Growing Through Adversity - Day 6 – 21 Day Prayer Challenge - Purity 1424

Welcome to the MT for Christ 247 podcast. I'm M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. Today, uh, to see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or you can see it on YouTube. Um, today's photo of the sun setting between gray clouds and the water of a Great Lake comes to us from Nicole Furch, who shared this view of Lake Erie on social media on Thursday with a simple caption, Amazing Grace. Nicole and her husband Greg are old college friends, and my prayers are with them daily as Greg recently finished radiation treatments for cancer. Um, so prayers for them. Um, well, it's Saturday, and Nicole's posts on Facebook this week have been documenting her family's joy for life, showing us all that even when we are going through tough times, we can find peace and praise God. Honestly, I don't know much about Greg and Nicole's faith life, but I know they have accepted prayers on their behalf and that Nicole's enjoyment of God's creation is inadvertently giving him glory. Uh, speaking of prayer, giving God glory, and overcoming adversity, today is day 6 of Pastor Vlad Savchuk's 21-day prayer challenge, and I am happy to say that even though I went back to work yesterday, I was able to enjoy a few moments of day 5's prayerful celebration on my phone, and I'm sharing the link to it on the blog today if you didn't see it. And I'm also happy to report I am— I continued to benefit from fasting during this prayer challenge. Although fasting is done to fuel our prayers and repentance, I was blessed to see that 6 of the 8 pounds gained during my recent struggles with comfort eating have been exercised from my body since I joined the prayer challenge on Monday. Of course, I realize that the scale's numbers may swing back when I start eating again, but it feels good all the same and is giving me the determination to continue my modified fast until I go on vacation next Friday evening. I find it so invigorating when I slip up in some way and discover that God hasn't left me and that all it takes to experience peace, joy, and the thrill of victory again is to go back to him. And to rededicate myself to doing what is right and following the Lord in earnest. A Christian's lifestyle should be a lifestyle of repentance and regular spiritual disciplines. And when we get drawn away by the world's siren call to indulge ourselves with the comforts of the world, we suffer. Um, but God uses our suffering and not-so-fresh feelings to call us back to him. Uh, God sees our situations and trials and uses them to help us grow. This morning's In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley, uh, Stanley's devotional, uh, addresses using our adversity, and I was moved to send it out to my life coaching clients and the guys from Celebrate Freedom, uh, this morning. And so I'm sharing it here, uh, on the blog today as well. I found Stanley's teachings to be immensely valuable for solid Christian foundational understanding of our faith and the application of our Christian faith to how we live our lives. Um, Dr. Charles Stanley writes today, um, don't waste your adversities. Are you making the most of your troubles? Anytime the Lord allows trials to enter your life, he has a purpose for them. He wants you to squeeze out every bit of spiritual growth instead of letting difficulties squeeze you into despair and discouragement. If you respond in the right manner, the trial that looks as if it could destroy you becomes an instrument of blessing. The most natural response to adversity is to plead with God to remove it. That doesn't work. We might get angry or try to find our our own way out of the difficulty or pain. Sometimes we resort to blaming others for the trouble, and the truth is someone else might have caused the problem, but ultimately God allowed it. No matter where affliction originates, God has always known about the situation and will use it in accomplishing his good purpose. If we could foresee every benefit the Lord designed our trials to accomplish, maybe we'd trust him more. Although we can't see all the specifics of God's plan, we know that his goal is to use our adversity to supply something we lack so we can be mature and complete. So don't waste the opportunity, even though the experience is painful, rest in the Father's comforting arms and let him do his perfect work in you. That was from my good friend Dr. Charles Stanley. Wow, there are some poignant hard truths in Stanley's message today. God knows about your pain. God allowed it, but God will use it to help you grow if you trust him and respond in faith and continue to follow him through and out of the darkness of your trial. So trust God, ask him for strength, wisdom, and guidance, and follow him. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John Gene Crews. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on the forgiveness of sin, or God's forgiveness, and today's verses come from Psalm 32, and they're verses 30 3 and 4. And the word of God says, for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah. Uh, today's verses fall under the third point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sins and God's forgiveness. Um, that third point is David was depressed until he repented and was forgiven. Today's verses, uh, reveal how we suffer more when we hide our sins and try to pretend everything is okay by letting— by never letting anyone see a sweat. Uh, we can put on a good act at times, but when we remain silent and don't receive forgiveness and healing from God, our physical and mental health begin to deteriorate. Sinning is missing the mark of how we are supposed to live. When we are not living right, we may avoid detection and think we get away with it, but we don't. Our sins cost us our peace. They may provide some measure of pleasure, but our sins separate us from harmony with God and the other people in our lives and will cause us to suffer. So stop being as sick as your secrets by admitting you have done wrong to God, by accepting his forgiveness, and by committing to living a righteous Christian life. 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 According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And in Alford's devotional, he, uh, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture from the New Testament. Today's chapter is 1 Thessalonians 1, and from that chapter, or, uh, he, he shares a portion of verse 5, which says, for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit, and, and in much assurance and fullness. Uh, and Stephen Alford writes, the Apostle Paul tells his son in the faith, Timothy, to preach the word, 2 Timothy 4:2. Moreover, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, Romans 10:17. Again, rebirth is affected by the incorruptible seed of the word. But here, says Paul, our gospel did not come to you in word only. There was that which accompanied the preaching of the word. Power. Not only power in delivering, which is essential, but power in as much as the gospel is the power of God, uh, or dynamic of God for everyone who believes. Romans 1:16. The Holy Spirit, you know, that's the power of God. He is the source of the power. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Corinthians 3:17. Where he works, there is fruit. Conviction— that is what is really meant by the word assurance. The preaching carried conviction. Conviction must precede conversion. And he, Stephen Alford, ends by praying, oh, that I might preach the word with the conviction and power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. And, uh, Yeah, there's truth and then there's power, and the power comes from the person of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we put our faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit indwells us, and, um, you know, he moves in power. And how does that power work? Well, the power is to, quote unquote, do what's right. He convicts us to stop sinning, to turn from our sin, to repent, and to do good works. He leads us into all truth. He gives us illumination. And he shows us the way to live. And that's the power. And of course, there's miraculous powers that happen at times, you know, when we pray for healing and pray for deliverance and repent and lead others through repentance in prayer. We can see the Holy Spirit's power, you know, come into manifest— into our presence. Sometimes we feel the Holy Spirit's power through his manifest presence. Sometimes we really feel that he's with us. He's not even He's not only in us, but he also pours his Spirit upon, upon us. And we feel joy and we feel like, wow, God is in this place because he is. He reveals himself and comes to dwell in our presence. But how do you, how do you experience the power of the Holy Spirit? You surrender to God. And so we surrender. So we ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Have you experienced the Holy Spirit in your life? If the answer is no, we— well, brother and sister, we encourage you to surrender to the Lord. Put your faith in Jesus. Ask him to, you know, ask for the Holy Spirit's infilling. Ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And, you know, pursue God in earnest and do something with what the word of God says about you. And live according to your faith. And when you do that, you'll be drawn to do all kinds of things, uh, pray for other people, um, read the Bible, um, return from your sin, and, um, you know, do good works. Um, some of the good works we've been drawn to do, uh, include the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church, uh, which is available to people in the upstate Capital District region, um, at Clifton Park Starpoint Church. And that's, uh, we meet on Wednesdays at 6:30 PM. You'd like to join us, we're there. You can even register for the, uh, the course, or, you know, our group, um, by going to Starpoint Church's website and looking under support groups. And we also have been moved to do, to be a facilitator of online discipleship course for Freedom in Christ Ministries, the Freedom in Christ course. We begin teaching that on Tuesday, September 3rd. You have to register by August 26th, which is only a few— a couple of weeks away, and the class is beginning to fill up. It's available for men. There are other discipleship courses available for women at ficm.org. So if you'd like to check out a course from Freedom in Christ Ministries, go to ficm.org and register today. Um, and we always ask the question, are you empty for Christ too? Um, you know, if so, keep on walking and talking with God. If not, do that surrender thing, you know, pray and ask the Lord to help you and to guide you to live by faith, to be a real Christian, um, to not just be a Sunday Christian but to, to live, live your, live out your faith 24/7. I've discovered that's made all the difference. And believe me, there's times when you vary, you know, go back to the world, you come back to God, um, but you'll find your peace, joy, and all the rest of the fruit of the Spirit when you, when you follow him. So we encourage that every day. And we pray, Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all you've done, Lord. We pray for you to go before us today, um, as we go to work this Saturday. Lord, help us through. And while you're at it, we ask you to also help anyone who's listening or reading or watching today's message, Lord, that you'd come alongside them, their prayer requests, and their walk of faith, because we all need your help, Lord. Um, we just want to be representatives of your kingdom, and, um, we, we can't do it on our own. We need your, your help, your truth, and your power to work in and through us. And that's what we're asking for today, Lord. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.