I Can’t Talk About My Faith – Lies of the Enemy #18– Purity 1030

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 a blazing sun and blue skies over Waite Road comes to, to us from yours truly as I captured the scene last week on the walk back to my countryside home in Easton while out walking my canine friend Harley. I know this is a familiar scene, but it's a good one, and I share it because I am rejoicing over being, uh, here this again this week for the weekend, and to illustrate the point that it's okay to continually go back to the familiar things in our lives that give us joy and peace. Well, it's Saturday, and while we have to be careful not to make idols, form addictions, and be discerning in what we what it is we get our peace and joy from, the practice of appreciation can increase our capacity, capacity for joy, and in turn increase our emotional resilience. The Word of God tells us to think about things that are true, noble, pure, lovely, virtuous, and good for a reason, and the practice of appreciating the simple and pure things in our lives helps us to grow in the spirit. Um, but I just, I, I just, I don't just dwell on sunny days, blue skies, and country roads. Those things are good and pure, but whenever we take pleasure in the created things of this world, we should also remember and thank the Creator, God. While that particular stretch of White Road is near and dear to my heart, when I walk it, I often give credit where credit is due. By thanking the Lord for it, uh, for the other things in my life and for my relationship with him. Uh, the best, true, pure, lovely, virtuous, and good person to meditate on— God is not a thing— is the Lord. And I know that thinking about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, my life with him, is the wellspring from which I can continually go to to find meaning, purpose, peace, and joy. And I do not only enjoy thinking about God, I like talking about him too, which brings us to our current series, The Lies of the Enemy, which is an examination of some of the common lies, sometimes sneakily whispered into our minds as first-person statements, that the enemy tells us to cause us to doubt our faith, lose our peace, cause division, or influence us to not follow the Lord with the way we live our lives. Today's big lie is Lie #18: I can't talk about my faith. This lie of the enemy encourages us to keep silent about the most important topic of life, our relationship with the Lord. It has often been said that you can't talk about religion in public or at polite social gatherings by various people throughout the ages as general advice to, quote unquote, keep the peace. And so this lie that you can't talk about your faith has been widespread throughout the ages. Even though our current culture supposedly tries to stress inclusion, tolerance, and diversity, political correctness would actually prefer that we remain silent on matters of faith, particularly that of the Christian faith, because the things that Jesus said caused people to choose sides, to not tolerate evil, and to put their faith exclusively in him alone. Christ's claim to be the only way to God doesn't allow for polite peace because he was fighting the world, the flesh, and the devil to save people's souls. Although conversations about the Christian faith could make people uncomfortable, that's really the point. Jesus came to wake people up to the spiritual realities of life because the idea that everyone is fine believing whatever they want to believe isn't true. What we believe in and who we put our faith in matters. Our faith as Christian just doesn't give us a framework to navigate through life with. It gives us a relationship with the Creator of all things who has shown us the way to live with him forever through faith in Jesus Christ. So not only should we be talking about our faith because of the personal peace it brings us, We should be talking about our faith in Jesus because it is the good news that saved us from destruction and could save others from a dire eternal destiny. We have to resist the devil and the societal forces that wish to silence our Christian witness. We may face persecution and rejection for sharing our faith, but Christ was willing to die to share the truth, and as Christians, we should be faithful to the call of the Great Commission. To go and make disciples in all the nations, to teach and do all the things that Christ commanded us. Personally, I think the best way to share our faith is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, to live out our faith, and to make a regular habit of encouraging others to follow the Lord, not just with the words we speak, but by the living example of how we live our lives. The purpose of this blog is to encourage people to seek the Lord and His ways for our lives. I seek to lovingly testify to how the world and the enemy have lied to us, and that the answers and solutions that secular society has for us will ultimately fail. Because no matter what utopian or dystopian plans man can come up with to help us to get, uh, you know, to get along, the existential questions of how of who made us, why we are here, and where we are going are never addressed or answered in light of ultimate reality, the reality of God and his kingdom that has been revealed to us by Jesus. Faith isn't a matter of opinion or separated by— from certain aspects of our lives. Our relationship with God is the only thing of value because it is the, it is the thing that will determine our eternal destiny. So let me encourage you to not believe the lie that you can't talk about your faith, and instead demonstrate your faith by the way you live, and to tell people about what the Lord has done for you since you put your faith in Jesus.

And so there you go.

Anyway, uh, that brings us on to the, um The Bible Verse of the Day, which is brought to us from, by our current resource, the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Revelations 3:5, and the word of God says, all who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine. Today's verse points to the future. And the destiny of those who put their faith in Christ and who are not soiled with evil. Um, while I don't really wear white at all here on Earth, I will be happy to be clothed in white if that's the dress code when I enter into God's eternal kingdom, when I go to heaven, or when Christ returns to rule and reign here on Earth. Today's verse talks about our eternal destiny as Christians. Our names are written in the Book of Life, and Jesus will declare to God the Father and his angels— hey guys, Michael, Gabriel— that we are his. Um, while we can really appreciate the benefits of our lives as Christians now, this ultimate reality should positively amaze us and fill us with an awesome sense of joy and wonder. Someday this will happen to us. We will see this scene. We will be clothed in white and stand before the Father and his angels to be declared those who will live forever and those who belong to Christ.

Um, that's good news.

So enjoy your relationship with God and share your faith because it's the truth. And your words could be used by God to bring others to experience this future magic moment too. 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 in their walk. And today we begin a new resource, and considering today was sort of a heavenly a heavenly vision. Um, even though we're trying to highlight the lie of the enemy, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna take a look at the enemy with our new resource, which is Satan, Demons, and Satanism: A Sinister Reality by June Hunt. Um, as always, we share that for educational purposes, and we encourage you to buy June Hunt's book, um, where I'm putting a link on the blog where you can purchase it for $7.99.

Um, but we'll be sharing from that resource. Um, um, so if you wanted to have a good Christian counselor's teaching on, uh, on the enemy, um, you know, we recommend June Hunt's resource because her, her studies are very basic and, uh, very good, very informative, all based on the Bible.

So we'll be sharing today from that that book, and we're just sharing the first section, which is definitions.

It's very methodical and lots of scripture in it.

So if you want to see that resource, go to the— go to mt4christ.org, and you'll see it at the end of today's blog post. And we'll be continuing to share that in the days ahead to expose the enemy, you know, the spiritual reality that the enemy exists, and, uh, he'll lead us astray.

And, uh, he's blinded the world to, to, uh, ignore the Christian witness and to try to silence the Christian witness. So we need to be bold and speak, um, and to show that we're not jerks, you know, that, that, um, that we found the way to life, and we just want to share that, and that some things are just wrong. And that's not according to me, that's according to what God said, the one who made us, and he's the one who knows what's good for us. And so even though we'll have a particularly favorite sin that gives us pleasure, um, you know, part of us knows it's wrong, and that's the part God put in our hearts. And he's written about, you know, he's shared his word through the prophets and and the apostles and Jesus, and, um, to, to share the truth. And that's all contained in the book called the Bible.

So we highly recommend you read it and apply its wisdom to your life.

And so we do that here on the M.t. for Christ 247 podcast by doing a weekly Bible study with Arthur and Susanna Zinkati. We'll be doing a new one tomorrow, prayerfully, and posting it on the the podcast, his outline, Arthur's outline on the, uh, the blog and, uh, the video on YouTube.

So if you don't have a Bible study and want to join a topical study, we invite you to check out Bible Study with Us in Cádiz on our podcast. And we also encourage a life of Christian discipleship, and so we recommend our, our discipleship classes, um, for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. Which are all based on the work of Dr.

Neil Anderson, um, and, um, and the word of God.

And they're all available on the podcast and the YouTube channel as well.

So we recommend that. And if you wanted to take a deeper dive, you can contact me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, and we can send you the free Word documents that I created when I, when I did those classes on purpose. In person. So, um, on Saturday, and, uh, I'm not sure, I guess rain's in the forecast, so I'm not sure what we're doing today. I'm gonna jump into some Bible study this morning for sure. I sort of got things different today.

We're doing the blog and podcast.

It just felt a sense of urgency to get the message out, I guess. Um, and so I did that before my Bible study, which which isn't usually the case, but it is what it is. And that's another thing about our faith, you know, often we think of the Christian faith as things you must do, you must do this, you must do that, you must do this. Well, the good thing is we're free in Christ, and our relationship with God isn't a strict set of rules and regulations. I recommend a daily spiritual practice, but sometimes there's changes in your day, and, and you can, you know, you're not, you're not required to do everything a certain way all the time, every time. You know, the good thing about the disciplines of our faith, they, they can build a strong foundation for our faith, but when they become legalistic we have to wonder if, uh, if we're doing it right. And it's not about doing it right, it's doing it God's way and relating to him. And, uh, so you can change things up occasionally, um, or if you mess up and miss something, you can always go back and do it again later. So it's about progress, not perfection. That's, that's this walk on the Christian path of discipleship. And, uh, It's a, it's a path of grace, you know, so we should remember that and enjoy God's grace. Um, anyway, um, I wish everyone a happy weekend. I pray for the people who are suffering loss or, or medical issues.

Um, I pray for the people who are going to— who signed up for a recovery ministry that we begin in 2 weeks.

Um, and I pray for, uh, pray for everyone to have a wonderful weekend. As I said, let's, let's close it out in prayer here.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom.

Lord, we thank you so much for what you've done in our lives, um, and we thank you that you made us a lot more comfortable sharing our faith, because we know the words that we speak about you were the best things we could possibly say. As long as they reflect the truth and, uh, you know, they're said in love, um, Lord, because we don't want to judge anyone or condemn anyone, but we want to invite everyone to know, um, to know you more and to experience, um, the feeling of liberation that comes from being saved and from choosing to follow you, um, with the way we live our lives.

Lord, so we, we pray for you to go before us today, Lord.

Show us the things you want us to see. Lead us into the things you would have us do. And keep our minds and hearts set on you, Lord, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom and to let others know that there's light in the darkness, and the way, the truth, and the life is Jesus Christ. And It's a good path. It's a good life. It's the only way, and we highly recommend it. So we thank you, Lord.

Lord, we love you. We thank you. We praise you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.