Mental Health Day – Therapy for Christians Purity 1553

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am 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 watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a couple, of couple on an unknown beach as the waves come crashing in, as the sun sets perfectly between banks of clouds on the horizon, comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who shared this scene on social media on or around July 14th, 2024. This summertime memory is yours. Give me a heads up and we will photo credit you on the blog after the fact. Well, it's Saturday, and while I won't be— while I won't be enjoying any sunset beach walks with my beloved anytime soon, I'm rejoicing all the same same because I am at my countryside home with Tammy Lynn, and that just gives me peace and rest. And I'm having some technical difficulties today. I appreciate your patience. In our busy lives, yes, Oh, this is horrible. In our— my apologies. In our busy lives, we don't often take time to take a rest. God gave us the Sabbath for a reason. We need it. Not only do our bodies need a rest, but we also need to give our souls, our minds, wills, and emotions a rest too. As a Christian life coach, I suggest a daily spiritual practice to rest in the Lord's presence, but I also suggest taking periodic retreats or mental health days to shift our focus off of the world and even off of our own problems and to shift it to the Lord and the peace he has available for each of us in his presence. I recently got an email newsletter from Dr. Corinne Williams therapyforchristians.com, and I'm going to share it on the blog today to support their work and to share the good practical Christian advice it gives. Therapy.com's stated goal is to be more proactive and practical in increasing mental health awareness in the Christian community and to provide accurate and useful information in order to accomplish this goal where they take the three, uh, the following three-prong approach. Uh, one, uh, they provide biblically based information and resources about mental health topics, and I'm sharing a, a link to their blogs on the, on the podcast or on the blog. Um, also they, they, they launched a database that allows individuals to, uh, find providers that share their worldview, the Christian worldview,, and you can search for providers there. And I'm sharing the blog for that, uh, the link for the— that as well on the blog. And also they provide a platform that allows providers to easily and effectively market their business. Um, and, uh, I'm sharing the link if you're a provider to get listed on their site. I appreciate what Christian Therapy for Christians dot com does, and I thought I would share their January 6th newsletter content to offer its advice and encourage you to check out their, their site. Um, Dr. Corinne Williams writes scripture, and they share scripture. Scripture focus: The Lord says, I will rescue those who love me, and I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer. I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation. That's from Psalms 91:14-16 in the NLT. And then she writes, our problems may seem overwhelming, but when we focus on them, nothing changes. Focusing on our challenges usually strains our emotional health, causing more harm than good. When they— when there are problems in our personal lives or the world around us, we should acknowledge them without taking our focus off God. The best solution is to remember what the word of God says about the problem. In Matthew 14:24-31, while the disciples were alone in the boat, beaten by the waves and winds, and the winds— the wind was against them, they saw Jesus walking on the sea. And the following conversation ensued, where they, the disciples, were terrified and shouted, 'It's a ghost!' But Jesus spoke up at once, Take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when they— when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me! Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, 'Oh you of little faith, why do you doubt?' Many times we too forget to focus on God and his promises. Instead, we focus on our own understanding and the profundity of the world. The Bible is full of God's promises. Every word of the Bible is God-breathed, and within its pages there is a solution for every problem. The truth is, our enemy Satan tries to get us to focus on our challenges rather than on God, who can give us victory over them. However, we defeat him when we focus on God. He has promised never to leave us or forsake us, so when we focus on him, we are safe, steady, and on our way to achieve— achieving emotional health. You get to choose your focus. Choose God. As you reflect on focusing on God, consider these questions: What promises are you facing right now? Oh, what problems are you facing right now? Uh, does the presence of problems in your life equal the absence of God? How can you focus on God even when dealing with problems? What does God— God's word say about the specific problem you are facing? And she provides some practical application. Um, the first one is to create a focus on God journal. Each day, write down one challenge you are facing and a corresponding Bible verse that reminds you of God's power and promises. Spend 5 minutes meditating on that verse and thanking God for his control over your situation. And the second one is set a daily alarm. Set an alarm on your phone labeled with a scripture verse like Isaiah 26:3. 3, perfect peace, or Colossians 3:2, set your mind. When it rings, take a moment to refocus your thoughts on God and pray for his guidance. And then you can also create a visual reminder. Write out your favorite verse about God's promises on an index card or sticky note and place it somewhere visible, like your bathroom mirror or desk. Use it as a daily reminder to keep your eyes on God. And then she provides some additional Bible verses, includes, uh, Colossians 3:2, Matthew 6:24, Proverbs 16:3, Colossians 2:6-8, and Isaiah 26:3. And then she signs off by saying, well, that is all for now. Please continue to pray for us, and to— and, and know we are praying for you. And that was from Dr. Corinne Williams. And I say amen. You know, that was a wealth of Christian teaching and practical advice to help us keep our focus on the Lord and to lean on his strength as we navigate through the world today. I'd like to express my thanks to Dr. Corrine Wisdom Williams and the TherapyForChristians.com staff for all they do. To read information, to read informative blogs, to find a Christian mental health provider, or to get yourself listed as a Christian mental health provider, go to therapyforchristians.com today. Today's Bible verses come from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on humility and pride. And today's verses, uh, well, they reference Matthew 6:1-8, and, uh, but they share Matthew 6:1, which says, beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Today's verses fall under the 8th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on humility. That 8th point is: Jesus warns against seeking the praise of others by a proud display of piety. Today's Bible verse tells us not to play for the crowds but to do our good works humbly before our God. Jesus took on the powers that be in the Sanhedrin by teaching these things. The Pharisees and the Sadducees may have differed in their beliefs about the resurrection, but they agreed that Jesus had to be taken out because he pointed to what they regularly did—showy displays of piety and doing good works before men. And those things were not the way we are to honor God. Jesus didn't want us to fall into the trap of the religious leaders of his day and encourages us to humble ourselves and to be humble servants of the Lord who do not look for the crowd's approval but who only seek to please God. Although we can be proud of the good things we do for the Lord, we have to remember, uh, who we're doing it for. We don't do good works for our pastor, our friends, our family, or for the community at large. All those people may benefit from them, but the good works we do were prepared for us to, to be done by the Lord, and it is for him only that we are to humble ourselves and serve. 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 in Christ with their walk. Uh, today we continue to share from Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams. It's a 365-day devotional, and we're on day 52, where Adams shares a portion of Proverbs— well, he shares Proverbs 16:17a, which says, 'The highway of upright people turns away from evil. He who guards himself takes heed to his way.' And J.E. Adams writes, 'The first half of the verse quoted above contrasts sharply with the second half, which we looked at yesterday. While many Christians lead a virtually unguarded way of life, the upright Those who stand for the truth are careful to traverse only the highway that runs in the direction away from sin. Confronted by the things mentioned in the previous paragraph, they avoid what is evil and will not even bother to consider those things that are suspect, let alone participate in them. Today you are on a highway, unavoidable, unavoidably so. Remember, God calls the Christian faith the way. All ways lead either toward or away from evil. Do you know which direction you are going? Consider carefully whether you to get off or to continue on it. The upright stand tall before God because they consider and carefully take heed to their ways. Thus avoiding evil. Turn today if you discover you're on the wrong road. Amen. And yeah, that's, that's the Christian way that we're supposed to walk in, is not with evil but away from it. And we are to turn away from our sins, we are to repent of our sins. And, um, when we do that, we discover that God's with us and he gives us freedom to overcome. So that's why we always ask the question, or have you fully surrendered to God? And, um, you know, um, I for one have done my best to surrender to God fully. We're still a work in progress, but we highly recommend it. That's what we, uh, we call our, you know, one of the last things we put on every blog post is encouragement for the, for the path of Christian discipleship, because it is a way to walk through life. And if you follow this way, it leads to the fruit of the Spirit: peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self-control. And, uh, we highly, highly recommend it because not only does it lead to those fruits of the Spirit, it also leads you to your purpose for living. And part of my purpose is to lead the Celebrate Freedom support group, uh, at Starpoint Church. And we meet on Wednesdays at 6:30. So we encourage anyone in the upstate New York who can get to Clifton Park on a Wednesday to come out and join our Christian fellowship where we, uh, teach discipleship and, uh, help with Christian recovery. So if you have a hurt, habit, or hangup, or just want to get closer to the Lord, you can join us, uh, every Wednesday at 6:30. Um, however, if you can't get to, um, Clifton Park on a Wednesday night, um, you can join— you can, you can benefit from the teachings that, uh, that I've been doing Um, well, that I launched this week, uh, for Celebrate Freedom. Um, we launched two teachings, uh, the introduction, the ABCs to Celebrate Freedom, and Lesson 1, basically from Celebrate Recovery's material, Denial. So if you are in need of recovery and can't get to a church, um, or can't get to a Christian recovery group, well, we share our— we have a YouTube series called Christian Recovery, um, that we're doing, um, and it's basically the Celebrate Freedom, um, material that we do each week. So there we go. We also provide other playlists that where we can— we believe you can find or increase your freedom in Christ. Um, they're all on our playlist page at YouTube. Um, uh, yeah, we've done teachings for Victory Over the Darkness, Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom Discipleship course. We provide lots and lots of playlists beyond that, and we believe they'll help you in your, your walk of faith. We do appreciate your support and donations, and if you'd like to give to our, our, our ministry or our Community Freedom Ministry, uh, go to mtforchrist.com to give, and we have a donations page. And you can also, um, donate at our group coaching event page where the information about Celebrate Freedom is listed. We'd appreciate that. And we always end by asking the question: Are you empty for Christ too? If so, keep on walking and talking with God. And if not, well, we encourage you to pray, pray for the Lord to reveal himself to you and, uh, consider, uh, your life and what it means and where it's going. And seek the truth and you'll find it. And if you seek God, you'll find him too. So, um, we believe in prayer, and that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you do for us. And, uh, we also pray for Well, we pray for anyone listening or reading today's message, that they'd be blessed, that you'd come alongside them and their prayer requests, Lord, and their walk of faith. While you're at it, Lord, we ask you to go before us today as we're traveling to a funeral downstate, and we pray for your protection as we hit the roads, and we pray for us to bring your, your peace with us as we go there. And Beyond that, we pray for you to open our eyes to what you want us to see today and, and, um, you know, do the things you would have us do. Or, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, and we need a lot of help with that. So we're asking and we're expecting to receive. Lord, thank you. Uh, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.