better time as I am receiving as much as I am giving from the Grace Course content. As the first lesson emphasized, developing our love relationship with the Lord and relying on his care, strength, wisdom, and love to help us to experience his grace on a continual basis as we seek to become more and more like Jesus and live out our, uh, live out the life of a Christian disciple. And for me currently, I'm transitioning. The transition to become a vegetarian has really begun as, um, we're moving into, uh, meatless— meat— a meatless existence. So we'll see how it goes. We need grace for that. Um, you know, there are so many aspects of our faith, and if we are not careful, we can easily distort the meaning and purpose of our relationship with God into another performance space drudgery rather than enjoying the— enjoying and experiencing the love relationship we're supposed to have with God. Our sanctification, for instance, can be something we attempt in our own strength, or it can be something that we just expect God to do in us. But if we understand that we are in a love relationship with the Lord, we would approach it differently. When we decided to follow the Lord, we have to repent. Uh, which literally means changing our minds. And if we want to experience the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we may have to change them completely. Um, today's In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley, uh, devotional encourages us to let our repentance be complete. And I'm sharing it today because it presents two truths that can be a powerful tool against temptation. Um, Dr. Charles Stanley writes, Overcoming failure. Our Father, who wants his children to be victorious, has through Christ given us everything we need. Victory is God's will for the life of a believer, but sometimes we can find ourselves repeatedly falling into the same sin. If we want to do what is right, why do we continue to miss the mark? One reason is incomplete repentance. It is possible for us to experience grief, embarrassment, and shame over sin without being truly repentant. Repentance isn't a matter of weeping or feeling guilty. Rather, it's a change of mind about sin so that we no longer hold on to our own perspective but instead agree with God's viewpoint. When we do this, the heart turns in the opposite direction from persistent wrongdoing. The second reason for failure is an inadequate view of our identity in the Lord. We, as children of God, have Christ living within us. When we grasp this truth, we will recognize that sin does not fit who we are and will stop rationalizing our offenses. Our genuine repentance is based upon an honest and biblical understanding of our identity. When we put these two truths together, we create a powerful tool against temptation. Our Father wants us to be victorious, and we triumph when we remember that Jesus Christ is the source of our life. That's from Dr. Charles Stanley, and I say amen. You know, last night at the Grace for the Holidays group, we discussed how an understanding of God's grace and love can be the missing ingredient to our victory and freedom. Don't get me wrong, freedom isn't a recipe. It flows from relationships— our relationships to our sins and our relationship relationships to God. Stanley's first point, to agree with God, recognizes the fact that our sin is wrong and has negative consequences. That's, that's good. We usually know this, you know, but we need to declare our relationship to our sin is over. You know, we have to make a public declaration that we are done with this and say goodbye to our old sinful ways, and we have to be real and tell people we are done. There are few quote-unquote anonymous victories, and if you try to keep your recovery a secret, you do a disservice to yourself and to God. That's incomplete repentance. Um, let's see, Stanley's second point, our identity is huge. We need only— we not only need to know who we became when we put our faith in Jesus, we have to choose to live according to our identity in Christ. We not only have to choose to live a Christian lifestyle, we have to own it. This is who I am, a Christian, a child of God, and I'm not going to live how I used to. I am a new creation in Christ, and I don't do those things anymore. This means following your new identity into a body of believers where you can grow and serve and be supported in your new life. It means being an authentic Christian and turning away from any churchy, surface-deep expressions of your faith and taking personal responsibility for seeking God. Stanley's two truths are a powerful tool against temptation, but there's one thing, one more thing that he failed to mention: love, or God's grace. You know, now that we have come into the kingdom, we have to break away from the world's performance-based mentality and live our lives based on love. We repent because we love the Lord. Last night, one of the guys in our group received that truth that, that John 14:15 points to, where Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments." It clicked for him as he understood if he loved God, he would be able to obey his commandments. And that's the way victory comes, from a complete surrender to the love that God pours out for us to experience. Where his love changes our minds and hearts about our sin, ourselves, and our Heavenly Father. Complete repentance comes from love. So tell your Father you love him, and let his love change all your relationships and lead you into the abundant life of love, joy, and peace that he has for you. You know, it was the only— it was the only— let's see, it was the only reason I went into recovery, because God showed me in his word that my sins were wrong, and because I love the Lord for saving me and making me a new person. My love for God drove me to unashamedly surrender to his ways, to embarrass myself by telling the world I was done. I proclaimed my Christian identity, but years later, after keeping my sin in the shadows, I walked into a Christian recovery group to humble myself and ask God and the people there for help. I asked for help, I received it, and now I try to give it. It was my love for the Lord that did it. His power, His grace, His love, and my deciding to trust and follow Him set me free. Now, the third key is love. We have to love God, love our new life and Christ so much that we will refuse to let our sin cause any disharmony in that relationship. And so yeah, I sort of did those out of order, but it sort of worked out. Anyway, uh, we move on to today's Bible verses, uh, which come from our Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. Uh, this morning's meditation verses come from the section on, uh, giving, and today's verses are Galatians 6:9-10, which, uh, tell us, let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then We will have opportunity. While we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of faith, of the faith. Today's verses are the fifth of five passages of scripture that fall under the eighth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on giving, which tells us God requires us to be merciful and give to the poor. Today's Bible verses encourage us to keep doing good in the trust that if we persist in our efforts and don't lose heart, our good— our efforts to do good will reap a harvest. Ephesians 2:10 indicates that we were saved for good works, and so it should be no surprise that the Apostle Paul would encourage us to live out our purpose in Christ, to use every opportunity we have to do good to all people and to especially do so for our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. We were saved to do good, and giving to the poor with our time, treasure, or service is just another opportunity to be used by God for his kingdom purposes and to show and share the love of God. 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 By Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams, which is a 365-day devotional. Um, and we're on day 6, so we're— it's going to be a long journey. Um, and, and from, uh, for day 6, uh, J.E. Adams shares a portion of John 1:4, which says, in him was life, and the life was the light of human beings. And J.E. Adam writes, Jesus is the source of life. Life is in him who came to bring it abundantly to those who would receive him. His life enlightens. Those who boast of this world's wisdom consider themselves enlightened, but they are really in darkness. Paul, a highly educated man, warned us not to trust the wisdom that comes from modern-day leaders. Are coming to nothing. Rather, he urges you to place your faith in God's power. Contemporary liberal education institutions have caused much harm to our culture and to the Church. You must become wary of the radicalism that is taught in many of them. True enlightenment is not found there. Rather, true enlightenment is the possession of those simple, Trusting saints who gave— who have God's Spirit, which provides them alone with the mind of Christ so that they can think like him. Where do you turn for truth? Consider carefully how you answer. Uh, me, I turn to truth. For me, where do I turn for truth? I turn to the, uh, the word of God, um, and, and the person who is truth, Jesus Christ. Um, you know, J.E. Adams got some very good points today. Um, recently I was listening to a, a book, uh, supposed to be, you know, to help the care of the soul, and I discovered that the source content is based on psychology and, you know, um, you know, mythology and everything else, you know, a general, um, a general spirituality, and rather than the specific truth of Christianity. And it is a mess, and it, it pains my ear. It's an audiobook, and it pains my ears to listen to it because there's some truth in there, but it's surrounded by lies and, you know, um, compromise. You know, there are many different faith streams, but there's— we can't join them all together into one. You know, Jesus was very clear that he was the way, the truth, and the life. And if we consider anything else to be wise, um, that doesn't, you know, recognize Jesus as the truth will be deceived and destroyed, you know, by it. So we encourage, we encourage people to get to know and to examine their— to examine the truth of Christianity, because when we seek the Lord, we'll find, we'll find him. And Jesus was, you know, and is the Son of God. And it is through him, uh, that we will be saved. Um, so we, we always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Have you made Jesus your Lord and Savior? And have you made the decision to actually live out your faith instead of living a hypocritical, compromised life where you say you believe but you, but you live a sinful, uh, sinful lifestyle? Um, you know, that's, that's going to— that's, well, A, going to take away your peace, and quite frankly, it could, um, indicate that you're really not in the kingdom. Um, I could say, you know, as Jesus may one day say, I never knew you. And so that, that, those passages in the Bible should frighten us, but they should draw us to repentance, you know, to do what's right and follow the Lord. And, um, and so we, we encourage you to do that. When you do that, your life becomes so much better because, uh, you know, God, God is a good, good plan for your life, as they say. Um, it may involve suffering, but when you when you're held up by the one true God and, you know, saved and forgiven, um, you have peace no matter what your circumstances are. So, um, you know, when we, when we draw close to God, he gives us a hope and a future, and he usually gives us something to do. But me, uh, he's given me, uh, an opportunity to lead and Celebrate Freedom, a support group, uh, in, uh, for Christian recovery and discipleship that meets on Wednesday nights at Starpoint Church in Clifton Park. And if anyone is listening in the state, New York region, we encourage you to come out and join us, uh, for that group. Beyond that, I mentioned it today that Grace for the Holidays is an online teaching and support group for men. We meet on Mondays at 6:30 PM. I'm recording the messages, so I'm leaving the registration open throughout the holiday season until we're done. So if anybody wanted to join, you know, basically you can benefit from the recorded sessions, and then you can benefit from the online community that we formed where we're, we're going through Freedom in Christ Grace Course, the original Grace Course. It's 6 lessons for the 6 weeks, um, basically leading up to Christmas, um, to encourage us, uh, to experience God's grace and to, uh, have grace for the holidays. Um, however, um, if you're not a— if, if you can't do that and you want to spend the holidays by yourself, we understand. Uh, but in the new year, uh, we also are offering Freedom in Christ men's online course, uh, through Freedom in Christ Ministries. That'll be beginning on January 7th, um, and, and those will be on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 PM. We encourage people to register now, men to register now, um, because registration closes on December 10th, I believe. So, um, you want to get that done. And for the ladies out there, there's other online courses available Um, basically at ficm.org, we encourage you to check out the course offerings and figure out, you know, which one you want to sign up for. Um, beyond that, man, woman, or child, we encourage every one of them to find or increase their freedom in Christ by joining one of our online podcast classes on YouTube. Uh, you can go to our playlist page and find teachings for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom discipleship course, along with the study on Bonhoeffer. There's a bunch, bunch of playlists we put out there from us and from others that would encourage you to seek the Lord. So we point you there. And we end always by saying, are you empty for Christ too? Have you made yourself available to be filled with the Holy Spirit to experience God's grace on a continual basis? Are you Are you, you know, are you walking and talking with God? If so, we say keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we encourage you to seek him and pray for him to reveal himself to you and to pray to make Jesus your Lord and Savior, because that will make— it's the— it's these days, it's the road less traveled, and it would make all the difference. So We believe in the power of prayer, and that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your, in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for the grace, uh, that you've given us, Lord, to see the truth and to experience the victory and the freedom that comes from putting their faith in Jesus and following him into the life that you have for us, Lord. Lord, we pray for anyone listening or reading today's message, that they'd be encouraged in their faith and that they would too, um, follow, follow you into the— what you have, into the life that you have for them, Lord. Um, but Lord, we also ask for your help in that, um, because we definitely need it. Um, we need you to 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 in your kingdom, Lord. And, uh, we need a lot of help with that. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, We love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.