Moment From God – Your Whole Family Be Saved – Purity 737

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a Lake Ontario sunset from the shores of Oswego, New York comes to us from Celestial Blue Photography, who captured this magnificent view on May 14th, causing several people to respond with such praises as "beautiful," "lovely," and "wow, gorgeous." But my favorite reply came from someone who recognized the creator's handiwork in this scene and shared their appreciation by commenting, "Moment from God," followed by "ty," the abbreviation for "thank you." I think they were giving their appreciation to the photographer for sharing their work because of the lowercase "y," but I think we should all pass our thanks along to God for the big picture, as in this universe, this world, placing our photographer friend at the moment, at that moment, at the exact time, with camera in hand, and then having him share it on social media for other people who God created to enjoy this moment from God. That's the thing. If we simply recognize God as creator of time and space and everything that fills it, we will see that he put everything we experience into motion. And that every present moment, whether stunningly beautifully— stunningly beautiful visually or not, is a moment from God. And they are all beautiful, lovely, or gorgeous because there is life, and therefore there is hope. But you have to pan back and have the proper perspective to— of God's big picture to see it. Well, it's the weekend, and it is my prayer that all my friends out there will take time to enjoy their lives and recognize that the moments they have are all moments from God, and hopefully moments with God, as we can all be in a close personal relationship with our Heavenly Father through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. For those who have made Jesus their Lord and Savior, we can all recall that first moment with God where the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ became real and meaningful to us as we realized that we could be forgiven of our sins once and for all and be welcomed into God's kingdom through a simple act of faith, that by making Jesus our Lord and Savior, we would be saved from God's wrath and from the hell that our sin would have sent us to. Uh, when we have that moment with God, we are forever changed. And as we are born again, given new spiritual life and an unbreakable relationship with God as members of his royal family. As much as the experience of being welcomed into God's family can cause us great joy at the realization of our personal salvation, it can also cause us to be greatly alarmed as we realize that, as far as we know, many of our friends and family have not had a moment with God that caused them to put their faith in Christ. This great concern for the salvation of our friends and family is often met by well-meaning pastors and other Christians with Bible verses that indicate that nothing is impossible with God, and therefore there is hope for salvation for all our lost family and friends. In church circles, these verses that speak of God's desire that none should perish and that if we ask anything in the Lord's name, then it will be given to you, along with the story of the Philippian jailer, can quickly be morphed into a general promise of assurances that all your family will be saved. I have heard testimonies about the power of prayer and stories of entire families coming to faith in Christ. And so we encourage prayers for the lost because I recognize that someone seeing the truth of the gospel and making a sincere decision to make Jesus their Lord and Savior really is a work of the Holy Spirit. We can't argue people into God's kingdom. And in thinking of my own salvation, I marvel over how and why I didn't see the truth sooner. The answer I have drawn from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 4:4 is that I was spiritually blinded by Satan, the god of this world, as are all unbelievers. And it is God who opens our eyes and draws us into his kingdom. Um, I give verses of John 6:44, 15:26, 16:8, and 16:3 on the blog today to, uh, point out that it's God who gives us salvation. So salvation comes from the Lord, possibly as an answer to prayer, but in the end he is sovereign. And I know that my experience from walking with the Lord that No matter how much we pray and plead for things, if our prayers for what seems good to us is not also the will of God, it is not going to happen. In desperation to save our family members or to be blessed by good health or financial prosperity, we in our ignorance can fall into error by thinking that these things are guaranteed to us if we have— if we only have enough faith. You may have heard encouragements like that. Unfortunately, if we believe we can push God's hand or receive what is rightfully, quote-unquote, rightfully ours through our own prayerful efforts or through our quote-unquote great faith, we are making ourselves gods and making God our dutiful genie in a body— a bottle. Um, the name it, claim it, word of faith heresy that is very popular because of people people's desires for health and wealth is actually blasphemous, as it puts the faithful believer in the driver's seat, uh, which we simply are not. This prosperity gospel is often used to separate hurting Christian families from their finances and can result in bitter disillusionment with God for withholding our miracles, or self-condemnation when our promises don't come true because of our lack of faith. We need to avoid such errors by understanding God's sovereignty. While we should pray without ceasing, we should always keep in mind— keep Matthew 6:10 in view that says, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." God's will will be done on earth, not necessarily ours. That goes along with the implied promise of all our family being saved. And thinking about this, I decided to look at one of the scriptures that this sentiment is based on. The Philippian jailer story is told in Acts 16, and the scriptures say in Acts 16:27-31, and the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, 'Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.' Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' So they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household.' There it is, M.t. Clark. Right there, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. If I believe on the Lord Jesus, not only will I be saved, but my household will be saved too. Presto chango, my faith in Christ will save my family. Um, maybe it will. Maybe your prayers and faithful witness to Christ will draw your family to seek the Lord and follow him. But this scripture isn't a promised guarantee that your faith will somehow force God to save your family and somehow force your family members to put their faith in Jesus magically because of your great faith. In fact, what does the rest of the Philippian jailer's story in scripture tell us? Acts 16:32-34 says, and I put this in bold on the blog, that Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, and immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he brought them into his house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household. So, in this case, the jailer's household heard the word of God, the gospel, believed in God, and were baptized. The members of the jailer's household all individually heard the word of God, made a decision for Christ individually, and agreed to be baptized individually, granted as part of a group. Nowhere in this narrative does the Philippian jailer's great faith seem to impact the members of his household. In fact, it seems like the members of his household were saved simultaneously with him, not because of him. We must all have faith— well, let's say, we must all have the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ revealed to us by the Holy Spirit through the hearing of the word of God. We must all come to believe Christ individually, and as scripture indicates in several places, we must all be baptized individually. Through our own decision as an act of faith and a demonstration of our faith, and not through surrogates or sponsors who stand up for us. Sorry, baby baptizers. Our faith is a personal relationship with God, and we must individually come to him and declare that we surrender to the lordship of Christ to be saved. Now don't get me wrong, we should absolutely pray for the people we know to we know, uh, to be saved. And we should also be bold in speaking the word of God and the good news of Jesus Christ, because it appears that this is the means that the Holy Spirit can use to bring people to Christ. Now, while we may not always see things change immediately or at all, our hope isn't wasted. The process of relying on the Lord builds our faith in him and helps us to mature I have grown a lot in the— because of the bitter disappointments that result— resulted from my, uh, hoping and praying and my ignorance for things that were not according to God's will. If I had had faith in the promises or the benefits of faith more than in God himself, my faith would have only appeared to be in the Father. If I had faith in the fact that everything was going to be all right because I went to church more than I had a relationship with God, I would have not— I would have not had saving faith, and I would have undoubtedly grown angry and disappointed and walked away from believing and following the Lord. This happens. People appear to have faith in the Lord and are walking strong for a time. They receive blessings and are seemingly on fire for God, but then something happens. Their faith grows cold, or they have something bad happen in their lives that causes them to leave the church and stop believing in God. There are two possibilities here: they were false converts, uh, tares among the wheat, or they are saved and the Lord is not done with them yet. Like the Apostle Peter who denied Christ, it is possible for, for someone to walk away and then repent and come back, uh, to to serve God's kingdom. I wouldn't encourage anyone walking away to test their faith, though. The world is a dark place, and scripture attests to the possibility of believers— quote-unquote believers— believing the doctrines of demons, and that we are to seek out our salvation with fear and trembling, and that we are to stay in the faith. So if you make Christ your Lord and Savior, commit yourself to following him regardless of the benefits you receive here on earth. Because no matter what blessings or sufferings we receive in this mortal life, our names are written in heaven, written in heaven, and our current suffering will not compare to the glory— with the glory we will all someday experience when we enter into heaven and when Christ returns to rule and reign in the new heaven and new earth. Um, I just received word yesterday that my cousin, who was as lost as I was before coming to Christ, who has a long story of confusion and brokenness, made Jesus his Lord and Savior on May 11th. Although none of my extended family is close and we don't really spend any, any time together, he reached out to me on Facebook Messenger to let me know about his decision for Christ. To receive encouragement. I sent him links to various Christian resources and encouraged him that since he made Christ his Savior, he should really endeavor to follow the Lord, stating that otherwise his life might be more of the same suffering with just a Christian cover. With my simple instruction to follow Jesus, I tried to impress that the true value of our faith lies in our relationship with God that is invested in every day. But then later in the day, I saw this photo he sent me, which I'm sharing on the blog, where he had signed a pledge that said he made Jesus his Savior. And I remember my broken walk in those early days of faith and sent him the following words: Signed, sealed, and delivered. Sorry for the late response on that, cuz I was just heading back to the garage and was rejoicing over our God, and not just over what he has done with you, which is freaking awesome, but that he has changed my life so much that he would have you think of me to share this with. No matter what happens in your life from that day forward, you just know that you have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life. You have been forgiven and given new life. No matter what you do with it, remember to rejoice because you have been saved from God's wrath and welcomed into His Kingdom. That is more than enough. But brother, Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the Spirit is waiting to grow in your life. So I encourage you to walk in the Spirit and to follow wherever the Lord leads you because it is your journey. The more you follow Him, the more you will see and experience His love. Have a great weekend, brother. It's so good. So if you ask me, uh, did you pray for your cousin to get saved? Uh, the truth is I did a long time ago. I used to have a volume of names on a list that I prayed to get saved. If you are in my family, your name was on that list. If you were in my fraternity in college and we hung out, your name was on that list. If you went to school with me, were friends with me, worked with me at some point, or were just Facebook friends, chances are your name was on that list too. No guarantees though, I'm only human and I may have missed some of you. Whoops. But you know what, somewhere along the lines I grew in my faith enough to trust that the Lord would do what was right, and that I trusted that I had prayed for virtually everyone I have ever known, and that those prayers would be answered one way or another according to the Lord's will. So I let go of that list, long list of names, and decided to let God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because I knew that my prayers would never push people into heaven that didn't want to go there, and that God would make the right call in every instance. So So while I prayed for, for my whole family— well, let's see, I gotta love, love writing this stuff. Uh, so, um, I prayed for my whole family, and I'll leave it up to him to dispense his grace to those who he will choose to welcome into his kingdom. But I will also speak the word of God and encourage anyone who will listen to seek the Lord and make Jesus their Lord and Savior, because I know that the Lord just might use my efforts to bring the dead to life. So keep walking and talking with God, and let other people know about him. The things we say and the things we do that reflect the truth about Jesus and the glory of God just might be used to save someone's soul someday. We may never know how our faith will be used to expand God's kingdom, But we can always rejoice in our close relationship with the Lord and give worship and praise to the Lord God Almighty when he brings another dead man to life, when he makes another sinner a saint. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Proverbs 12:15, and it says, fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others. Today's Bible verse reminds us of the simple wisdom to consider other sources of information. Let's face it, we start out completely ignorant and in desperate need of wisdom. From the earliest days of our lives, we have learned from others how to live in this world. Our families, our parents, families, or caregivers taught us everything, including how to eat, walk, talk, and use the bathroom. We would have died without having someone to care for us. To teach us how to live. Our families or our schools continued, continued our, our basic instruction by teaching us how to read. After that, our potential for learning is virtually without limit, as the world is filled with books that can teach us things in any area of interest. One of those books, one of those many books, is the Holy Bible. And in it its writers were inspired by the Lord to tell God's story and inform us about how our eternal destiny could be secured through faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible contains wisdom for living here on earth and the wisdom of how we can live with God forever. However, even though the, though the potential for great learning is available through through others, and the potential for eternal life is available through God and faith in Jesus Christ, God has graciously given us free will, and we can decide what wisdom we will accept, reject, and choose to apply to our lives. Unfortunately, we also have a capacity for pride and can decide that we have learned enough from others, and we can come to a point in our lives where we will willfully decide that our way is right and and we don't need to listen to anyone else, including God. The book of Proverbs declares this to be foolish. Willful independence where we refuse to consider the wisdom of others is foolish, but willful independence where we refuse to consider the wisdom of God is not only foolish, it is dangerous, and if unchanged, leads to our destruction. So, don't be a fool and stubbornly refuse to consider the wisdom of others. God put other people on this earth to help us, and we should use all the help we can get, we can get to live wisely. But we also need to be discerning in whose wisdom we follow, because if we see someone else's way that seems right but it does not agree with God's wisdom that is revealed in His Word, what seems like wisdom is actually foolishness. So trust in the Lord and his wisdom first, and then you will know the wise from the fools, and you will be able to avoid being a fool yourself. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, 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 John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, starting chapter 8, uh, Making Much of Christ, from 8 to 5. The other sections include 'The War Is Not Geographical' and 'Secular Is Not Bad But Strategic.' So you want to see what John Piper has to say under those headings, go to mtforchrist.org where you can check out that resource and learn, learn what that's all about. And that's, and that's it. But you have to consider the wisdom of others if you want to get wisdom and not be a fool. So you can, you know, check out John Piper's supposed wisdom. You can check out, you know, my supposed wisdom by checking out my previous blog post or other messages on the podcast. God gave you a brain to discern and think about things and our world, to test our experiences and to see what's true, and he gave us the word of God to reveal the truth about him. So, um, that's what we encourage here. We encourage nobody to take anything by blind faith. There will be some moments and some things that we simply must have faith for, but a great deal, um, of our faith is, is in knowing what we believe and why we believe it and, and living by faith. But it's not just a completely mindless surrender, that we have to be wise and intentional about the things we do. And the first and foremost thing of that is our walking with God. We have to choose this every day. I choose to get up and read the Word. I choose to pray. I choose to write this blog and to do the podcast. You know, what do I get out of that? I get closer to the Lord, and I get peace, quite frankly, and I get joy. You know, through this journey of faith, I've gone through many dark days and have found light at the end of the tunnel, and now I'm basking in the wonders of God's love on a continual basis where I live in gratitude and hope every day. And, you know, the thing about my cousins, testimony of coming to Christ. As you know, you know, not only is it awesome that he's left his brokenness behind, or well, we'll see about that, but he, he, he made a decision for Christ and he was saved, which is, you know, really, really amazing. But for me, and not to be selfish or anything, but to me it gives me great encouragement that he would reach out to me knowing my brokenness in the past, that and And now to consider that people think of me as a Christian that they can go to and tell, you know, tell them the good news that they got saved, or, you know, to seek encouragement or guidance or ask questions is, you know, something I think that's just spectacular. And it doesn't give me glory, it gives God glory. I'm just humbled by the fact that the Lord has changed me so much that people think of me in different ways now. I don't know what they thought of me before, probably a fool, because I was a fool. A fun-loving fool, but a fool all the same. And now I've considered the wisdom of God and getting wiser all the time, sometimes through trial and error, but mostly through renewing my mind and applying the wisdom of God's word to my life. And that's what we're all about here at the blog and the podcast and the YouTube channel It's just sharing what we know, because we know, uh, we didn't know all this stuff, and we're not in this by ourselves. And the wisdom I've learned, I try to pass along to others. Uh, it is Saturday, brothers and sisters, so let's rejoice, uh, if you don't have to work. Although I, I am working this evening, but that's my decision and, uh, whatever. Um, but I, I enjoy the moments where I don't work, and I enjoy the moments while I'm at work. Because God— this is my life and God wants me to enjoy it. And, uh, it's, it's, it's more enjoyable when we follow him. So let's enjoy our lives, study the word, learn from it, and make our lives reflect the wisdom of God by following him every day as we empty ourselves for Christ and allow him to fill us with our Holy Spirit— with his Holy Spirit, um, to move us into the will, his will for our lives. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank God it's Saturday. We'll take it. Um, thank you, Lord, for the good things you've done in our lives, and, you know, just from the presence, uh, of you in the world and in our lives, um, to, to show us that it's, it's not all just falling apart without purpose and without meaning, and that everything is horrible. Um, but there's great wisdom and hope and beauty in the world that we can find when we seek you. Lord, we pray for everyone listening today, that they would have a blessed weekend, that they would find rest and peace and fun and enjoyment in their lives, and that they would find your presence and strength if they need it. Lord, we pray for Susanna Sincotti, um, uh, who was a health issue that we've become aware of. And I said we pray, and we're going to do it on the podcast too. So we pray for Susanna, um, to find a good report and good health through the Lord's work. And we pray for other people who need healing, um, and, uh, you know, the blessings are just plain old strength to endure, um, because this is the real world. It's not all rainbows and sunsets. Um, and, uh, that's why our faith is so important, Lord, that we need you, we rely on you, and we trust you. And so, Lord, we pray for you to open our eyes to see what you have for us today. We pray for you to lead us into the good things you want us to do. And, uh, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you, Lord. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.