Making Too Many Mistakes and The Mercy of God’s Grace and Favor - Purity 1811

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. Good morning. Today's photo of a lamppost, a park bench, and a riverside sidewalk pathway in the foreground of a beautiful nighttime view of the Oswego River comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene during my one-night stand stay in the town of my alma mater back on November September 29th, 2022. Well, it's Tuesday, and well, what am I going to say today? And I'm leaning on the grace and mercy of the Lord this morning as I'm fighting off condemning thoughts and the fear that I may have finally made a few more mistakes than my employer will allow. Yesterday I had to testify about the accident I had while on the job back in August. I had to change, uh, I had to, and I had to change that statement about a few more mistakes. Because after I contemplate my— because I, after contemplating my actions on that fateful day, I realized that I didn't just make one mistake that resulted in my fall and injury. I made a few. I can't go into details because the matter is still under investigation, but with a one-person accident, it's not too hard to assess whose fault it was. It was my fault, and I testified honestly about what I did, didn't do, and what I was thinking. In hindsight, I should have followed proper procedures before and after I fell. I might have— I might have to pay dearly for the mistakes I have made. And this morning I am hard-pressed to focus on the good in life because I have suffered another failure in life and I have no one to blame but myself. I struggled with low self-esteem, depression, and suicidal thoughts in the past because of my insufficiency and because of the frustrations of the challenges of life and my seeming inability to do things right or well. I have said that I have often learned from trial and error, but after all the mistakes, sins, and poor decisions that I have made in the past, I truly wonder if I will ever truly learn anything. And when I think of it all and how I continually fail despite my best efforts, I am driven to despair, and I wish— and I wish for a quick death to deliver me from all the pain I caused to myself and others. Before judging My— if we're judging me by my performance, the truth is I'm not good enough. I make mistakes. I mess up a lot, and I can't even say that I have a pure mind and heart all the time. As much as I long for forgiveness, mercy, and yet another chance to do things right or well, I realize that I don't deserve it at all. Even if I don't have any malice behind the mistakes I make, how long should I expect people to put up with me? How many chances should I get? How many mistakes are too many? Honestly, I'm not sure. I may have, I may have gone past that limit. I honestly realize that worst-case scenario, this latest, this latest incident could be the last one. I could lose my job. Will I? I hope not. I am extremely grateful for the job I have, but I'm not sure if I will be given the grace to continue in it. However, as much as I don't want to be fired, I have to be prepared for that contingency. And even though it would be difficult to deal with, I would deal with it because I know that the Lord loves me and he will help to provide for me, just like he has all, all of my life. As fearful as the prospect of losing my job is, the Lord has taught me to keep things in perspective. Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." In my context, I shouldn't fear those who could kill my career. I should only fear the Lord. And because I have put my faith in Jesus, I know that while I have a reverent fear of God's holiness, I don't have to fear his wrath because that fell on Jesus on the cross. Because of God's grace, I don't ever have to fear that I have made too many mistakes. Because of Christ, I'm accepted, secure, and significant. Because of God's grace, I can trust that he will provide for me one way or another. And if I have to go through the shame and humiliation of being fired, I will do so by putting my trust in his, in his plan for my life. God's grace has carried me this far, and I will trust him to help me wherever the circumstances of this life should take me. Speaking of God's grace, the Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah devotion for today is all about God's grace and favor. So I'm sharing it on the blog today to remind us all about how his free gift has nothing to do with us and everything to do with his mercy and love. David Jeremiah writes: Grace and favor. And they— and he does share Genesis 6:8, which says, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And David Jeremiah writes, in British English, the phrase grace and favor refers to a property provided by the government rent-free in recognition of one's service to the country. Grace and favor are synonyms in English and carry a similar core idea. Free. We could say that grace and favor properties are earned by their recipients, but they are free in the sense that their provision is not an obligation. English translations of Scripture use grace and favor to translate the same Hebrew and Greek terms. Both words carry the same idea of free. For instance, Noah found grace, or favor, in the eyes of God in a wicked period of history. Yes, Noah was a righteous and blameless a righteous man who walked with God, but he did not earn the favor God bestowed upon him. Rather, God looked with favor upon Noah as a man he could trust. The same was said of Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus, who was a highly favored one, someone God could trust with a weighty commission. We are saved freely by grace. Let us also live as though those God can call when he needs a faithful servant. That was in David Jeremiah. He also shares a quote from Charles Spurgeon, which says, God is better than gold. His favor is better than fortune. And I say amen. Grace and favor equal free, as in God's free gift given to us because of his mercy and love and not because of anything we have done. I hope that's clear because Jeremiah's second point about the likes of Noah and Mary, that God could trust them with mighty commissions, could make you think that, that the fact that God could trust them made them worthy of God's grace and favor. But that's not how it works. That's backwards thinking. God first blessed them with his grace and favor, and then they were entrusted to do good works for God. They didn't earn God's grace because they were so trustworthy. They became trustworthy to do good works after God had given his free gift of grace. God's grace and favor empowers us to do the good works that God prepares for us to do. If anything, Scripture teaches us how before and after God gives people his grace and favor, even when we— they don't deserve it. Noah proves himself unworthy of getting— unworthy of God's grace by getting drunk after he was given grace. Moses proved he was unworthy before grace was given. He was a murderer, and after he was trusted with leading the Israelites out of Egypt, he was barred from entering the Promised Land. After we come to faith in Jesus, we can forget that we always need God's grace. When we start living for God, we can almost think that God saved us because he knew we were worthy because of the good works he would have us do. But the truth is that we will not be perfect even after we are saved and repent. God's grace covers our past, but we still need it every day. So don't forget that God's grace and favor are free and have everything to do with God's love and mercy and absolutely to do nothing— absolutely nothing to do with us earning it before or after we receive it. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. This morning's meditation verse comes from 2 Timothy 2:3, which says, share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Today's verse is the first of two passages of scripture that fall under the tenth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on persecution. That tenth point is: Do not be ashamed of the gospel. Testify boldly and be ready to suffer persecution. Today's Bible verse tells us that one of the expectations we should have as Christian soldiers is that we will suffer. Yikes! Nobody wants that. I don't want to suffer, like, ever. I like to be blessed. But the truth is that because of the fall of man, we are guaranteed to suffer in this world that is broken by sin and death. There is no avoiding suffering. Every life is touched by pain and death. But Jesus is the healer and redeemer and is the only one who can deliver us from suffering and death. So we may have to suffer for the things we believe and do as followers of Jesus. But in him we receive the hope of one day being completely free from sin and death, and because of that eternal promise, we can persevere through any trial that this world throws our way. Because Jesus endured through suffering, died, rose from the grave, and lives, we can trust that we too can suffer, die, rise from the grave, and live. So buck up, Christian soldier! The mission the Lord gives us may not always be easy, but we know that he is our strong ally and deliverer, and we are given the victory over sin, suffering, and death and the grave in Christ alone. As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, where we always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters Christ for their walk. And today we continue sharing from Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams. It's a 365-day devotional. We're on day 310, where Adams shares a portion of Acts 13:16, which says, Paul stood up and said, 'Men of Israel, and you God-fearing Gentiles, listen.' And let's listen as J.E. Adams writes. Paul was preaching at Pisidion, Antioch. Note he deliberately addressed not only the Jews but also specifically mentioned the Gentiles present. There were many God-fearers, people who attended synagogue service who believed in Yahweh but had not adopted circumcision and other Jewish customs. It was wise that he addressed the Gentiles also since the next week the Jews rejected him out of jealousy. The Gentiles, in contrast, heard him gladly. Boldly, Paul and Barnabas made the decision to turn to the Gentiles. When Jews stirred up persecution against them, they left, shaking the dust off their feet, a sign that they wanted nothing more to do with them. But the Gentile converts continued to worship in joy. Here was a historic turning point. If you are a Gentile, as is likely, then be thankful for this development. The gospel came to the Jew first, but now it was going to the Gentile. Amen. And as a Gentile believer, I am very happy about this historic turning point when the gospel was given to the Gentiles and we were welcomed into God's grace and favor. You know, that grace and favor has made all the difference in my life. And that's why I always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Are you trusting in him in good times and bad? Are you trusting in him for the trials that you will face in life? Trials will come, and unfortunately they come very quickly sometimes. And, uh, you know, when we honestly assess what we have done in life and the mistakes we make, we, we come up with the— we come up with the conclusion that we are just not worthy. And we're not, but God says we are. And when we put our faith in Jesus, we're forgiven of all our sins, and we're given the hope of heaven and the promise that God is working all things together for our good. So even if we face bad circumstances, we got to trust that God is going to move us through them to his ultimate good one way or another. And, you know, and he leads us to— he leads us through those things in peace and with a purpose. And part of my purpose, I believe, is to encourage people here on the blog and podcast, just to tell people to follow the Lord because he's good. And I do that also at my local church, um, where I lead the Celebrate Freedom support group, which meets on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 PM. That's tomorrow night. So if you'd like to join us, come to Starpoint Church, third grade, uh, K through third grade classroom, and, uh, walk in the door and we'll, we'll welcome you to our Christian recovery and discipleship fellowship, where we encourage people to follow Lord, ask him for help and to overcome your hurts, habits, and hangups. And it worked for me, so I'm going to encourage everyone to come and join us at Celebrate Freedom. Speaking of Celebrate Freedom, did you know I wrote two books with Celebrate Freedom in the title? I did. The first one, Celebrate Freedom: Seven Steps of Discipleship, is my master's thesis basically on the 12 steps and what I believe is missing from the 12 steps, frankly, discipleship lessons. And so I created 7 discipleship lessons which I share all by themselves in the Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course Leader's Guide that's also available. So we encourage you to go to amazon.com and purchase them on Kindle, and the leadership guide's available on paperback today. Beyond that, if you don't want to read my books, that's okay. You can just listen. We can— you can listen to the podcast. We've done lots of them. There's a whole bunch of playlists out there of all the episodes we've done, so you can listen to those, and you can find this playlist by going to YouTube or to mtforchrist.com, and we encourage you to listen because we believe it may just help you increase your freedom in Christ. If it does increase your freedom in Christ, you appreciate, or you just appreciate what we're trying to do by encouraging people in Christian recovery and discipleship and want to support us, you can go to mtforchrist.com and you can give us a donation to support our ministry today. We have a donations page for that. Beyond that, we end every little message with the question, are you empty for Christ too? If so, we tell you to keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we encourage you to put your faith in Jesus and to try to follow the best you can the way you live your life. It's made all the difference for us, and we invite you to become empty for Christ too, emptying yourself the things of this world, to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the things of God today. We know that prayer works, and we're praying for mercy and grace every day. You know, at my job, I'm praying for mercy and grace and a second chance, or another chance. I don't know how many chances it will be, but we're praying for that. But we're also praying for God to guide us in whatever way we're supposed to go, regardless of what decisions made. This is tough. This is where the rubber meets the road in our faith. And the way we stop condemning ourselves is to believe that God is for us and with us and that he's going to move us in a good way, one way or the other. And that delivers us from all that depression, all that, you know, self-destructive thoughts and, you know, all that pain. God delivers us from the suffering when we put our trust in him. So that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we ask for your favor and grace once again as the investigation of my accident, um, will be pending and their decision will be made of how I'll be disciplined. Um, Lord, we ask for your grace to follow us all the days of our lives, whether it's at this job or another one, and help us through today to do your work. Lord, as we meet with a person to do a freedom appointment today, Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit to guide them into freedom. And out of condemnation and, uh, to a better place in your kingdom through repentance. And, uh, Lord, we also pray for anyone reading, listening, or watching today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests, their walk of faith too. We all need your help, Lord, and we're asking. So, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.