Moving On Up – The Path of the Upward Call – Purity 753

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 the Wait Road Comet comes to us from yours truly, as I was out walking the dog this past Sunday and took this no-look photo, only to discover later that I had captured the Sun sitting atop a cirrus cloud— a cirrus cloud formation— giving us this comet-like scene. Well, it's Thursday, And I share today's photo today because it features a pathway. Waite Road is just outside my countryside home, so get used to it. And, uh, this comet-like feature directs our gaze to the heavens. I share pictures of pathways on Thursdays because today is the day I have traditionally taught recovery ministry and now lead a Men's Freedom in Christ discipleship course on Zoom, where I encourage others to start or to continue the journey on the path of Christian discipleship, to discover or to maintain their freedom in Christ. And I am using the Wait Road comment in today's photo to similarly encourage my friends to look up and to answer the upward call on their lives. As Philippians 4:3 and 14 says, I press toward the gold— the goal of my— I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. So yeah, that is written to the body of Christ, and it wasn't just the Apostle Paul's call to answer. The upward call of God is to follow the Lord's will for our lives by living according to the wisdom of the Word of God and by finding and fulfilling our purpose in Christ. What exactly is that for you? I don't know, but the Lord does, and somewhere in your heart of hearts, you may have an idea of what you "should have always done." but haven't. God made us to be the unique individuals that we are, giving us specific talents, abilities, and dispositions. Why does one person have certain talents and seem to be called to pursue a certain path in life, and why does that vary so much from person to person? We could talk about nature and nurture, about our genetics, our temperaments, or— and our environments all day long, and wonder why it has to quote unquote be this way. Or we could accept where we are today and set a course for tomorrow. In 2019, my divorce finalized and I found myself faced with the reality that I had to pay spousal support. That means less money. And that, and that I had to find a place to live because the terms of the divorce were, uh, when completely fulfilled, included the sale of my house in Quarryville and my compensation from the potential sale would be next to zero. So I was faced with some cold hard facts like, I need money, I need a place to live, what am I going to do? Luckily, I wasn't alone. And no, this tale doesn't include the church body coming to save the day, nor does it include friends or family coming to the rescue. Quite frankly, in many ways in life, we are completely on our own. And have to deal with our problems by ourselves. So it would seem that I was by myself, as I am reminded of Kevin Hart's comedy routine where he describes a street-hardened individual who described his experience by saying, "All day, just me, by myself, on the block, holding it down, gun in my waist, straight face, all day." Not again, etc. Uh, luckily it wasn't that way for me. Not really. I wasn't alone. I had been walking with the Lord since 2010, and he had led me out of the darkness of my addiction, and I knew he could help me, help lead me out of the mess I'd found myself in. And sure enough, I felt what I believed to be his inward compulsions and intuitions from the Holy Spirit to to start working towards solutions. And even though it was a process that didn't have any quick fixes, I followed the Lord's leading, and in June of 2020, he led me to my new home down by the river. Part of our walk as Christians is to solve the problems before us. So we lean on the Lord's strength, apply his wisdom to our lives, and keep going onward and upward into the life he has for us. The life we always wanted but were afraid to pursue because we thought it was too hard or we were inadequate or in— or deficient in some way. Before Christ, we were deficient. We were spiritually dead and consumed by the flesh. But after we put our faith in Jesus, we receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and are given a new spiritual life. We are made free from sin and death. We will live forever with the Lord in eternity and are given the power to overcome the sins of the flesh that kept us in chains and to break the mental strongholds that made us think we weren't good enough to live the life that we wanted and that the Lord calls us to. Through our faith in Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can face harsh realities and have peace. We can persevere and eventually move out of difficult situations with joy. The Apostle Paul's testimony encourages us. He said in Philippians 4:11-14, not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty. I shared from the NLT because it simplifies the message. Many just share Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, but I like to share the preceding verses and verse 14 because they keep it real, stating that we are to be content in every situation, in times of plenty or in times where we lack. And they fully admit to the reality of present difficulties. Life isn't perfect the moment you become a Christian, but if you keep walking and talking with God and apply his wisdom to your life, things will get better. Although they could get worse for a season or three, but the beauty of walking with the Lord is that even if you are by myself, you never have to walk alone, and you can have peace in the storm. And joy that goes beyond your understanding and exists regardless of the present difficulties that you face. So keep going, keep going with God. We will all face God in eternity, and if you walk with him now through faith in Jesus Christ— oh yeah, I said it— there will be no confusion of whether or not you are his. You are. When you are in Christ, he knows you., and he calls you to follow him. And one day, when he calls you home, you will know the truth of your salvation and purpose in Christ when you finally see the prize for answering the upward call on your life. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Proverbs 20:7. The godly— and it says, the godly walk with integrity. Blessed are their children who follow them. Today's Bible verse reminds us that the godly walk in integrity and that their children can benefit if they are faithful to follow in their footsteps. Proverbs is one of the books that are considered to be wisdom literature in the Old Testament, and here we see some simple wisdom that we should apply to our lives. Integrity is defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. For the Christian, moral principles aren't based on the latest trends in our culture, but are based on the truth of God's Word. The Bible's standards are less permissive than our society's standards where anything goes. What's right is right and what's wrong is wrong is based on what God says in His Word, not on our feelings or our opinions. In fact, I have an idea of writing a book about living according to Christian ethics, entitling the book God said it was wrong, because in my walk I have seen Christians, quote unquote, take their liberty in things that the Bible either implies or directly states that you shouldn't. You know, walking in godly integrity is living according to the word of God, so we should do that rather than claim our forgiveness and freedom to cover what could either be overt or subtle transgressions of God's word. It's not an easy road, and the longer you walk with the Lord, you become more and more aware of the many ways that you miss the mark of God's righteousness. But we can grow and make changes when we become aware of the lies we have believed, or the errors that we have made or are still making. The key is to keep walking in integrity, because it brings you closer to the Lord's will for our lives. And it provides a good example for others. As today's verse states, our children could be blessed by our decision to walk in godly integrity. Kids learn from their parents and often follow in their footsteps, so we should provide an example of integrity with the way we live our lives. The good we do today could be seen and influence our children tomorrow. So be honest and live by the principles found in God's word because a life of godly integrity can not only bless your life, it could bless the lives of those who follow close behind. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, uh, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we begin sharing from a new resource. Uh, we're sharing from Clinton E. Arnold's Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul's Letters. Um, yeah, after today I think I'm just going to say powers— Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness. But, uh, yeah, that's the full title: Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul's Letters. I'm sharing this resource because, uh, it, it talks about spiritual warfare. It also gives a— it's a great study on, um, uh, you know, basically, uh, the descriptions of the powers and principalities that have that affect our world, the dark spiritual forces of darkness. And, uh, it gives a great historical view of, you know, what Paul was facing when he wrote his letters that include those terms to describe the kingdom of darkness. So we're opening up, uh, by sharing that. Uh, it's, uh, it's a great resource, a great book. Um, you can find it online for about $20, uh, if you want to get it, or you can start, you know, just reading it bit by bit here on the podcast. I'll be sharing it from now until who knows when, um, each day, a little by little, uh, every day. Today we share the introduction, uh, from that book and gives you an idea of, you know, where, where it's going to take you. So if you're interested in the powers of darkness and how to overcome them, of course, um, you can, you can go to mt4christ.org to check out the beginning of that book. As always, we share those books for education, and we encourage people to actually go out and purchase the resources that we share. So there. And we also encourage, obviously, a life of Christian discipleship. We teach it on Thursday nights, and we live it. And we don't live it perfectly, but we're a lot better than we used to be. But we live it progressively. Last night we were in a class at our local church about sanctification, and our pastor described how just like our salvation, it comes in three, three, three, three phases, you know, our past, our present, and our future. When we come to faith in Christ, we're saved, right? We were saved, we're being saved, and we will be saved. Well, the same is this, the same is true for our sanctification. We were sanctified, that means made holy, um, when we put our faith in Christ. His righteousness was imputed to us. That's called positional sanctification. And then there's our daily lives. Obviously, we, we grew up in the world influenced by the enemy, the flesh, and the devil, and, and the world system, and I've learned how to live worldly ways instead of according to the word of God. So we have to, you know, renew our minds and start living by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit by doing what the word says, um, and, you know, believing it and living it. And when we do that, we progressively move into sanctification. We, you know, you lay down the sin, you become a little more holy. Stop sinning. We're not sinless, but we sin less, as my other pastor described. I love my church, by the way. They're definitely on message of the freedom in Christ, even though, you know, the terminology is different. They're not speaking exactly what we teach out of our discipleship courses, but the message is the same. Live a holy life, be a follower of Christ, love Star Point Church. Anyway, um, so we progress. Thus, the way we live our lives now is called progressive sanctification. We have positional sanctification and progressive sanctification. And then ultimately, when we go into eternity, we will be completely separated from our sins, we'll be glorified, and that'll be future— or shoot, I forget the third term, but it's future sanctification, or perfect, actually, that's it. You know, be perfect as I am perfect. When we finally get there, when we're glorified in God's kingdom and we're separated from sin completely, that's when we'll have perfect sanctification. So it's positional, progressive, and perfect. So they didn't teach those terms, but that's, uh, I got those from Ligonier Ministries looking up real quick and remind myself, what is that again? Oh yeah. And that's just it. We have to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ and what we believe and why we believe it. And that's a continual process because, you know, our minds aren't perfect and we forget things. We got to remind ourselves who we are in Christ and remember to walk in the ways that we're supposed to. So that's what we do, and we encourage people to do that on the podcast by providing our classes that we taught in 2021 on Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. So if you want to check those out, they're available on the audio podcast, M.t. Clark's 24/7 Podcast, and they're available on our YouTube channel, The M.t. Christ 24/7 YouTube channel. So you can check all those out. And we obviously revere the word of God. We read it every day. It was in Numbers and, and Psalms today. Um, and, uh, we, we encourage Bible study, and we do that in the podcast by sharing our Bible study. Uh, we, we, we, we discuss, uh, we stutter a lot, and we discuss, um, uh, the Bible and topical topical discussions on the Bible and, and the Christian life with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti each week, and we share it on the podcast and on our YouTube channel. So you want to check that out, become a part of a Bible study. Um, you can just sit in and listen to us, and, uh, you can always respond and reach out to me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com if you have a comment or anything like that. Um, so today's Thursday. Let's, uh, let's keep answering that upward call. And, uh, the way we make that upward call is in prayer. Uh, Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you for all the blessings of this life. Most importantly, we thank you for the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and for that glorious invitation you made on our lives to become a part of your kingdom by putting our faith in him. And now we're, we're called to follow and answer the upward call you have on our lives. We might not know what that is, but we know we can find it if we look in your word and, uh, look in the world and where we are now and where you want us to go. Um, Lord, so we need your help, and we're praying for you today for your help. We're praying for everyone who's listening today. We pray specifically for Arthur and Susanna Sincotti, as Susanna is recovering from her surgery.. And we made requests already, uh, on behalf of others, uh, this morning, Lord. We, we know you heard those, but we're praying for the people who are listening today, whatever requests they have on their hearts, Lord. Um, we come alongside them and their prayer requests, Lord, and we pray for you to fulfill, um, what's good for their lives. Um, and we also pray for you to go before us, Lord. We don't know what to do, but we know you open eyes. We know you show us the way when we walk and talk with you. So Lord, we're just praying for you to go before us, open our eyes and ears to the things we need to see and hear, and open our hearts and minds to follow into the things that you have us— have for us to do today. Help us to live a life of integrity where we're honest and we abide by what you say rather than what we feel. And and that leads us into victory, Lord. So we just thank you, we praise you, and pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.