Pursuing the “Better Things” God Has for You - Purity 1226

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 rusty tin roof, a truckload of missionaries, and a spectacular view of the mountains near Jocotán, Guatemala comes to us from July of 2019 and an unknown Rock Solid Missions team member who took a moment to capture the scenery while waiting for their fellow team members to join them before they took off on the mission of rebuilding a church from the ground up. Well, it's Wednesday and I went back in time and into the depths of my photo archive to liberate this photo because of its simple scenic beauty to remind us of the better things we could be doing and to visually represent our arrival at another midweek summit. So happy hump day. Wednesdays are a long day for me, is something someone told me, uh, when they were considering joining the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group.. And believe me, I get it. And after leading the group since May, I know how true that statement is. But deciding to lead the recovery discipleship group at Starpoint Church is one of the better things I could choose to do in 2023. And now that we are nearing the end of the year, is without a doubt one of the best decisions that I made for the year. Leading Celebrate Freedom caused me to take on my food addiction in a way that probably wouldn't have happened under any other When you struggle with something continually for all of your life, it is difficult imagining being free from it. Although I had seasons of progress of weight loss and physical health, my tendency to do the wrong thing was still there, and I didn't change the way I felt and thought about food in my, in my mind or in my heart of hearts. Like the dry drunk who is sober but who still proclaims his love for all things boozy, I could abstain from eating foods that kept me obese for a time, but because I still believed those sugar or carb or calorie-laden foods were "good food" or "yummi," it was only a matter of time before their siren call would lead me back to indulge in their "goodness" and my addicting tendencies would take over and I would go mindless and lose all semblance of self-control and the awareness of what my overeating was doing. But this year, because I had a goal of health— getting healthy and losing enough weight to get off my CPAP sleep apnea machine, I slowly became more aware of how my weekend cheat days were sabotaging my progress. And after I was leading the Celebrate Freedom growth group for a few months, months, I was highly convicted over my cheat weekends, binge eating, and decided to stop struggling with my food addiction and to actually treat it like an addiction. I made Scott Salvador my food addiction sponsor and started monitoring everything I ate with the MyFitnessPal app to keep me within my macro limits that the V Shred program recommends. And I would continue to do the V-Shred workouts that my cheat days were sabotaging. And the rest is physical fitness history. The weight has come off. I am in the best physical shape of my life. And last night I did the sleep study to try to get off the CPAP machine for good. I'm praying for good results, which brings up another key to this victory: my faith. Prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit to change hearts and minds. Nearly every morning I pray a stronghold buster geared towards stopping the insanity of my food addiction, and somewhere along the line this year I changed the concluding announcement or proclamation part of the prayer to say, "I choose to believe the truth that these foods—candy, popcorn, chips, cake, ice cream, cookies, and soda—and overeating is a trap of the enemy." and sabotage my health goals. Just like alcohol, I must cease indulging in these foods and overeating altogether. Do you hear that? Must cease indulging in these foods and overeating altogether. That prayerful proclamation has been said continually, and since I started praying it, with the exceptions of a couple slips up, slip-ups, and holiday allowances, I have ceased in indulging in those foods and overeating altogether. For the most part, that prayer has been answered and continues to be answered. And as I have prayed it, I have seen the way I think and feel about those foods and overeating change too. I don't see those foods as "good foods" anymore. I see them as costly in terms of calories and carbs. I see them as not worth it, and I see them as enemies to my health, and I see them as something dangerous, as they have caused me to suffer from obesity for most of my life. I now value my physical health and the person I have become more than the pleasure that these foods and overeating can provide. I see the lie behind "comfort food" and couch potato snacking. It's a lie the enemy loves to tell because it makes us docile, inactive, depressed, angry, and shamed, and it literally weighs us down and kills us. Perhaps the biggest key in the Battle of the Bulge is seeing the truth of what these foods and overeating does to us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And choosing to be ruthless and living by truth, of putting limits on what and how much we eat, and doing the hard but life-giving work of exercise. So even though my Wednesdays are long for me, I am so glad that I chose to serve the body of Christ with the Celebrate Freedom Growth Group because it just happened to not only fulfill my purpose in God's kingdom as an advocate for Christian living good mental health, and freedom from addictions. It also was the means to a major breakthrough in experiencing new levels of freedom, victory, and joy. So I get it, hump days can be busy. Heck, every day can be busy. But the Lord has things out there, better things for you to do with your life. What those things may be are for you the Lord to talk about. It could be getting free of your hurts, habits, and hangups. If so, you're invited to come to the Celebrate Freedom growth group at Star Point Church, or you can check out tonight's lesson on YouTube. I'm sharing the link for it on the blog. Or it could be signing up for a mission trip, taking a class, reading a book, getting physically fit, or volunteering to serve your local church or in your local community. Whatever it is, I recommend you consider pursuing and doing the better things that God has for you, because even if they might be a challenge, if the Lord is calling you to go there, you can be sure that it will be for good. So as we draw ever closer to Christmas, let's rejoice over the times of the season and all the better things that the Lord has done for you. And will do for you when you keep on walking and talking with God. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on church discipline, and the verse is 2 Thessalonians 3:14. From the New American Standard Bible, the Word of God says, if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter Take special note of that person and do not associate with him so that he will be put to shame. Yikes. Anyway, um, the yikes isn't in there. Um, uh, today's verse falls under the 9th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on church discipline. That 9th point is excommunication is sometimes necessary. Today's verse recommends the use of healthy shame to to bring the disobedient back into the fold of the body of Christ. Toxic shame is telling someone they are no good and beyond hope, that they are evil, unable to change, or just bad. Healthy shame, on the other hand, brings conviction and sends the message that our people, our people don't do that. You know better, so don't do that and be the person God made you to be. Do what is right. I continually go back to Genesis on this point because it is right there in the beginning. Genesis 4:6-7 says, God speaking to Cain, "Why are you so angry?" the Lord asked Cain. "Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you." but you must subdue it and be its master. Before the first murder, before the law, before Jesus, God tells Cain to simply do what is right and warns him that sin will rule over him if he gives in to it. So today's verse tells us to take those who are living in sin, disobedient to God, uh, and to leave the church, um, to leave the fellowship of the church, to think about what they've done and to repent in order to be welcomed back into the fellowship of the church. So when, so when someone doesn't do what is right, there should be consequences to encourage them to be the person God created them to be, to do what's right. Too often we either say nothing or use toxic shame when we encounter people who have fallen into sin. We have the hard task of walking in between, to point out the sin as wrong— and to ask people to be the people God created them to be, with love, but to invite them to leave the fellowship of the saints until they do. That is the Bible, and we should follow it. 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 are sharing from God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And today we are in, uh, in our devotional— we're off track, guys, so forgive me— but in our devotional, we're on Advent Week 4, Incarnation, Day 1. And Bonhoeffer's message is called God Becomes Human. And Bonhoeffer writes, God becomes human, really human, while we endeavor to grow out of our humanity, to leave our human nature behind us, God becomes human, and we must recognize that God wants us also to become human, really human. Whereas we distinguish between the godly and the godless, the good and the evil, the noble and the common, God loves real human beings without distinction. God takes the side of real human beings and real world and the real world against all their accusers. But it's not enough to say that God takes care of human beings. This sentence rests on something infinitely deeper and more impenetrable, namely that in the conception and birth of Jesus Christ, God took on humanity in bodily fashion. God raised his love for human beings above every reproachable falsehood and doubt and uncertainty by himself entering into the life of human beings as a human being, by bodily taking upon himself and bearing the nature, essence, guilt, and suffering of human beings. Out of love for human beings, God becomes a human being. He does not seek out the most perfect human being in order to unite that person. Rather, he takes on human nature as it is. And Bonhoeffer also writes from a message called The Government Upon the Shoulders of a Child, of Christmas in 1940. Bonhoeffer writes, this is about the birth of a child, not of the astonishing work of a strong man, not of the bold discovery of a wise man, not of the pious work of a Saint. And it really is beyond all our understanding. The birth of a child shall bring about the great change, shall bring to all mankind salvation and deliverance. And finally, our resource shares John 1:1-5, and the word of God tells us, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. That's talking about Jesus, and, uh, that concludes our sharing of Bonhoeffer's devotional, God Is in the Manger. Um, from Advent Week 4, Day 1. Um, it's in the books. And, um, as we draw closer to Christmas, guys, we're off on the Advent calendar, but we're going to play catch-up, uh, over the next, uh, well, by the time we get to Christmas, we'll be on track, uh, on our devotional. I, I plan on, uh, reading, uh, reading more from it. And the days ahead to get us on track for Christmas Day. So when we get to the devotional part that says Christmas Day, because it can— our devotion goes beyond Christmas, it goes to Christmas all the way to the Epiphany. So to stay on track with that, I'll, uh, I'll either double up or triple up or whatever. And, uh, in the— on the Sundays that I don't do the purity message, I'll, uh I'll do 2 on Saturday to keep us on track for day-to-day. Things have been a little crazy at the end of the year as I finished up the Deeper Walk Prayer Ministry cohort and without being certified. More work to do on that in the future perhaps. And as things have come to a head with Celebrate Freedom as I've been teaching um, from my master's program, um, Celebrate Freedom discipleship course. Had to repurpose those lessons, make them shorter for growth group sizing and for YouTube, YouTube sharing. So things have been nuts, and I'm looking forward to getting things back on track. Basically, we have two more discipleship course classes to put out there, one for the 27th and one for the 3rd. And then in the new year, we'll be into the Celebrate Recovery material at Celebrate Freedom. And that'll— and we can more or less coast unless I decide to broadcast those as well, which we'll see. We'll see about that. That's, that's in my heart. I want to I want to share all the lessons from Celebrate Recovery on YouTube, but I don't know if that's going to be this season. Maybe, maybe next season, because I, I have a full boat where I'll be leading the Celebrate— well, not the Celebrate— the Freedom in Christ course online for Freedom in Christ Ministries on Mondays and taking a class on Thursdays, and of course still doing Celebrate Freedom on Wednesday. So lots of part-time ministry work and study, ready for 2024. And like I said, I failed to get certified on time and have special requirements that require me to do prayer ministry somehow in the future to get my certificate in the mail someday. If I should pursue it. We'll see if that's where we get called. I would like to finish what I started, but I have to take care of my responsibilities first. And, um, you know, we're responsible to God with the way we live our lives. And that's why we share this message, is that God has better, better things for us to do, and we should do them and walk in the way he shows us. So Let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do. Um, we, um, we thank you for saving us. We thank you for taking us out of the darkness and teaching us and leading us in the way we should go. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you would come alongside them, their prayer requests and their walk of faith, because because we all need your help, Lord. And, uh, we just pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, help us do the best job we can, lead us the way we should go, because I need your help every day. Whenever I think I can do things on my own, I'm quickly reminded that I'm not perfect and I make mistakes, and I need you to show me a better way. The better things to do and the better way to do them. Um, so Lord, we just pray for you to help us and, uh, go before us today, uh, by opening our eyes to show us the things we need to see and move us in the way we should go. So all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom here on Earth. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.