In this December 2022 devotional, M.t. Clark shares a personal testimony of how his faith in Christ has shaped his life, marriage, and sense of belonging. He opens with a vivid description of a sunrise photo from his countryside home in Easton, New York, and urges listeners not to let holiday busyness eclipse the season’s spiritual beauty. Clark reflects on the meaning of December, the importance of Christ and love, and expresses deep gratitude for his wife, Tammy Lynn, describing her as his true home. He recounts the costs of following Christ—rejection, betrayal, suffering—yet affirms that these hardships underscore the value of his relationship with God. He emphasizes the necessity of a Christ‑centered partner, warning against relationships with those who do not share that commitment. Clark then moves to scriptural teaching, focusing on Mark 10:42‑45, advocating servant leadership and contrasting it with worldly power structures, illustrated by a testimony from a former Freedom in Christ course participant. He references Deuteronomy 32:35 and Romans 12:19‑21 to reinforce the biblical principle of overcoming evil with good. The devotional continues with a brief study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, sharing the final paragraphs of chapter 8 and encouraging listeners to engage with his discipleship resources—podcasts, YouTube, PowerPoint presentations, and a Bible study with Arthur and Susanna Cinquatti. Throughout, Clark invites listeners to pursue freedom in Christ, surrender worldly values, and seek God’s will, concluding with a heartfelt prayer for the audience.
Chapters
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 the pink and purple clouds of sunrise from the point of view of the backyard of my countryside home in Easton, New York comes to us from Tammy Lynn Clark, who was tending to her pets when she looked to the right to see this beautiful sunrise. Well, it's the first Saturday of December 2022, and it is my prayer that all who read or hear this message will not be so busy in your holiday shopping and preparations for Christmas that you miss out on the beauty of the season. I don't know what it is about December, but just last night I was marveling over how I was just overcome by peace and love just sitting at the dinner table in the presence of my wife preparing dinner while Christmas music played. December, for me anyway, brings with it a sense of things wrapping up, or things coming to an end, of a sense that we made it through another year and that we are in the home stretch. And this culmination of the year and the Christmas celebration brings with it an emphasis on the things that are important: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the love that we enjoy with our loved ones that are reflected by songs like I'll Be Home for Christmas or Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or the Christmas song, you know, the one with chestnuts roasting on an open fire. So last night I was feeling like an old nostalgic sappy mess as I was just feeling the love pour out of me as I listened to the music and stared at my wife. I am so grateful for my wife, and this morning I was reflecting on our lives together and just got that Michael Bublé song "Home" that ends with, "You always believed in me. Another winter day has come and gone away, and even Paris and Rome. I want to go home. Let me go home. And I'm surrounded by a million people. I still feel alone. Oh, let me go home. Oh, I miss you, you know. Let me go home. I've had my run, baby. I'm done. I gotta go home. Let me go home. It'll be all right. I'll be home tonight. I'm coming back home. As much as I am— I absolutely adore my place down by the river in Stuyvesant. My home is wherever Tammy Lynn is. And the reason I can say that is because no one other than God has loved and accepted me as much as she has. And most importantly, she loves and accepts me for who I am in Christ and encourages me in my walk of faith, even though it, it was contrary to the way most of the world walks. It increasingly pains my heart to see how most of the world is enamored with the things of this world and how all of us become— before coming to Christ— build up our identities around our preferences, activities, and hobbies. And thus separate ourselves from the Lord by living independently of him. My decision to follow the Lord has not been without its costs. I have been rejected, insulted, abandoned, and betrayed because of my faith. I always have accepted the losses because I know that the value of the things that I have lost or the relationships that have been broken pale in comparison to the immense value of my relationship with God. My eternal destiny with Him, but it doesn't mean they didn't hurt. However, regardless of the pain, that suffering makes the decision to follow the Lord to be even more compelling. I didn't suffer all of this to walk away from the Lord now. Plus, the Lord delivered me out of so much darkness that I simply can't, can't imagine ever going back to the way things used to be. In my life. Occasionally I'll be tempted to, quote unquote, give it a rest, or to second-guess some of the choices I've made on the path of Christian discipleship. But when I honestly evaluate the situations I faced and the outcomes that have resulted on this faith walk, I quickly dismiss those thoughts because I simply can't imagine an alternative road that would have been any better. Part of that journey is Tammy Lynn. The Lord revealed to me that there was simply no other woman for me, and that her coming into my life was a result of my faithfulness to follow Him, and that our coming together as man and wife has elevated my life to heights of joy, love, and purpose that I simply could not have imagined. And it is because of our faith in Christ that we have a home in each other. It is— it was my decision to be faithful, to launch a discipleship ministry, and her decision to seek the Lord in her life that brought us together. And it was only with the understanding that this decision to follow the Lord would define the rest of our lives that we became man and wife. And now we are just doing it. Last night after dinner and spending time together, I felt the pull of sleep coming on hard. But was reminded by Tammy Lynn that we hadn't read the second chapter of the Gospel of John yet. And as our plan is to read through that book before Christmas, so we opened up our Bibles and read it. That might not seem like much, but it displays the reason why there was no other for me but Tammy Lynn. Simple faith, dedication to follow the Lord come what may is what I needed in a wife. And the Lord gave it to me in Tammy Lynn. After emerging victorious over my addictions and all the brokenness of my past, because of the Lord's presence in my life, there was simply nothing and no one that I would allow to allow me to compromise my decision to follow him. I was prepared to go the rest of my life alone rather than stop being the person God wanted me to be. And Tammy Lynn, I don't have— I don't just have someone to support my decisions to follow the Lord. I have someone to actively encourage and inspire me to be faithful and to be bold and courageous to pursue all that the Lord has for me. I am free and I am home in Christ, of course, but the Lord was gracious to send me a woman to share this life of freedom, peace, and joy with. So, to anyone out there who is alone, let me encourage you not to ever compromise your relationship with the Lord by becoming involved with someone who doesn't know Him or who isn't actively seeking to obey Him. Paying the Lord lip service doesn't cut it for a life partner. It's better to walk alone rather than to walk through life with someone who is just pretending to love God and who is actually consumed with themselves or the things of this world. The Counting Crow song "A Long December" is a melancholy song that reflects the winding down spirit of the year where we might be suffering pain, exhaustion, or loneliness, causing us to "laugh a little slower," "talk a little lower." But it also speaks of the hope that the next year will be better than the last. I don't know if you really know who you are in Christ. I don't know how free you are. I don't know if you have a home where you can authentically live out your faith and experience all those things. But I can tell you without a doubt that if you keep walking and talking with God, this year can be better than the last. Because the longer we walk according to his wisdom and ways and stay in his presence, the more we leave the darkness of our old lives behind and the further we step into the plans that He has for us. So rejoice and take some time to feel the love of the season and pour out the love God has given to you to all the people in your life. It is a wonderful life only when we acknowledge it as a gift from God and fully realize its value, the value of it when we are redeemed in in Christ. Today's Bible verses come to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are Mark 10:42-45, and they say, so Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. Today's verses show us that the power and authority we receive through Jesus is best used in service of others, and that our greatness in his kingdom will reflect what we give rather than what we receive. Teachings like this from Jesus, I believe, are met with the highest levels of skepticism imaginable because they are so counterintuitive to the way our world system operates. The corporate world will occasionally try to adapt the principle, principle of being a servant leader by encouraging managers to invest in their team members and to develop the people on on their teams, but generally the higher levels of corporate power are accomplished by Machiavellian ends justifying their means and some cutthroat power moves. One of the men from a Freedom in Christ course that I led testified of his corporate success being cut short when he rose through the ranks to a certain point only to discover that he was determined to be quote-unquote "too nice" for upper management and was fired, leaving him feeling betrayed and utterly disillusioned with the business world. He rebounded eventually, but his testimony revealed that he was quite shaken by the experience of learning the truth of how things really were in the world. "Nice guys finish last" isn't a phrase I just made up, and there are lots of people who can testify of their experience where this seems to be true. But Jesus says otherwise. Why? Because He is the truth and He knows the truth about the final outcomes. There are tons of verses in the Bible about this paradox of how the wicked seem to prosper, but other verses show us that the wicked will receive justice, like Deuteronomy 32:35 that says, "I will take revenge." I will pay them back. In due time their feet will slip, their day of disaster will arise, and their destiny will overtake them. And Romans 12:19-21, where Paul writes, Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scripture says, I will take revenge, I will pay them back, says the Lord. Instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. So, we overcome evil by doing good, and as today's verses teach us, we will be considered great in God's kingdom through being a servant to others, like the way Christ was a suffering servant to us. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist 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 today we're finishing up chapter— well, the section on the Church of Jesus Christ and discipleship, quote unquote, chapter 8, preliminary questions. And I shared most of it yesterday, so I'll just be sharing the last two paragraphs from that section. Um, so it's a short read if you want to go to M.t. Clark, uh, to see where we left off yesterday, um, with what Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to say about the preliminary questions in considering the Church of Jesus Christ and discipleship. As always, we encourage a walk of faith because the Lord saved us and remade us and transformed us to experience the heights of joy, love, and peace as we've left the darkness of our past behind and now live in His glorious light. You know, that sounds poetic, but it's like a spiritual reality that invades my life every day. Just yesterday, I was just going through another day at work, wanted to get through Friday to get to my countryside home so I could sit in the presence of my wife and just I was love, love her, love her, love her. And so, but throughout the day, you know, I wasn't stressed about work. I just took the challenges as they come and came, and through it all, I just thank the Lord for my good fortune of being able to accomplish work and, you know, just for his presence, you know, literally, you know, talking to God as I go about my day. And that might seem strange, but, um, there's a— it's, it's not strange when you consider that God is with us. He is omnipresent, after all. That means he's in all places at once. So why not talk to him? Um, so yeah, um, it is my hope and prayer that if you don't know your freedom in Christ, that you'll pursue it and you'll seek the Lord's will for your life. And guess what that means? Surrendering what you know about this world, what you, you know, changing the values and your priorities about what you, you know, might value in the world and put them in the context of what God has to say about that. So we encourage people to check out the discipleship teachings that we have on our podcast for Victory Over the Darkness, the Bond and Bondage Breaker and Freedom in Christ. They're available on the podcast and the YouTube channel for your, uh, edification and enjoyment. We also provide a Bible study with Arthur and Susanna Cinquatti that we pray we will resume this Sunday. And I'm also currently releasing a teaching of PowerPoint presentations on, on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's discipleship. So You want to check those things out. It is my intention to provide these daily messages and all the other things that we produce to encourage people in their faith. That, you know, the world system and the way of the world are one thing, but there is a higher truth behind it all, the unseen things of God's Kingdom, and we can live according to God's Word. That we don't have to live like the world, that we can find peace and joy in the things of the Lord. We've been conditioned to, to learn how to comfort ourselves with the things and entertainments of this world. But if we evaluated them, you know, evaluate these things— our hobbies, our interests, our entertainment— according to what God says, we discover that, wow, these things aren't really good. Um, yeah, they might be sort of pointless, um, if not morally corrupt. So, uh, open up your eyes and see that there's better things to spend your time with. And that thing, of course, is our relationship with the Lord. So that's what we encourage as we go through Saturday. I'm not sure what the plans hold for today. Um, but I know I'll be with my wife, so I know that'll be good as I am home for, for the weekend. And, uh, I always have a home in her. So I, I, I thank you for listening. And so let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for, you know, the gifts of this life that you've given me and the things that have changed since I started to, uh, you know, answer that call you put on my life to follow you. Lord, we pray for everyone listening today that they'd be blessed and that you would come alongside them in their prayer requests and their, their walk through faith. And, uh, Lord, we just pray as always that you go before us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
