Ideal Friends as Idols - Friendship Myths #9 - Purity 1341

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of the sun blazing over the cracked asphalt stretch of Waite Road just east of my countryside home in Easton comes to us from yours truly as I captured this peaceful, peaceful moment yesterday afternoon on the way back from taking my canine friend Harley out for his walk. Well, it's Thursday and my relationship with Harley is a little complicated. You see, before getting together with Tammy Lynn, I hadn't had a dog in my life since my beloved childhood beagle, Jenny, died while I was away at my freshman year in college. Jenny was my first and really only dog in my life. She was the family dog, granted, but she was with us from the time I was in first grade all the way to that first year away from home. She did— she died of old age, and I would be lying if I told you I regret not being with her to see her go. I was glad I was away. I was glad I didn't have to see her die. But even though I was 3.5 hours away from home, the pain of her loss still weighed heavily on my heart and caused me to weep. Since then, my parents have gotten other dogs, but I never considered any of them mine. My ex had cats and I fell in love with her cats, and even though we considered getting a dog once, we never did. We never did get one, and I was fine with that. Dogs are high maintenance, needy, and never leave you alone. After so many years without a dog, I still don't have a desire to own one. And then Tammy Lynn and her 4 pets household, 3 cats and 1 dog, came along. The day I met Harley, I was annoyed because he was almost wild and clearly undisciplined, jumping, barking, and whining when he met me. I was so annoyed with Harley in the beginning that I told Tammy Lynn rather forcefully, "I'm not some guy who's gonna be walking your dog." Harley, of course, is not Tammy Lynn's dog. Harley is actually a border. He belongs to Tammy Lynn's daughter Rachel, who's away serving in Japan with the United States Marine Corps, and she's taking care— and Tammy Lynn is taking care of Harley until Rachel returns. So I was, I was, I was perhaps even more annoyed that this unruly mutt was not even supposed to be there. But as I surrender to my love for Tammy Lynn, my heart softens towards toward Harley, and now we are good friends with him. Now I am good friends with him. I am, I am good friends with him and actually enjoy the fact that he is now conditioned to being walked with me. The joys of Freedom Road wouldn't have been known if not for Harley, and the wondrous sights and experience I've had up and down Waite Road at various times and seasons throughout the years wouldn't have been, wouldn't have been, had it been just up to me to go out for a walk on my own. So I'm grateful for Harley and have trained him to walk with me off leash all the time now. However, he is still a dog and on occasion he will destroy my trust in him by running off unseen or will roll around in filth. So our friendship is good but not ideal. That long segue brings us to our current series about friendship myths and today's myth, which was highlighted in a 2022 Psychology Today article by Sarah Epstein on destructive beliefs we can have about friendship. Epstein presents our next myth to be debunked as "There is an ideal type of friendship." Her commentary states, "Friendships come in many different forms." Some begin in childhood and continue through life. Others last for a summer at summer camp. Some friendships are extremely close while others exist largely in shared social circles. We may find that we gravitate towards certain people for certain types of friendship and like a variety of types. Others prefer only closer-knit or more casual connections. There is no perfect model for maintaining friendships as long as it works for you. Perfectionism is something that we inherently know that we can't accomplish, and yet we can hold certain ideals and impose them on others or how we perceive the world. The problem is, when we hold ideals that don't match up with the reality of our lives, we can suffer disappointment and disharmony in the good but less-than-perfect relationships we do have. We are pining away for the one true friend, we run the risk of being discontent, uh, being discontented, uh, with our friends we do have and could possibly lose them because we are looking for something better than what we have, ironically revealing to others that we are not an ideal friend. Shots fired. Just like having ideals about the one in romantic relationships, we can cause ourselves undue pain and suffering in the realm of friendship. The big problem with those, these fulfilling relationship ideals, is that in developing the ideal, we are unwittingly looking for love and fulfillment in all the wrong places. Instead of being fulfilled with our relationship with God and our identity in Christ, we make idols out of the, out of the quote-unquote perfect human relationships. Instead of seeking the only thing that can give us meaning and purpose, we believe the world's lies and that we don't need God to be fulfilled. We need the perfect friend who will love and understand us and never leave us or forsake us. The only problem is, no matter how dear or loyal the friends we, we have are, they can't complete us. Only God and being a friend to Jesus can do that. So instead of being on the search for the one in terms of friendship, appreciate the friends you do have. We can always look for and form new friendships, of course, but we shouldn't disdain what relationships we have thinking we will find fulfillment elsewhere. The truth is that we will only be fulfilled in Christ, and beyond that, we might want to be friends with the people we will spend eternity with—Christians. But we should also be friendly to nonbelievers and introduce them to the perfect friend they could have in Jesus. So let go of ideals about the things of this world satisfying you, even relationships, and appreciate the things you have now and be content, because in Christ we have all we need, and we can make friends that last for all eternity when we all come together. With him. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on death and eternal life. Today's big passage is from Matthew 25:31-46, um, from the New American Standard Bible. The words of Jesus say But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. Naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?' The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even the least of them, you did it to me.' Then he will also say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. Naked, you did not clothe me. Sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they themselves will also answer, also will answer, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or 'Or in prison and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Today's verses fall under the 20th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on death and eternal life. And that 20th point is: When Jesus comes again, he will separate the sheep from the goats. Today's verses are Jesus' long discourse on how to treat the world with kindness, and how our allegiance to him will be the only thing that keeps us from hell. Here Jesus makes a case for the authenticity of our faith, that we will actually follow Jesus in the way we live by being like him in the way we treat others. If we say we believe and our hearts are cold towards others, we may one day be exposed as a false convert and separated from the goats— separated with the goats instead of being safe with the Good Shepherd and His sheep. God wants us to be like Him, holy, and we are— and if we are unchanged after we put our faith in Jesus, we should worry. God calls us to be salt and light. The light, to obey His commands, and to love one another. If that hasn't happened to you, you might want to say that sinner's prayer again and look up repentance and sanctification and pray for the Lord to change you and actually make efforts to walk in His ways. Nobody likes a hypocrite, and the cost of being a phony or surface Christian is too high and too painful for anyone to have to pay. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.com, 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 According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Walford. And in Walford's devotional, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture every day from the New Testament, and today's chapter is Acts 12. And from Acts 12, he shares a portion of Acts 12:9, which says, he did not know that was what— he did not know that what was done by the angel was real. And Stephen Allford writes, it is no doubt significant that on the three occasions Peter is recorded as sleeping, the phrase he did not know also occurs. Mark 9:6, he did not know what to say. On this occasion, Peter and the other two disciples were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Luke says Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep, and when they were fully awake, they saw his glory. Luke 9:32. He slept but awakened to see the Lord's great glory. Mark 14:40. Peter did not know what to answer him. Here again, Peter is sleeping. This time it is in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Peter witnessed the sorrow of— witnesses the sorrow of Christ. He slept but awakened to see the Lord's great grace. Acts 12:9. Peter did not know what was done by the angel was real. Peter is now in prison. He sleeps. The angel of the Lord delivers him out of the hand of Herod. He slept but awakened to see the Lord's great goodness. And Alfred ends by praying, Lord, help me to be vigilant and not sluggish so that I might witness your great works. Amen. Amen. Yeah, we don't want to be asleep at the wheel. Although in Peter's case, when he woke up, he saw something good every time. Uh, the Mount of Transfiguration, that's good. And then, you know, falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, seeing the Lord suffer. Yikes. And finally, you know, being, you know, woken up to discover that the angel had freed him from prison, was freeing him from prison. That's sort of great. So we shouldn't be too hard on Peter. It's not a matter of our being awake and ready for everything. We're not going to be ready for the Lord. We can prepare ourselves, but we really don't know where the Lord is going to lead us. We can try to walk in His ways by knowing His word and following Him and being obedient, but I can tell you from experience that I don't know where, you know, the Lord often leads you in places you don't expect, and you're not always ready for what He has for your life. But when you wake up, you discover his glory, and he's there and he's with you. And that's why we do our blog and podcast, is to encourage people to be with him and to follow him. You know, we, we shouldn't look at that passage in Matthew as, as that we better do good works or we won't be in heaven. You know, I always say that those things describe what one would do. You know, the fact that we'd be kind and doing good works is, is a fruit of our salvation. It's not a proof of our salvation. And so we shouldn't think we can earn our way into heaven because we can't. That was the whole point of Jesus having to come, and so we couldn't earn it. And our salvation is a free gift from God, and it's only after the fact that we, you know, are capable of doing things for God's kingdom. It's not a matter of us getting in, it's a matter of us representing his kingdom, you know, is where our good works flow from. And Ephesians 2:8-9 basically attests to that, you know. And I'll just remind myself by pulling it up really quickly. Ephesians 2:8-9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So that's the thing, right? We're created in Christ Jesus for good works. We don't get there because of our good works. So we should remember that. And, you know, we shouldn't be looking for our fulfillment in the perfect friend either. Our fulfillment doesn't come from the things of the world, it comes from God. We're complete in Christ. And, you know, I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? We're going to go into eternity, so the things we do on earth If they don't carry you into eternity, they're really of no value. We're going to be separated with the goats and go into the eternal hellfires with the demons. You know, that's not a good place, and it's all for nothing. So, you know, we got to keep things in a perspective of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. So that's what we try to do every day. And so we do good works, and mostly we just point people to Jesus and be kind to one another and love one another. There's no good work that you can't do, that's, you know, if the Lord puts it on your heart to do it. So we should think about it and listen to the Lord and follow him into what he's got for us. Ah, and today he's got a day of work for me, so we're gonna pray and get go to work. Uh, I'm happy to announce on mtforchrist.com, I finally figured out how to add the, uh, the, the box where you can subscribe to the blog post in your email. I put it on like 3 different pages, I believe. So if you wanted our blog posts delivered directly to your email, you can go to mtforchrist.org. If you look, you'll see those boxes at the bottom of pages are strategically located on the blog pages, you know, for your convenience. And we want people to receive our word, and, you know, there's nothing, nothing easier than getting it in your email. With that said, I do write a lot, so on my phone it looks a little small, so I might need to blow it up to see it properly. I don't know, or just go to the website on your phone. It's pretty— it's funny because it's pretty clear on the phone when you go to the website directly. But if you want, we can send it to your email as well, or at least the website can. So it's a very exciting time as I develop the new website, mt4christ.com. I want to really, you know, put a lot of content out there, offer my services as a Christian life coach in the near future. And so we're, we're in process of developing this. Instead of all the preparation and, you know, seeking out, you know, possibly more education and training, we're being led by the Lord to offer ourselves to the body of Christ as someone who can encourage you and stand with you as a Christian life coach to help you experience your freedom in Christ. And so, you know, I'm going to be doing it on a part-time basis, so it'll be limited in terms of how many people I can help. But I know, I know the freedom in Christ that I have is valuable, the joy and the peace that I have is valuable, and the things I've learned is valuable. And so we're going to offer it proactively to people who want it. If you're seeking the Lord and you're seeking freedom in Christ, I want to be able to come out there and help you. And more than encouragement, I want to be able to come into your life, offer you teaching, offer you encouragement, offer you accountability, offer you, you know, a partner to help you walk with and talk with God. And, you know, not for nothing, to, to bring you together with him in prayer ministry. We can, we can lead you through the Steps to Freedom in Christ to help your repentance process. We can bring you into his presence through Emmanuel Prayer and let the Lord work. And, uh, this is the, the training and the education I've received, the experiences I've had, and I realize that it's valuable and I need to do more than just talk about it. I need to help people experience it. I do that, you know, on a limited basis with my Freedom in Christ courses and things I do for Freedom in Christ Ministries. But, you know, this hopefully will be my full-time vocation at some point, and it's got to start somewhere. So the Lord has put it on my heart this year to get it done, and we're making great strides every day. To enter into that purpose. So it's exciting, it's a little overwhelming, a lot of stuff to do when you develop a business, but it's awesome and I can't wait until we start to see, you know, see it come together and see people, you know, get help through it. So we're looking forward to that, and but until then we have our day job and we better get to it. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do. We thank you for leading us, Lord, out of the darkness into your light and encouraging us to do good works, to represent your kingdom, and to be changed forever. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that they'd be encouraged and that they— that you would come alongside them, Lord, and You bless them and bless their prayer request and their walk of faith, Lord, because we all need Your help. And I need Your help for sure. So we 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, because all we want to do is represent You in Your kingdom, Lord, and bring as many people there with us as we can. But we can't do anything without You, and so we need You. To help us, and we're praying for that today, Lord. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.