Not Just Any Spiritual Pathway Purity 807

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Today's photo of a gravel driveway lined by trees underneath overcast skies comes to us from yours truly as I stopped to capture this pathway while working in Delanson, New York yesterday. Well, it's Thursday again, and as is my habit, I share a picture of a pathway on Thursdays to encourage my friends to keep walking and talking to God on the pathway of Christian discipleship. The key to this pathway is Christ, and when I speak about walking on the pathway of Christian discipleship, I want to make it clear that we are following him. Uh, just this morning I saw a Facebook friend share a passage from the Bible on their page, and a spiritual debate had ensued in the comments. The Bible passage was Hebrews 10:26-30, which basically encourages authentic Christian faith and not treating sin lightly, that to do so is a possible indicator that you are not a Christian and that you are subject to judgment. There was no commentary, just the Word of God. But the truth of God's Word didn't sit well with one of my friend's spiritual— quote-unquote spiritual friends— who encouraged my friend not to share such harsh words about his loving, compassionate, forgiving forgiving Creator. The debater— the debater's impassioned speech was riddled with profanity and a real concern that sharing things like my friend's post keep people from their Creator. They were big on compassion and empathy but ignorant of the truth of what Jesus taught and the word of God in general. I could see where they were coming from, but they were wrong. As I have been sharing encouragements to pursue a relationship with God for a couple of years on the blog, I have increasingly been convicted to not compromise the truth of God's Word. And unlike this debater, I can't just hide or dismiss what The Bible teaches and push a general spirituality that says that all people are good at heart and that we shouldn't speak about hell. Jesus taught about hell more than heaven. That's the truth. That's why he came to save us from God's wrath. God loves us, but he demands we put our faith in Jesus to be forgiven. We were not approved by God, we are not approved by God, by any other way, as Christ Himself said in John 14:6, "I am the truth, the way, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." As I shared yesterday, He also encouraged us to repent. If you want to see the— there is a link for the blog post from yesterday on today's post. And he also encouraged us to obey his commandments. Matthew 5:17 and Matthew 5— shoot, I think, well, 17:16-30, maybe. Well, I don't know. It's all over Matthew, guys. So I might have mistyped the Bible reference right now, but it's all over scripture that we are to obey the Lord's commandments. Just saying, you know, we are saved by faith, but we are to obey. We can't pick and choose what spiritual truths we like from God's Word. We can't trust our salvation in anyone other than Christ. Although we, we are called to follow Christ in the way we live our lives, we aren't saved because of our performance. We are saved because of him. Uh, and the reason we follow him is primarily to give God glory, not us. But God is so good that when we decide to follow Jesus, to walk in the Spirit, we see the fruit of the Spirit grow in our lives. We try, uh, we try to live as Christians because we are called to, and it gives the one who saved us glory. Uh, the peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, patience, and self- control we receive from walking in the Spirit is just a bonus and a great source of motivation to continue and to love our God. This debater had made his own creator, small c, who was more like a genie in a bottle than the one true God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one God and the three in the three persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The path I encourage people to discover is the one that starts with faith in Jesus Christ specifically as Lord and Savior and follows the God of the Bible. There is no other way, and I wouldn't be loving if I allowed people I care about to believe otherwise. So that's the path, the highway to heaven. I teach Freedom in Christ, after all, not Freedom in the creator, small c. Really? And as I shared yesterday on the blog and podcast, registration is now open for the Freedom in Christ course via Zoom at the following link, which is on the blog at ifcm.org for fall classes. Freedom in Christ course fall. Instead of having common but ignorant knowledge of God— about God, sign up for a course that will not only teach you the truth about who God is, but who will— but will also help you to resolve your spiritual and personal conflicts through your faith in Christ. I know there are some hard truths in the Bible, but I know God is loving and forgiving, and when he calls us to obey and follow him He does it out of love for us and to lead us into an abundant life of meaning and purpose that just so happens to be good, as he works all things for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. I got sidetracked today. I had more to say about the goodness of God and what I, what he is doing in my life. But I just so happened to study Psalm 145 this morning, and we'll share that because it says it better than I could. I would consider this psalm to be a keeper for those of us who choose to walk out our lives as disciples of Christ with what's left of our lives. David had a heart after God, and it is the same heart that we are to have if we are to walk in Jesus's ways. Psalm 145 says, the Lord— well, there's a heading underneath it, Psalm 145, the Lord extolled for his goodness, a psalm of praise of David. And then the psalm begins in verse 1. I will extol you, oh, I will extol you, my God, O King, and I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and and I will praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and highly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wonderful works I will meditate. Men shall speak of the power of your awesome acts, and I will tell of your greatness. They shall eagerly utter the memory of your abundant goodness and will shout joyfully of your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. The Lord is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works. All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and your godly ones shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power, to make known to the sons of men your mighty acts and the glory of the majesty of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due time. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his deeds. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him. He will also hear their cry and will save them. The Lord keeps all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever. So be like David. Let your mouth speak the praise of the Lord and bless his holy Yahweh's holy name forever and ever. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation's Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are 1 Peter 1:4-5, and they say, and we have a priceless inheritance, an inheritance that is kept in heaven for, for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And through your faith God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. Today's verses speak about our priceless inheritance and how we receive it through faith, and how we will be protected until our salvation is complete on the last day. I love today's verses because they remind us that we have an inheritance in heaven and that our salvation isn't over yet. I also love them because they clearly state that it is through our faith that we receive God's protection and our inheritance. We didn't earn it, so we don't have to worry about losing it, uh, because we didn't earn it in the first place. Our faith came because of God's grace, not because of us. I also love today's passage because it looks ahead. As much as we can state that our salvation is a done deal in the sense that we have been forgiven and made new, It isn't over yet. We still need to be saved from this world that is broken by sin and death. On the last day, when Christ returns or when we see him in heaven, we will receive our inheritance and our salvation will be complete. So as good as our lives are now that we have life in Christ, we haven't received everything yet. We can live in peace and joy because we have it all, and there is more to come. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.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 Clinton Arnold's Powers of Darkness, and today we conclude chapter 11 with the section called Responding to the Powers of Darkness, and the Interpreting the Armor of God. So if you need an interpretation of God's armor that's spoken of in Ephesians, um, go to mtforchrist.org and look at the today's blog post, at the bottom of today's blog post, and you'll see that resource. As always, we share that, uh, share the work of others to encourage people in their walk, and we encourage them also to, you know, purchase in their entirety the books that we share from, because I found them helpful in my walk, and you'll probably find them helpful in your walk, and they wouldn't be a bad part of your library to share with others. And that's what it's all about. There's a great, you know, and there's a great pull in society. There's the spiritual but not necessarily you know, understand the Word of God or even pursue it. But, but Christ, Christ is the Savior, and his story is written in the Bible, and we need to know what it says, and we need to apply it to our lives if we are going to follow him. And so that's what we do. And, you know, it's not about legalism, and it's not about a general spiritual reality where we can just like, "I'm a good person, I'm sure I'm going to heaven." Like, are you? You know, that Debater's post was, you know, was like I said riddled with profanity, um, and when my friend tried to respond with other passages in the Bible They declared that my friend was going to hell for sharing the word of God, apparently, and for being a human. You know, that's the thing. There's a fundamental misunderstanding. As soon as someone, you know, claims that salvation is through just general goodness and spirituality, Um, they'll stand on that and then they'll, they'll, they'll put, they'll put the, the requirements of the law on a Christian because we, we read the Bible. Um, but if we, if they read the Bible, they'd understand that we're saved by faith and not through, not through our, our works, um, and or, or obedience. We're saved by grace and we're saved by faith. We're not saved by our performance. That's why it's amazing grace. That's why we need to come to Christ, and that's why we need to specifically follow him and him alone. Um, I pray, you know, it causes my heart great pain to see, to see it. Why? Because I lived in it for so long. Um, every snarky thing you can say about Christianity, I've said at least once. So yeah, there's that. So that's why I'm impassioned, because I've discovered the truth after living a godless life and also living a spiritual life, you know, following spiritual philosophies that were just generally good and not, you know, denied God, denied heaven, denied everything. But God's Word is the truth, and we have to follow it. And, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated, but, you know, it's got to be true, and it's got to be through Christ and Christ alone. So we encourage people that in that message, you know, there's Christian authors that, that, that soft, you know, that make it a little more stark than just reading isolated Bible verses. Um, you know, the book of, you know, the word of God is a big book, and its wisdom needs to be presented in a way, um, you know, that, that people can understand and people can accept and apply to their lives. And that's why I share the books that I do share. They all are based on scripture, of course, but they, they show you how you can do this, how you can live a life of Christian discipleship. And, and we share our teachings from 2021 on the podcast um, for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. So if you can't register, you can listen to the classes, all those classes on the podcast, or, uh, you know, listen to them on YouTube as we share them all for your listening enjoyment, your education, your edification, um, and you're being built up in the most holy faith. So we do that, and we also obviously review the word of God. We just shared a Psalm, um, so we study the Bible and, uh, we We also do a Bible study on Sundays with our good friends Arthur and Susanna Saccotti, and we share that every week. Bible study with the Saccottis is available on the podcast and the YouTube channel to help you in your walk. Why do I care? Well, I do care because I was lost. I've been found. And not only that, I've been transformed. I'm not the person I used to be. I let go of a lot of the sins and mental anguish that I was in because of my faith in Christ. And that's why we share, and that's why we teach, and that's why we encourage, because it just so happens to be the only way to salvation and the great benefits we receive to our personal lives when we come in line with God's Word. And live according to his ways. So, uh, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we just thank you so much for all that you do, um, for showing us the truth, for showing us the narrow way that leads to life everlasting, the door in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you for showing us he was the way to— the way to you. And for revealing that truth to us. Lord, we just pray for the people who don't know, uh, know you, uh, that the Holy Spirit would open their eyes today, um, to the truth that it's through Christ alone that they are saved, and that they make a decision to make Jesus our Lord and Savior. Lord, we pray that prayer for our friends, our family, anyone who doesn't know you. And we encourage those who do know you to follow you. And so we pray for the people listening today, um, that you'd come alongside their prayer request and help them in their walk. And we pray, um, that you go before all of us today. We need you to go before us and to, to lead us and guide us and show us the things we need to know and the things we need to do to best represent you here on the earth. That's our desire as a disciple, Lord, is to follow you and to give you glory. And, uh, we just pray for you to help us in that today. Lord, we thank you, we love you, we praise you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.