Held by Him – Called to Speak and Follow Purity 914

To see today's work of art, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's original work of art of a shack-like tower and an old dead tree in the foreground of what appears to be the fading light of day over a lake comes to us from the artistic imaginations of our brother and friend in the UK, Philip Hand. Philip sent me this back on November 30th via Facebook Messenger, and I was surprised to see that he didn't share it on face— on his Facebook page. So I hope he will forgive me for sharing what he sent me privately in such a public forum. However, I'm sure he will, and on the contrary, I believe he will be pleased that I share his work on the blog today, as he has expressed to me that I have the freedom to do so in the past. Well, it's Wednesday again, and as we approach the midpoint of another work week, I felt that Philip's fishing tower situated in the middle of this landscape was good enough to visually represent our arrival at hump day. Also, my using Philip's work today is a way to draw close to the safety of a friend who understands the pain of loss and feeling low. I am in a reflective mood this morning as part of me feels burdened with because I have a heavy heart over the sudden and tragic death of a friend, which I wrote about yesterday, but I also have the pain of being rebuked by someone I respect for the manner in which I wrote about it. I stand by what I wrote and always will, but I was reminded that my words could cause additional pain to others grieving the loss because I reflected on the not-so-wholesome circumstances, surrounding my friend's death, my lost friend's death. Um, if I caused additional pain or offense by what I wrote yesterday, I humbly apologize and ask you for your forgiveness. Just last night in my presentation on Bonhoeffer's Discipleship Lesson 18, I made comments about how in our modern age church discipline seems to be a thing of the past. Only to discover that while I was making those comments, a friend in the Body of Christ was privately reaching out to me via text to rebuke me for being thoughtless of the pain that my words could possibly cause to my departed friend's family. In truth, I didn't consider how my musings over different aspects of my friend's death could hurt his loved ones, and my intention in discussing them was to point out the duality of man. The way we are perceived by others, and the importance of a continued walk of faith and having a good testimony. I feel the sting of the rebuke because I respect the messenger, and it challenged me with the basic principles of wise speaking. In essence, the message asked me if I asked the 3 questions we must ask ourselves before we speak: Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said by me? Does this need to be said by me now? And as much as I am pained in my spirit at the thought that my writing could have caused additional pain to the grieving, I have to honestly say that the answer to all three of these questions would be yes. The messages I produce on a semi-daily basis to share my experience of life and encourage others to live a life of faith are not planned out in advance. I share what's on my heart and what I feel will encourage others to put their faith in Christ and to follow him. Does any of what I say need to be said by me ever? You could easily make a case that little old me, with my track record of a broken life for, uh, of 38 years prior to coming to Christ, shouldn't say anything to anyone ever. Who am I to speak on matters of faith? Who am I to speak about other people's lives? Who am I to quote-unquote judge people? I am an imperfect person who found hope, freedom, love, peace, and victory over the darkness because of my faith in Jesus Christ and because of him never letting me go. I am held by him, and I am sharing on the blog today another drawing of Philip's hand that highlights the fact that we need to be be held by Christ. In his hands we are loved. Because of Christ alone, we are forgiven and free. Because of him, the desperate— and the desperate need that the world has for Jesus Christ, I speak, and I will continue to speak. When you produce a semi-daily message on the fly like I do, you don't always know what you will say from one day to the next. And because I try to base my writings on the wisdom of God's word, I often cringe over the things I write because I know that the truths that I am pointing out exposes our failures to follow God's word. I don't like to be rebuked. I don't like to be thought of in a negative light. I want to be loved and accepted by all. So when I get criticism, it hurts. I don't like confrontation, and I never want to feel that I have done anything to cause someone pain or offense. However, everything I produce is intended to encourage others to follow the Lord, and unfortunately, because of the brokenness of this world corrupted by sin and shrouded in darkness of ignorance, the light of God's Word is not welcomed, and even Christians will encourage us to not shine a light on the dark places because they are too ugly or too painful to consider. But this is the message. I, I I believe the Lord has directed me to continue to share. Follow the Lord. Repent of your worldly ways and follow him. So do I need to say all this nearly every day? Really? I believe I have been called to encourage people to keep walking and talking with God. I don't know how long this quote-unquote calling will last, but until I am convinced by scripture or by the Holy Spirit that I should stop, I will persist in trying to be a voice to encourage people to follow the Lord in spirit and in truth, even if what I see and report on isn't something that you want to share in the polite society of the corporate gathering on Sunday morning. So, if I haven't offended you thus far, let me encourage you to follow the Lord only and to develop a daily spiritual practice of walking and talking with Him via prayer, Bible study, and trying to do what God's Word says. Also, I would encourage you to consider those 3 questions before you speak. But if you read the New Testament, you might be shocked at some of the, some of the things that Jesus said to the polite society of his day. I can only imagine the pain and offense that he caused when he called respected members of the community vipers. But he said it anyway because he wanted to expose the darkness that was hidden in the systems that looked good on the outside but were sick corrupted and dead on the inside. So try to be kind and compassionate in your dealings and whatever you say. But if you feel lead to speak— led to speak— speak, but know that you may be rebuked, you may be hated, and you may be persecuted for saying it. All of which Christ said would happen. To you if you follow him. So while I appreciate the care and concerns of others over what I say, and I am sensitive to the possibility of causing offense in my message, I, I am still going to say them because I feel the Lord has led me to do so. I would rather obey God than remain silent because I have been set free by Jesus and am held by him. I can do no other. But to be faithful to encourage others to seek him. He has led me through the fire and out of the darkness, and so I will follow him come what may. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Isaiah 58:10-11, and they say, feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an overflowing spring. Today's verses encourage us to help others and to let our light shine, knowing that the Lord will guide us and restore us when we are drained. So there, so there is our call to action: feed the hungry and help others in trouble, and to let our light shine at out from the darkness. So out of the intention to help others to learn from my own and others' mistakes from walking in darkness, I shine a light to expose our deeds and, and to illuminate the word of God to encourage people to in the way that God's word tells us to go. As we do this in a world that rejects the Lord, we will suffer, and we won't always know if we'll if what we are doing— if— well, let's read what it says. We won't always know if we are doing everything right, but as I have attempted to follow the Lord, I have discovered that when you walk in the Spirit, God will guide you and restore your strength. This path I have taken, I wouldn't pursue if it wasn't for the guidance and strength I received from doing so. And trust me, I don't just keep plugging along out of some sense of self-righteousness. I humbly and continually go to the Lord in prayer to receive guidance and, and, and the direction. And from the direction that my life has taken, I have, I have to believe that I am following his path for me because my journey has progressively and increasingly led to good things and new opportunities to serve his kingdom, to help those in trouble. So be wise and discerning, seek his guidance, and ask for his strength. Because I know that when you are walking and talking with God, you will be restored like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. 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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship, and, um Today we're continuing sharing from the Visible Church Community. So if you wanted to see some more of that chapter from Bonhoeffer's work, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see that at the end of today's blog post. Well, it's Wednesday again, and I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God, to consider, you know, when you are rebuked. You know, to consider what you're saying. And, you know, unfortunately, I can't really do about what's been said, so we have to be careful of that too. When something's out there, it's out there. And I stand by what I said. Um, the whole con— I, I believe the whole context of the message I shared yesterday was to encourage people to follow the Lord and to, you know, although we remember, you know, the good things about people, that we have to have a full view of their life and the implications it has for our walk. We are to learn from other people's mistakes and from our own mistakes. And I humbly submit to, you know, rebuke and any comments you want to send, send them to mtforchrist247@gmail.com and I'll read all about it. So, um, yeah, anyway, we do, uh, encourage you to, to pursue this path where you may be rebuked, um, where you're— where you may suffer loss of relationships and suffer hardships because of your faith in Christ. But we, we encourage you to take that path anyway because we know that as you walk in the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit will grow in your life. It will be produced by, by you walking with God. Peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, self-control, patience— all those things develop when you— through hardship, quite frankly, through trials, and through following the Lord. So it's— is it worth it? Yeah, it's worth it. It's, it's the life that God calls you to. So we encourage that. And if you need help learning about who you are in Christ, we provide our teachings that we produced back in 2021 at our local church for the Victory Over the Darkness, the Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. Those are available. Also, our Bonhoeffer series is coming to an end, as I did lesson 18 last night. So if you wanted to see what Bonhoeffer's work, The Cost of Discipleship, has to say. There's now 18 lessons of almost the entire book on our podcast and on YouTube. Also our blog, you know, I share daily resources. Entire books of Christian wisdom and counselors are basically contained in these posts. Yeah, I share those intentionally because if you get nothing out of what I say, at least, you know, a highly respected writer or Christian counselor or theologian's work is being shared in part in the blog. So we encourage you to check those out and, you know, just to keep walking and talking with God and to trust in him. We can have— we can have— we can be encouraged as we go because he will restore us and guide us. On this path. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in the kingdom. Lord, today we pray for the family of Clyde Wilburn, who passed recently. We pray for them to forgive me for anything that may— I have said that may cause them offense, uh, now or forever. We pray that now, um, in Jesus' name. And we pray for them to be comforted and given peace, that he did know the Lord And unfortunately, he was taken from us too soon. So we pray for him today. And, well, we don't pray for him. We pray for his family and his friends who miss him dearly, because we trust in you that you do what's right. And that if Clyde was in your number, he's in paradise now. He would most likely forgive me for anything I may have said that pointed out his mistakes. And that's my friend. And I, you know, you meet many people on this path of Christian discipleship, and you never know when your paths will part, and you never know when you'll be reconnected to people. But we just keep walking and we wish people the best as we encounter them as we go. And we trust you with them, Lord. We trust you to guide their path. We pray for people to follow you. No matter, you know, where I go, we pray for everyone I come in contact with to follow you. And that includes everyone listening to the message or reading the message today. Lord, we pray for You to bless them and guide them today, encourage them in their walk and come alongside their prayer requests, Lord, because we need Your strength, we need Your guidance. We don't know everything perfectly and we try to do Your will, but we can cause hurt and offense as we go. So help us to, you know, keep seeking Your will and seeking Your wisdom in everything we do. Lord, today we just pray for You to go before us in that. Set everything up for us, Lord. We need you to set up those divine appointments today. And Lord, as always, we pray for you to open our eyes to what you want us to see and guide us in the way we should go. Because all we want to do is not cause pain and offense, but to, to represent you and your kingdom, um, Lord, and just to guide people, to point people to Jesus Christ. So Lord, we just pray all of that in your name. And Lord, we just, we just, we just want to say we thank you, we love you, we, we thank you for holding us and for guiding us. And we pray all of these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.