In this devotional video, M.t. Clark reflects on a piece of artwork titled "Sunshine Mountain Glory" by Philip Hand, using it as a springboard to discuss the Christian perspective on friendship loss. He introduces the eighth myth in his "Friendship Myths" series: the belief that when a friendship ends, the individual has failed. Drawing on Sarah Epstein’s Psychology Today article, Clark explains that while some friendships end healthily, the myth often stems from shame and a false self‑worth tied to relational success. He offers a four‑step pastoral process for dealing with broken friendships—acceptance and grief, repentance, forgiveness (both giving and seeking), and moving forward with God—emphasizing identity in Christ over worldly validation. Clark grounds his counsel with Scripture (1 John 5:11‑12) and references John G. Crews’ counseling guide on death and eternal life, linking eternal life to having the Son. He also cites Stephen Alford’s teaching on orderly exposition of truth (sequence, system, synthesis) and shares his own testimony of drifting from and returning to Christianity, underscoring the need for continual study and repentance. The video concludes with an invitation to visit mt4christ.com for further resources and a prayer for listeners.
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To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Today's photo of some original artwork depicting the sun, uh, sitting atop of a mountain as a huge cloud formation billows up above that with a portion resembling a dove in flight as the valley below is awash in the colors of spring as green trees and grass are highlighted by colorful flowers at the base of a blue stream that reflects the heavens above. All of that, all of this comes to us from our friend and man in the UK, Philip Hand, who uses his artwork to chase away the blues and to give glory to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I took the liberty of entitling Philip's work Sunshine Mountain Glory because one of the definitions of glory is magnificence or great beauty. And that's what I felt and thought when Philip shares this— shared this with me this morning. While the biblical definition, um, of glory can be vast, I like the one highlighted that I saw during my research this morning in the Christianity.com article that stated that glory describes God's obvious presence and indicates worth and value, which results in praise. And that's what I get when I see Philip's work, or when I see the magnificence of God's creation. I sense the obvious presence of the Lord and realize how valuable the experience is and want to give God praise. Well, it's Wednesday, and it's great that my friend across the pond in Stockport sent me this today because it not only gives me joy, but it can also visually represent our arrival to another hump day. Friends can really help us, sometimes without even trying, and life can be so much easier when we have friends in our lives to encourage and inspire us as we keep on walking and talking with God. However, sometimes friendships end, and when they do, we have to be careful of how we process the loss. The pain of broken relationships can easily get us to believe things that aren't true. And that brings us to our current series on friendship myths, which was inspired by an encounter I had with a friend in prayer ministry, and that has been fleshed out by Sarah Epstein's 2022 Psychology Today article on destructive friendship beliefs. Today's lie to be debunked is about the pain of broken friendships. As Epstein wrote, our next friendship myth is, if a friendship fa— uh, if a friendship ends, I have failed. Sarah Epstein's commentary states, by all means, mourn a lost friendship, but some friendships are right to end, and in that case, choosing to end that friendship is a sign of maturity. When friendships stop feeling mutual, start feeling one-sided, lose common ground, or bump into different needs and worldviews, Ending a friendship may be the healthiest decision. Epstein supports her purpose of grounding our beliefs about friendship in reality and normalizing the fact that friendships end, but this particular destructive belief that "if my friendships fail, I am a failure" is based in shame and condemnation. It reveals inadequacies about one's self-worth and needs to be addressed with a higher truth than then higher truth than just it's okay to end friendships. The points in Epstein's rebuke indicate that we ended the relationship, that we may have decided to finally end a toxic friendship. But what if we find ourselves as the dumpee, that we were content with our friendship and are surprised to find that our friend is decided to take their ball and go home, never to return again? What if we lose a friendship over mistakes we have made or things we have done? What if the relation— the reason our friendship failed was because of us? What if— what if you didn't think your friendship was right to end? In those cases, the lie that I have failed is true in some cases, and we shouldn't deny it or back away from it. But at the same time, we shouldn't let our, let our obvious failure define us or define or determine our sense of self-worth, which really seems to be at the heart of the matter of today's myth. Okay, so your friendship fails and you feel like a failure. So what do you do now? 1. Acceptance and grief. We can't change the past. We can only move on from it. This happened. I lost my friend. We can examine the reasons why and try to learn from them, but the first thing we need to do is acknowledge that this loss has happened and we should grieve it. 2. Repent. Whether or not it would be good, wise, or possible to reconcile ourselves to our lost friend would have to be judged by the particulars of the case, but regardless of how the blame game is played, It takes two to tango, and when a relationship ends, nobody is perfect, and we should examine our part, accept our responsibility for the things we did or failed to do, and turn from any negative attitudes or actions that we do that may have been a contributing, uh, may have been contributing causes to our friendship's end, and that could spoil future relationships. We need to repent. 3. Forgive and seek forgiveness. The Word commands us to forgive, and thus we should forgive the other person and ourselves by accepting God's forgiveness, regardless of whether or not it can save or restore, restore the friendship. If we have done wrong, and we most likely have failed somewhere, we should also ask the other party to forgive us. As much as it depends on us, we should try to be peacemakers even if it is determined that it will be necessary to set boundaries to limit or eliminate the other person's presence in our lives. 4. Move on with God. The above 3 steps could take some time, but if you have worked through all of them, the result should be peace. You've done everything that God has asked you to do by repenting, forgiving, and asking for forgiveness. But keep listening to him in case there's something else I left out. After this loss, you need to walk and talk with God and focus on your relationship with him and your identity in Christ. God is the Creator and he determines our value, not man. And if you are in Christ, he declares you worthy of love and respect as a child of God. So meditate on the Who I Am in Christ list sharing a link to it today. And remember that even if the world rejects you, you are never a failure in Christ. Today's Bible verses come to us from the, uh, Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. This morning's meditation verses come on the section of death, on death and eternal life. And today's verses come from 1 John 5:11-12 from the NIV. The Word of God says, and this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life. Today's verses are the fourth and final, uh, fourth and final of four passages of scripture that fall under the 19th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on death and eternal life. And that 19th point is All who believe in Jesus will have eternal life. Today's verses make eternal life synonymous with Jesus Christ. He is the Son. If we have the Son, if we have made him the Lord and Savior of our lives, we have eternal life. And conversely, whoever does not have the Son, who has not made Jesus their Lord and Savior, does not have life. Non-believers are spiritually dead. And on the highway to hell. This explains the evil in the world—sin. And if we were all followers of Jesus, we would not see the depravity that we see today. And while it might seem hopeless when we try to imagine getting everyone to believe, we have to realize that it, that it was only because of God that we believe. And boy did I, boy did I look like a lost cause for most of my life. And it will be God who determines the future and who will cause his children to come into his kingdom. So, we shouldn't lose hope. We should rejoice over our salvation and continue to tell anyone who will listen that it is only through the Son that we can have life, and have it more abundantly when we follow him in earnest. We have the hope in us, and we have to speak it, to let God work through us to build his kingdom. On earth before he one day brings it fully from heaven. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com, where I always share insights of 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, and today we're continuing, um, by Stephen Alford. And today he directs us to read Acts 11, and from Acts 11 he shares a portion of Acts 11:4 which says, Peter explained it to them in order. And Stephen Allford writes, here's the correct way to rehearse, declare, or teach the truth. Paul says when writing to the Corinthians, let all things be done decently and in order. 1 Corinthians 14:40, and it applies here as well. To expound truth in or by order presupposes study. No one can expound on a subject about which he knows nothing. In this case, Peter had seen the vision, had heard God speak, and had a good grasp of the truth which God sought to impart. Sequence. There is no order where there is no sequence. All thoughts or points should be marshaled in order of sequence. System or synthesis: the putting together of the message ready to be delivered. Okay, and that's it. I have been offered ends by praying, Lord, enable me to approach the preaching and teaching of your word and in a worthy manner. Amen. And yeah, uh, so, so yeah, we're to study— to expound the truth, we need to study, uh, put it in a proper order, a sequence, um, and then we have to synthesize it, put it in— putting it together, uh, putting the message together ready to be delivered. So I would think that system and sequence would be the same thing. But, yeah, it's a long process. So it's SSS, which is, I guess, they didn't just want to be SS. It was the '40s. Anyway, Stephen Allford's points are great. If we're going to teach, if we're going to expound the truth, we definitely have to be approved. You should not take preaching or teaching lightly. You should prepare yourself. And even though it might not seem that I'm prepared, I've done a lot of study for sure, you know, through the years of Bible college and my master's program in Christian counseling. And, you know, just from listening and reading the word continually, watching Christian pastors, you know, we studied to find ourselves approved. And if you don't know God, you You need to study, you need to seek him, and you need to know his word. That's the place where you can find God the most, is in his word. And you can look to the heavens and ask him to reveal himself, and you know, he'll talk to your spirit. You gotta put Jesus in your life though, otherwise there's, you know, there's a communication breakdown. I told you, you know, today's post basically tells us that you're spiritually dead if you don't believe. And while that might be offensive, It certainly is. Uh, what do you mean spiritually dead? Um, look at your life. If God's not in it, that sort of indicates you're spiritually dead. If you have no desire to go to church or read the Word or to live a righteous life, you know, where you make allowances for yourself to sin, um, indicates you're not in the Kingdom. And, uh, you know, if you haven't made Jesus Christ your Lord, it's not a mystery. You don't have the Son, you don't have the life. And believe me, I ran away from Christianity in major ways. I knew of the Son, uh, during my early years. I even made a confession of faith, and maybe I did believe. Um, I'd like to think I did, but because of my rebellion in my young adulthood, I ran away from the kingdom. I ran away from church. You know, if I was in God's grace, I sure didn't act like it. And, you know, I'm hopeful that, you know, when I— I don't know when I did my First Communion or when I did my confirmation— that I was, you know, had the Spirit of God imparted to me. Um, but much later in life, you know, I felt the need to make Jesus my Lord and Savior. In 2010, and that, that made a big difference. When I did that, I suddenly had a desire. I suddenly had a desire to read his word, to be a real Christian, to try to live. And I was a big mess. I had a lot to repent of. And that's what this journey has been like. I didn't start to blog until 2015. There was a lot of, a lot of space in between to learn and study and and to, to realize that the gospel isn't about greasy grace where you're just forgiven and you can do whatever you want. The Word continually calls us to repent and turn and be more like Jesus. So if you've said a prayer but still live like you used to, you might need to read the Word. Um, God's got a better plan for you, and he's got a better life for you. Um, through his Spirit. So that's what we're— that's what we're here for, to encourage you to do that. Because I never thought this life was possible or desirable, but it is both. And, uh, keep on walking and talking with God and follow him, and he'll show you. Anyway, we're gonna have to follow him into our day job today, so we're gonna pray. Uh, Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you so much for the salvation you've given me. Thank you leading me out of the darkness of my past, uh, into the life that you've given me. And you keep guiding me into new things, and I love it. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening today or reading today's message. Lord, we pray for them to be blessed. We pray for you to come alongside them and their prayer requests and guide them in the way they should go. We all need your help, Lord, and that includes me. So today I want you to I'm praying for you to open my eyes to the things you want me to see and lead me in the way I should go because I need your help. And all I want to do is represent you and your kingdom here on earth and point people to Jesus and to the life that they can have in him. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
