I Got Thrown off of The “BibleBus” and Didn’t Even Have Covid! Purity 1437

Welcome to the MT for Christ 247 podcast. I'm M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or tune in to watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a purple sunset mountain lake moment comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who shared this tranquil scene on social media on or around November 17th, 2020. This magic moment is your memory. Give us a heads up and we will note the place and your name on the blog after the fact to give you our thanks and the photo credit you so richly deserve. Well, it's Wednesday, and, and so it's for Celebrate Freedom Night. Join us Uh, and I chose today's photo because of its beauty and because those mountains on the sunset horizon were enough to visually represent our arrival at another midweek summit. Happy Hump Day! Well, I am still getting over the lingering cold that I thought I was miraculously healed of on Monday morning, and as if to coincide with Hump Day, I'm getting overtaking some lumps of getting summarily rejected on social media. Uh, recently I was welcome to contribute to and moderate a subreddit on that site where I admittedly don't really engage in too many lively discussions, but where I do share my blog and podcast offerings on the daily to half a dozen subreddits, only to have my content questioned and then removed, uh, causing me to haste, uh, to make a hasty departure from said subreddit without comment. Uh, apparently my posting about praying for healing with the use of my Bible as the sword of the Spirit, à la The Real Exorcist Bob Larson, uh, caused some concern that I was sharing false doctrine. I only said to pray with healing, you know, uh, for healing with the Bible in hand, like I had seen many other Christians do. And my follow-up posting stating that my healing wasn't complete and I was still trusting the Lord to bring healing without rushing off to a healthcare provider, uh, may encourage others to not seek desperately needed medical attention. Um, and it brought down the axe to remove all my previously approved blog posts and, uh, brought with it a long message of concern that I should seek medical attention because I was still sick, and a warning about Word of Faith, name-it-claim-it theology, and the likes of E.W. Kenyon and those inspired by his teachings. As much as I decided to leave the condemning subreddit immediately, I did take their warnings and advice under advisement. In my walk of faith, I have been exposed to Word of Faith teaching and have been in circles where I came to discover that name-it-claim-it was subtly, or not so subtly, a part of the groupthink. In various groups I've been in. Uh, so I don't take those allegations lightly, and I know firsthand the disappointment and confusion that can result from putting your faith in results more than putting your faith in God. However, at the same time, I fear, uh, that when we don't practice what we preach by actively praying for the Lord's help with the situations we face We can easily fall into an equally dangerous place of laxity where we don't engage or share our faith and leave everything for God to do. Jesus calls us to ask, seek, and knock. So I ask, I seek, and I knock, and I actively look for ways to live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. And if I discover ways that other Christians have found to be helpful, I'm willing to give it a try and trust the Lord to use it or not use it, um, use what I do as part of his sovereign will. I think there is some wiggle room in the outcomes of our lives with the Lord, as indicated in his good, acceptable, and perfect will that's mentioned in Romans 12:2. And even though I know that I won't do things perfectly in my faith, faith walk, I'm going to aim high and let God bless what he will bless. I'm not a name it, claim it teacher. I'm a try it and maybe you'll like it teacher. I encourage people to test their faith by putting it into practice. How will we know what the Lord will bless if we don't try to live by faith? I believe the Lord calls us to follow him with the way we live our life, and so we should go to him in prayer for help, strength, and guidance and receive what he brings. So I prayed with a Bible in my hands, and I liked it. Uh, even though my cold symptoms reappeared, I haven't necessarily lost faith in the practice of praying with a Bible as an expression of my faith in God and in his word, uh, and certainly haven't lost faith in the Lord who stands above me and the book in my hands. Uh, however, with that said, this criticism and concern over my health inadvertently gave me a spirit of fear. I rebuke you, Satan. But I didn't. And as the day progressed yesterday, every sign of my cold caused me to worry about the possibility that my lingering cold was something more sinister, like the dreaded COVID-19 or 27 or whatever number or variant we are on now. And so my faith in God to heal me was shaken, and I was concerned that my blind faith, um, could cause injury to others if I was indeed COVID infected and would spread it to others. By the end of the workday yesterday, I was convinced that I needed to test myself for COVID because I had Celebrate Freedom today and I couldn't be irresponsible and possibly share more than my encouragement at tonight's meeting. So after work, I bought a COVID test. Kit, and before the results were in, was thoroughly convinced that I had COVID and would probably lose my beloved wife, who was also sick, or my own life because I dared to foolishly pray to God with a Bible, no less, instead of getting medical attention sooner. But you know what? I tested negative. I don't have COVID. I just have a cold that didn't immediately leave me. I got thrown out of the subreddit Bible Bus, uh, thought I had caught the plague and didn't even have COVID. Um, so I'm happy to say that I will be at Celebrate Freedom tonight, where I won't shake hands and will keep my distance from others all the same, but where I will ironically be encouraging others to take action by choosing to trust the Lord to help them with their hurts, habits, and hangups. Where they will have to battle the lies of the world, the flesh, and the devil to declare that they believe that God can and will help them to be free and healthy. Becoming free in Christ is possible through our faith. God gives us the strength to overcome, but we will have to deny those who would cause us to fear that healing and transformation isn't for us. That we are sick and can't expect God to help us. But I know the truth. God does help. God does heal. God does transform us into the new creation that he made us to be. God gives us new life, and we just have to believe and follow him to experience it. Speaking of new life, Turning— Turning Points devotional by David Jeremiah today speaks about being a new creation in Christ and what it means.. And so I'm sharing it on the blog today where David Jeremiah writes about put, put off and put on, I guess. Uh, David Jeremiah writes, in the Garden of Eden, God created a new man and woman according to his image in true righteousness and holiness, but righteousness and holiness were marred by sin. Uh, the story of redemption becomes a story of restoring righteousness and holiness in man and creation. We call the temporal restoration of righteousness sanctification and the ultimate eternal restoration of righteousness glorification. We find connections to the creation and recreation story throughout Scripture. For example, 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. The practical application of that truth is described in Ephesians 4:22-24, where Paul says to put off the old self of unrighteousness and sinfulness and to put up and put on the new self of righteousness and holiness. Putting off and putting on are our part, our responsibility as imitators of God, give— giving us the desire and power to do to do so is God's part through the power of His Holy Spirit. Don't start a new day in dirty clothes, neither should— well, we don't start a new day in dirty clothes, neither should we live a new life with an unrighteous heart. And then David Jeremiah also shares a quote from A.W. Pink, which says, everything in Scripture has in view the promotion of holiness. And Amen. Um, God can heal our infirmities, and God can help us to be holy as he is holy. He can help us to put off the old man and to walk in victory, freedom, and health as new creations in Christ. Today's Bible verse comes to us from A Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on the forgiveness of sins. And today's verse is Romans 5:1, which says, 'Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Today's verse is the second of three passages of scripture that fall under the 15th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sin. And that 15th point is: we are justified, cleared of all guilt, by faith in Jesus In him we find peace. And today's verse informs us that it is by faith alone that we have been justified and that we can find peace with God through Jesus Christ. When we put our faith in Jesus, it is just as if we have never sinned, as Derek Prince used to say. So we can have peace and rest knowing that our performance doesn't make us children of God. It's his love for us and our faith in Jesus that gives us peace. With him. Pardon me. As always, we encourage you to go to mtforchrist.com where we always share insights and, um, insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ with our walk. Today we continue sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford.. And then Alford's devotionally shares a portion of scripture, um, from 1 Timothy 6, which says, Godliness with contentment is great gain. Um, and Stephen Alford writes, Godliness is really Christlikeness. Hence Paul writes, great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh. And to the attainment of godliness or Christlikeness The apostle could say, I count all things lost that I may gain Christ. This life is great gain. Contentment is having food and clothing, the bare necessities of life, and these must not be worried over, for Christ said, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will put on. He provides both food and clothing. Thus, both godliness and contentment are to be found in him. This is great gain. And then as a prayer, um, Alfred shares, uh, 1 Timothy 4:8, where he says, Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Amen. Amen. And yeah, we are justified by faith. We become godly the moment we put our faith in Jesus, but in practice, you know, positionally, we are, we are godly, but, uh, our old habits, you know, taught us to live according to the world's wisdom, not God's wisdom. And so we repent and we change. And so we, we seek godliness, and we are content with our state of life as it is, as we seek to, you know, do God's will on the earth, to be the people he created us to be and to do the good works that he's prepared for us. And so we, we encourage you to surrender to the Lord. And we ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? When you do, part of that process is becoming that new creation by repenting of what you've done in the past and changing your way to be more and more like Jesus. And when you do that, amazing things happen, like he leads you into ministry, where I've been led to lead, among other things, the Celebrate Freedom support group, which meets tonight at Starpoint Church, uh, at 6:30 PM. If you're in Upstate New York, um, and you can make it to Clifton Park, um, to Starpoint Church, we can, uh, we can talk about it, uh, tonight at 6:30, where we will host a meeting about Celebrate, um, uh, Celebrate Recovery's Action Lesson, where we'll be discussing recovery and discipleship and, you know, making that decision to trust the Lord to help you and to earnestly go into your recovery and get set free. So that's what we'll be talking about tonight, and we invite you to come, uh, hear it. We also encourage those who can't make it to Upstate New York, uh, and for tonight's meeting, that there are other resources out, uh, where you can find your freedom in Christ, like the Freedom in Christ course by Freedom in Christ Ministries. You can find that at ficm.org. Um, all the— I got to update the, uh, the pot, uh, I got to update my, uh, PowerPoint here because my class is closed. Um, we have a full boat, uh, ready to start next week. And, um, as far as I know, I think there's still other classes open. So if you want to check it out, you can, you You can go there, uh, ficm.org, to see if there's online courses available. But the course material is available. You can get the Participant's Guide for the Freedom in Christ course, and you can get the Steps to Freedom in Christ. And if you want the teaching, we offer it on our YouTube channel. The Freedom in Christ course, the Victory Over the Darkness, the Bondage Breaker are all available from, from us, as we podcasted those classes back in 2021, uh, from our local church. So if you wanted to hear me teach those lessons, um, you can, you can find it here on our YouTube channel, um, Empty for Christ 247. Anyway, uh, that's all we got for today. And we always ask the question, are you empty for Christ too? Uh, if so, keep on walking and talking with God. Keep trusting the Lord and trying to, trying to live this thing called the Christian life. He'll guide you as you go. Um, if you're not empty for Christ, that's just a matter of saying, Lord, I surrender to you. I make Jesus my Lord and Savior, and help me to do your will for my life. And when we empty ourselves, allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us, we find, uh, we find the fruit of the Spirit growing in our life. The fruit of peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, patience, self-control, gentleness, all those things. So it's a good life. And as I said, I'm not a name-it-claim-it guy. I'm a try-it-and-you'll— and maybe-you'll-like-it guy. But it's only possible through your faith in Jesus. So we recommend you do that. And like we said, we recommend a life of prayer too. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we Thank you so much for everything you do for us. Um, Lord, we, um, just pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, lead us in the way we should go, and help us step out in faith in new ways, um, to be closer to you and to show other people, um, that you're, you're awesome, you're wonderful, and, um, you have the keys to, to all of life's problems. And you give us a new life through Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray also for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that they be encouraged in their faith and that you come alongside them in their prayer requests. Lord, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.