Never Give Up - How to Be Filled - Purity 1581

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's original piece of art. Um, to see today's art, go to, uh, mtforchrist.com, or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's original piece of art depicting yours truly shredding a telephone pole in a desperate attempt to pass pole climbing school comes to us from my pole climbing instructor Bob. Last name forgotten, who presented me with this artistic commendation to congratulate me on completing pole climbing school back on November 20th, 2009. Good morning. It's— well, it's Thursday, uh, and I normally share a scenic pathway photo, uh, to encourage everyone to get on or stay on the path of Christian discipleship on Thursdays. But sometimes our pathway to the Lord's purpose for our lives might not be so pretty. Sometimes when the Lord calls you, he puts obstacles in your way that you— that must be overcome. Polska pole climbing school lasts 5 days. If you don't— if you didn't pass, you went back to where you came from. And in my case, that meant almost certainly that I would eventually lose my job. I had burned some bridges and put myself in a bad place where I was. And because of my personal failings and lack of patience, I was in a very precarious position. But almost miraculously, I was given the opportunity to escape my predicament by getting a new position in my company. But the only way out of the office space hell that I found myself in was up. Pass pole climbing school and I could move on. Fail and go back to living in fear of losing my job. 3 days into pole climbing school, I wasn't making much progress. Although I certainly put forth effort, as the shredded pole indicates, I wasn't getting it. I was running up the poles and cutting out. I was going too fast and not focusing on the process that my— that our instructors were trying to teach. So on the 4th day, I was desperate, and even though I was a practicing Buddhist at, at and hadn't had anything to do with God since shortly after the death of my infant son Holden in 2002, that morning I prayed a desperate prayer to God, Jesus Christ, to help me to gain the strength to meet and overcome the challenge before me. And though I was basically lost and a long way from a relationship with the Lord, God was faithful and answered my prayer. On day 4, I accomplished more in one day than I had in 3. And met the benchmarks of progress that meant I was ready to complete the end-of-training exercise on day 5. I passed, and I was shaken because I knew just how desperate my situation had been, and I knew that God had helped me. Although I moved on in joy over the victory, I forgot about the Lord's answering my prayer, but He didn't forget me. 4 months after passing pole climbing school while working as a tech, the Lord caught up to me with the gospel radio message that saved my life, saved my soul. This is the story I have told before more than once, but bears repeating because it is a story that tells me to trust in the Lord and to never give up and to only feed on what God says is good and to seek to be filled by the Holy Spirit and the love wisdom that he has to give. Speaking of being filled, the Turning Point with David Jeremiah devotion for today speaks about that, uh, that topic. So I'm sharing it on the blog today to encourage us all to seek the Lord and to be filled by him. David Jeremiah writes, How to Be Filled, and he shares Matthew 5:6, which says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6. And David Jeremiah writes, it is not necessary to remind newborns that it's time to eat. Newborns don't know much, but they know when they're hungry. And adults know the same thing. Yes, at times we may be so busy that we forget to eat when we should, but our body soon reminds us. When we are physically hungry, we know only one solution: food.. But the same is not true with spiritual hunger. We might— we may think we can satisfy spiritual hunger with materialism, advancement, entertainment, or other worldly intake. But spiritual hunger, lack of purpose, identity, meaning, or fulfillment, can only be satisfied by taking in more of God. It was Blaise Pascal who said, in essence, that there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person that can only be filled by God. Just as there is a food-shaped vacuum in the human stomach that can only be filled by food, so God is the only bread of life that can satisfy our spiritual hunger. Jesus said that those who hunger for the righteousness of God will be blessed by the fullness of his presence. Satisfy your spiritual hunger for him today. And David Jeremiah also shares a quote from Thomas Watson which says, "They who do not thirst for righteousness shall be in perpetual hunger and thirst." And I say amen. While I sort of cringe over Jeremiah's likening our spiritual hunger to a baby's physical hunger, I'll run with it. Because just like we would think it would be cruel, a cruel form of harmful neglect, to not feed a crying baby, I think that we are neglecting our soul's and spirit's spiritual hunger when we decide to not follow the Lord and instead choose the ways of the world to give us sustenance and comfort. While there are legitimate ways that we can give ourselves self-care that will give us physical and possible— possibly mental rest, pleasure, or comfort, the ways of the world, uh, to care for us do not address the spiritual hunger for meaning, purpose, and communion that we desperately need and only receive from God. If we go with this physical food hunger analogy, the world, the flesh, and the devil dish out copious amounts of junk food that don't ultimately satisfy. They cause us to suffer and to fall into bondage and eventually lead to death, whereas the food the Lord has for us causes us to be satisfied and nourished. We can be content, and it causes us to grow and thrive and to be strengthened But as disciples of Jesus, we are not babies anymore, and the Lord leaves it up to us to decide what we will feed on and where to go to be filled. To be filled in our spirit, we need to seek God in new and continuous ways. We need to go to our Heavenly Father and feed from his wisdom and strength by talking to him, praying to him, asking him to speak to us and to bless us. And we need to feed regularly on his word. You shouldn't starve a crying baby, so please don't choose to starve yourself from the spiritual food that God can give you in his presence and through his word. Today's Bible verses come to us from this Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Kruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on imitating Jesus, and today's verses are Ephesians 5:1-2 from the New Living Translation. The word of God says, imitate God therefore in everything you do. —because you are his dear children—live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Today's verses are the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the fifth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on imitating Jesus. And the fifth point is: Paul instructs us to imitate Jesus in order to be a blessing to others. Today's Bible verses make it clear that we are to imitate the God we follow in everything we do, mind you, and that the way we— that will be expressed is when we reflect Christ's example and live lives filled with love. Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice so that we can live, and when we know that, we really can't take our faith too lightly. When someone dies for us, I think it's our obligation to use the life that has been saved to express our gratitude for our salvation and to give honor to the one who saved us. When first responders save people, I think it should be recognized and publicly proclaimed as something good, and I would encourage those who are inspired by acts of heroism to honor and/or reward the people who did them for what they've done. Likewise, in the spiritual realm, Jesus is our hero. He saves us for, for all eternity to be with him forever. So let's not waste our life. Instead, let's be the loving people that God created us to be and to find our purpose in following Jesus' example and reflecting his light. 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. Today we can continue sharing from Day by Day Along the Way. It's a 365-day devotional by J.E. Adams, and we're on Day 80, where Adams shares, uh, the latter half of Proverbs 10:17, which says, but he who rejects, rejects reproof goes astray. And J.E. Adams writes, just as surely as Well-disciplined Christians are able to pursue the path of life. Those who reject discipline give evidence that they are not on the path. Again, discipline makes the difference. In a day that stresses independence, many refuse to submit to discipline. They reject the discipline of the home, of the state, of the church. But it is essential that the authority of the church in particular be emphasized. The writer of Hebrews tells you to obey the elders who have rule over you. Does that rub you the wrong way? Many, probably most pastors and elders, fail to exercise church discipline when members go astray, and so they do not reclaim them for Christ. Discipline is essential in every aspect of the church's activities. Apart from discipline, for instance, counseling has no backup. And as a result, it is impossible to tell a true church from the world since unbelievers are never excluded. Godliness, we saw, is the result of discipline. You cannot lead an undisciplined life and still please God. So when you go astray, receive reproof rather than chaff under it— chafe under it, yeah. But better still, discipline yourself so that discipline by others is unnecessary. Amen. Amen. And, uh, for those familiar with J.E. Adams' works as a Christian counselor, he, he really put forth the, uh, the, the idea of, um, church discipline, that, um, when someone goes astray, they should be, you know, taken aside and corrected. Uh, you know, when we see someone going astray, we're supposed to go up to them and say, hey man, is everything okay? Because you're not acting like the person God created to be. You're You're living in a way that doesn't give him glory. You're living in sin. And, you know, if they don't hear it, another— you know, you take another witness with you. And then if they still don't listen, you take it to the church. And that's what Adams is talking about when he says he doesn't have the support. And I hate to say it, that the vast majority of churches out there do not practice church discipline. Um, it's like a foreign concept. I remember when I read Adams' work about this, at that point I was like, good luck, brother, because it's a jungle out there. And and there's not a lot of people to stand in the line. But, you know, so that's very disheartening, and while I would advocate for it, I would advocate for what he says near the end here, which is to discipline yourself so that discipline by others is unnecessary. When we're on the path of Christian discipleship, the discipline we take on is from the Holy Spirit, and we let him convict our hearts through the word of God to lead us in the way we should go and to be transformed because he fills us and gives us the power to overcome. So we encourage walking in the Spirit, and that is why we always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Under— are you submitting? You know, James tells us in James 4:7, tells us, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Are you submitting to God? Have you made Jesus your Lord and Savior, and are you trying to follow his example? Um, we encourage it. Not to beat yourself up, but to find the pathway of the Holy Spirit, which leads to peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, faithful— faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self-control. Those are the things we want in life. Peace and love and joy. Yeah. And all the rest. Yeah, that's it. And, uh, unfortunately, the thing we have to do is reprogram our minds to be aligned with the wisdom of God's word and to forsake the things that go against it. It means getting rid of our sin and doing what's right according to God's Word. So we encourage that because when you, when you're on that pathway, you find peace and you find purpose. And part of my purpose, I'm happy to say, is I lead the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church on Wednesday evenings. And we invite anyone in Upstate New York to join our Christian fellowship for recovery and discipleship. And, uh, because we, we teach basically what we teach here. We encourage people to follow, walk in the spirit, and follow the recovery guides that we use to, uh, to overcome through the power of the Holy, you know, through the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome your hurts, habits, and hangups. And, uh, we have a great, great fellowship there, and, uh, I'm very, very happy to lead it. Um, so we invite anyone in Upstate New York who can make it to Clifton Park on a Wednesday night to join us. Um, For those who aren't in Upstate New York who still want encouragement, the good news is that I'm currently doing a series called Christian Recovery Celebrate Freedom with M.t. Clark. That's the playlist name, um, basically where I teach all the stuff that we, uh, we go over at Celebrate Freedom each week. So if you'd like to get into recovery and there's no Christian group near you, um, you can be fed from the teachings that we're giving. And we recommend you start with Lesson 1, the ABCs of Celebrate Freedom, and then go through Lessons 1 through 1 through 6, or yeah, I think there's 1 through 6. So in total, I think we have 7 videos out there, and we're going to go through all of it. Basically, it'll be 26 weeks— it was 26 weeks of teaching, if I recall that correctly. But we encourage you to check that out and to share it with somebody else who might need recovery. Beyond that, we've done other work in the past that we've shared in playlist form on YouTube and on our website, mtcforchrist.com. We have a YouTube YouTube playlist page where you can find all the series we've done through the years, which include Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course, which sort of fills in the gaps of the 12 steps. So if you'd like, you can check those out. We believe that you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of those series. And you can always reach out to me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com to get feedback about, you know, whatever you're going through. And if you appreciate those teachings or whatever, and what we do here is to encourage the Christian life, we'd appreciate your support. You can send me an email to, you know, give me praise or criticism, but you can also go to emptyforchrist.com, our donations page, to give. We'd appreciate your donations. You can give via the Cash App, Venmo, or PayPal by going to emptyforchrist.com the donation and payments page today. Um, beyond that, we always end the— always end on a note to point you back to the Lord. And we ask the question, are you empty for Christ too? And that's just a clever play on words. If you emptied yourself of the world and of the flesh and the devil to be filled by the Holy Spirit and guided into your new life, if so, we say great, keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we encourage you, we encourage you to pray and ask the Lord to help you, to seek his will and to make Jesus your Lord and Savior. We know that prayer works. It worked for me the day I needed to advance in pole climbing school, and it worked on the day I made Jesus my Lord and Savior, and it's worked in many other ways. Since then. That God is good, and, uh, that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for the joy you've set before us today. Um, we thank you for, um, the way you've moved in our lives to bless us through the years and right up until today, Lord. And, um, we don't want it to stop, so we're asking for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, lead us in the way we should go. Um, because we need your help. And while you're at it, Lord, you can also— um, we're praying for anyone reading, listening, or watching this message today, that you come alongside them and their prayer request, their walk of faith, and that you would bless them, Lord, and help them too. Because we just want to represent your kingdom and to do what's right according to you, and we need a lot of help with that, Lord. So we're asking for your help today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.