Not Today Ending it All on Father’s Day – Purity 762

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 sunset over Enclaw River Park in Holiday, Florida comes to us from a friend's recent family vacation to the Sunshine— Sunshine State that they shared on social media back on June 3rd. Say that 3 times quick. Um, well, as the sun has set on another Father's Day weekend and we face another work week, I am contemplating how good life is even if we are facing problems, and the fact that as long as we keep living and preferably keep walking and talking with God, there is hope. Yesterday I rejoined my parents, my son and a couple of my brothers and their significant others at Red Lobster in Kingston for a Father's Day lunch. My parents and son were actually delayed getting to the restaurant because local authorities closed the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge for an hour while police negotiators successfully prevented a man who climbed over the railing of the bridge a number of times during their talks from committing suicide. True story. My brother Tommy's fiancée stated that they who saw the man had pulled over his vehicle on the opposite side of traffic and had climbed onto the pedestrian walkway. He was upset and screaming into a phone when they had crossed the bridge. We may never know the reasons behind what caused this man to threaten to take his life, but the fact that yesterday was Father's Day and the fact that this man was on the phone yelling at someone could cause us to imagine that broken interpersonal relationships may have been part of the story. The good news is that this man got the help they needed, and it makes me glad that there are people who serve our community to protect and serve the lives of its citizens. The sparse report indicates the situation was precarious. While I can only speculate about the methods used to convince this man to come off, come off the bridge, I would imagine that compassion and the assurance of hope was given. What do you say to someone who wants to kill themselves? I am not consulting any resources here, but I, if put in this situation, I would try to emphasize that there are alternative solutions to this man's problems other than suicide. I would probably share the fact that I too had daunting problems in my past that made me consider the same choice. But then I would tell them how because I decided to live, I was able to find a way out of those Problems. problems. Because I decided to keep on living, there was hope, and one day the pain of those problems was alleviated. I would point to the fact of my current condition as proof that we can work through the problems that face us, and life goes on, if we keep living. I would point to myself as evidence that people cared about this man, even if all his relationships were broken. I would assure them that I cared and that there was hope and help they could, and there was hope and there's help they could get if they chose to live. As a member of the Mobile Crisis Assessment Team in Columbia/Greene Counties, we are called to give hope and show concern to those in crisis. In every situation our team is called out, called out to, we have to assess the situation, engage the person, and assure them that there is help available to get them through whatever problems they are facing. Thankfully, all the calls I have gone out, out to thus far have been successful as our team showed up and were able to refer individuals to the resources they needed, or at least develop an immediate plan that could, that would keep the person safe. These situations, our experiences and our stories can be used to give people the hope they need to make the decision to keep going in life. As I also teach Christian discipleship, I also encourage Christians to keep going in their faith life, and I use my testimony of how I, I was born again in 2010 and have since overcome some major problems and had— have enjoyed some very significant victories because I know not only decided to keep living, but decided to follow the Lord's ways and learn from the wisdom of his word. I teach that— I teach what I have learned and share my experiences to encourage Christians to be a follower of Jesus Christ with the way they live their lives, because I know that the decision to live as a disciple of Christ contains the best solutions to life's problems. Problems. It is a pathway that is paved with and leads to the fruit of the Spirit. If you truly want peace, love, joy, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, kindness, patience, and self-control to define your life, I would encourage you to get the help you need from the Lord and to consult this resource in which his wisdom is contained: the Holy Bible, the inspired and inerrant The word of God. This morning my Bible study took me to Psalm 119:25-32, which says, my soul clings to the dust, revive me according to your word. I have declared my ways and you answered me. Teach me your statutes, make me understand the way of your precepts, so shall I meditate on your wondrous works. My soul melts from heaviness, strengthen me according to your word. Remove from me the way of lying and grant me your law graciously. I have chosen the way of truth. Your judgments I have laid before me. I cling to your testimonies, O Lord. Do not put me to shame. I will run the course of your commandments, for you shall enlarge my heart. It's a small section of scripture, uh, a section of scripture, but in it we can— we learn that we can both We can be both revived and strengthened by God's Word. Although there are lying ways all around us and our souls can feel heavy, the psalmist knows that the Lord can help them through His Word, and so they make the commitment to cling to its wisdom and to run in its courses. It's Monday, and undoubtedly the new work week will come with its problems. And we could feel heavy just contemplating the fact that another work week has begun. But let me encourage you, as long as you are living, there is hope. And if you make the decision to make the commitment to walk in the Lord's ways by applying the wisdom of the Word of God to your life, you can have peace as you walk through the problems of the day. When you walk with the Lord, you are never alone. When you study his word You will never lack wisdom, inspiration, or hope. So keep walking and talking with God. And while you're at it, share the hope that you have and tell others what the Lord has done for you. Your story can give someone the hope to carry on. Your story can bring the dead to life and introduce someone who thought there was no way into a relationship with God where there is always a way. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Psalm 31:7, and it says, "I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love, for you have seen my troubles and you care about the anguish of my soul." Today's Bible verse tells us what we need to hear when we contemplate a relationship with God. God not only sees our troubles but cares about the anguish of our souls. When we believe the lies of the enemy that there is no God, we are deceived into believing that we live in a cold, heartless, and dangerous universe where no one knows the troubles we see and thus no one really cares. That's a lie. God is omniscient and omnipresent. That means God knows all and is everywhere all at once. That means he knows about your situation personally. That He is always available to call on and to lean on in times of trouble. When we seek the LORD, we will find Him. And in today's verse, the psalmist testifies that they have discovered that God's love never fails, and they can rejoice in it. They declare that the LORD has been with them through their troubles and anguish, but because they know God's love personally, they can rejoice. So seek the LORD. Walk and talk with Him every day through Bible study and prayer, and you will be assured that He knows all about your troubles and that He can help you through them, and somehow, because you know His love, you can rejoice. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.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 E. Arnold's Powers of Darkness. Today we begin sharing from Chapter 3, and it's all about astrology. And, you know, the sayings of there's, there's, you know, your fate lies in the stars isn't just a philosophical saying that sounds nice. It was actually a belief system that people really took seriously in antiquity. It wasn't just a fun thing to read your horoscope. When people actually believed that they could discern their future, their lives' future, their destiny from astrology. And so Clinton Arnold's work discusses that in today's resource. So if you want to check that out, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that, uh, that excerpt shared at the, at the bottom of today's blog post. And as always, we've been We share all kinds of resources through the blog. We've been doing the blog for quite some time, and we've been sharing like entire books. Why do we do that? Because we want to teach people what we've learned and share the resources of things that we thought were valuable in our walk that helped us to understand not only our faith but how to live, live as a Christian. I've honestly, as As a Christian counselor who's gotten their master's degree in Christian counseling, I can, uh, the reason I did that is because I discovered that the answers to our faith lie within the Bible, and Christian counseling is the means by which we can really apply the truth of the Bible to our mental health and to the way we live our lives. If you feel depressed, Christianity has an answer for that. If you feel, you know, angry, Christianity has an answer for that. If you feel fearful, Christianity has an answer for that. But you have to know the answer. You have to apply it to your life through practice of your faith. And, you know, to say you know something and not to practice it, you know, it doesn't matter. You have to not only believe, but you have to do. Uh, what, you know, to perform it. So that's what we do here, is we encourage that people not only come to understand what their faith is, but to apply it to their lives, to reap the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. We've reaped the fruit of the Spirit in our lives and have seen our lives transformed because of it, and it's a good thing. And so we encourage people to do that. We do that on the blog and the podcast by sharing our teachings from, uh, 2021, basically for our 3 classes we did, which was Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, which are all based on the word of God and the work from Dr. Neil Anderson. So if you want to check those out, they're available on the podcast and the, and the, uh, the YouTube channel M.t. Clark Christ 24/7. We also obviously revere the word of God. We study a little bit of it each day, and we, we meet with Arthur and Susanna Sankhadi on Sundays to discuss a topic and draw from the Word of God to get wisdom on it. So if you want to be part of an informal Bible study, go to mtforchrist.org, and you can find all of Arthur's Bible study outlines. And in each outline, there's a link to our podcast, and some of them have video. Um, starting in the beginning of this year, we started to put everything on, on, uh, put everything on YouTube. So if you want to see, see us, uh, discuss everything, go to the YouTube channel M.t. for Christ 24/7 on YouTube. All the links for all those things are all on each podcast every day. Just go to the bottom of the podcast, you can find the links to our— well, go to each blog post and you can find the, uh, the links to the podcast and our YouTube channel and my wife's podcast as well. So it's Monday, and you know, I hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend. It was very touching to see all the posts on social media, uh, people declaring the love and respect for their fathers. Um, and, uh, but today's another day, and, uh Well, we're thankful for what our fathers have done. If our fathers were responsible, they taught us to be supporters of ourselves and our families, and that usually means work. So we're going to have to work each and every day to support ourselves and to maintain our freedom in Christ. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for all that you've done. We thank you for those public servants who went out yesterday and helped the man, um, from literally from jumping over the edge. And Lord, we just, we just thank you for, uh, there's, you know, the, the life-saving techniques they used, uh, that undoubtedly caused, uh, caused them to reconsider, um, their problems and to find another solution other than suicide. Lord, as we begin our work week, we just thank God, if we're not there, we're not in a crisis situation, um, you know, often our, our gratitude, Lord, can be from knowing what you've done and where we are, and knowing that our problems could be worse, and that because we have you in our lives, there's always hope. So we just thank you for the hope you give us through the gospel and for each day, knowing that when we lean on you, we can get strength and be revived in our spirit. Lord, we pray for everyone listening today. We pray for them to be strengthened and revived in their spirit as they face Monday. Lord, we pray for the situations going on in our lives. We've already prayed for healing for several people who are going through situations currently. And Lord, we put— we come alongside the prayer request of everyone listening today, Lord, that, uh, that you would hear our voice in, in agreement with, with their request, um, to get the help that we need from you, Lord. Um, or we just thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we, we just pray that you would go before us today, open our eyes to what we need to see, and to lead us into the things we need to do. Um, we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.