Quests for Circumstantial Happiness vs True Peace, Comfort, and Joy - Purity 1229

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 my canine friend Harley in the late afternoon sun pouring over the border trees of farmland at the end of Freedom Road comes to us from yours truly, as I decided to go just a little bit further than I normally do and realized when I turned and looked back at the sun why I did. I live in the context of the Kingdom of God, where God is not only in control, but he is also crafting every moment of my experience. And so you'll have to forgive me when I say it, but I went further than usual to see and capture this magnificent moment because God wanted me to. Well, it's Saturday, December 23rd, or as some will call it, Christmas Eve Eve. And it is my hope and prayer that all of my friends take time over the next 3 days to appreciate all that the Lord has done for them in their lives and to see what a gift we have been given in life, especially in Jesus as he delivers us into peace with God and the joy that goes beyond understanding. I also pray for the safety of my friends who will be taking to the highways, byways, and streets to finish your Christmas celebration preparations and to resist those feelings of guilt that would drive you to overspend as you get the urge to have a Merry Christmas. Money can't buy you love, and it also won't guarantee, um, filling your family with Christmas cheer. I myself will not be going to any stores. I declare it. I until after Christmas, as I spent about 6 hours going from store to store with my wife and stepdaughter yesterday to get groceries, some last-minute gifts, and had a fruitless search for a Christmas outfit. I didn't know that last part was part of the agenda, and if I had, I might have stayed at home because the day took longer than I thought it would. There was a lot of traffic, and shopping for ideals, especially with time waning, doesn't go well. Getting the perfect gift or finding the perfect outfit for Christmas is like a quest, and unless it is your quest, you really don't want to have to have anything to do with it, because if it is not your quest, you can't understand it and won't be able to see what will be able to fulfill it. As far as I know, uh, as far as I knew, my stepdaughter has a dress recently purchased in a shade that is thematically in line with the Christmas season at home, and so I don't quite understand why why we went from store after store after store—3 stores—looking for another. I know our lives out at Countryside Estates, and I couldn't quite understand the who, what, or why of the necessity of a new outfit, but I didn't trouble myself over it because, um, because I didn't know, because I, because I didn't know what it was about, and I didn't know that we were on a quest. I didn't know I was on a quest until we went from clothing— went to clothing store number 2. I was busy on my own quest, looking, uh, booking a Disney vacation on my phone for February, and didn't even know we were looking for the Holy Grail of Christmas outfits. And even though I managed to make all the arrangements to fly my wife, myself, and 2 younger step kiddos to the Magic Kingdom and back in February, the elusive perfect outfit was not found, proving simultaneously how easy and difficult it can be to create a little circumstantial happiness. When seeking circumstantial happiness, you have to know what you want. I wanted a vacation in February, and since the Lord is blessing me with the sale of my former marital home— after 4 years, mind you— uh, on December 27th, I got in my head a week or so ago to possibly go to Disney World. Yesterday I let the cat out of the bag by mentioning the idea to my wife, and it didn't take me long at all to put, put my plan into action and pull the trigger on booking it. While my wife and stepdaughter looked for an outfit in store number one, I had the Disney Rewards stay, meal plan, rental car, and flights to and from Orlando booked. I'm going to Disney World. But unfortunately, while I, I would imagine Elizabeth had some idea of what she was looking for in an outfit, whatever it was, it wasn't at the 3 stores she looked, looked in. And to her credit, and to my disbelief, she didn't buy a substitute. Although she didn't go home empty-handed, as even though she didn't fulfill the quest to get a perfect Christmas outfit, she managed to find, um, other non-Christmas clothing items that were needed or wanted. I don't know. Hey guys, you know, when you're shopping with ladies, just shut up, stay out of their way, and pray for it to end. And don't say anything sarcastic or stupid to set them off, uh, if the quest isn't fulfilled, because they are those— they so rarely are. Anyway, the best of luck to those of you who will brave the streets and venture into the malls and stores today or tomorrow. Be kind, be patient, and remember to represent the kingdom by saying Merry Christmas to every Happy Holidays you receive. After a long day of shopping and booking a vacation on my phone, I was happy to take a walk to shake off the madness of materialism and do it— and attempting to satisfy the urges of arranging for circumstantial happiness by taking advantage of the circumstances and taking a long peaceful walk in the late afternoon sunshine on a brisk December day with Christmas only a few days away. Every step brought its own peace, and when I saw the view I captured in today's photo, I turned to the Lord in gratitude and spent the return trek thanking my Heavenly Father for everything under heaven—Christmas, my wife, my family, my countryside home, my home down by the river, my the upcoming sale of my former home, uh, for Disney World in February, for the Celebrate Freedom growth group, for Starpoint Church, for my job, for my canine friend Harley, for Jesus, for the Holy Spirit, and for the life and life journey that God has given me. Uh, the problem with circumstantial happiness is that it's fleeting. The gifts, travel, food, or experiences that can give us pleasure wear off or fade away. The moments are good as they can give us happiness in the present moment and can be fondly remembered to give us joy for having experienced them, but those things do not give us peace that lasts. Only God, through faith in Jesus and being in harmony with Him in His presence, does that. So, as we move into Christmas, celebrate the coming of our newborn King, love your family and friends. Have fun, but when the last gift is unwrapped and the holiday hoopla comes crashing to a halt, remember to thank the Lord and take some time to rest in his peace, love, comfort, and joy. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John J. Kruse. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on comfort Uh, and today's, uh, today's Bible verses are Psalm 23:1-6, and the word of God says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Today's verses fall under the first point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on Comfort. And that first point is: The Lord is our Shepherd, always leading us in the best way and protecting us. Today's verses have given faithful men and women of God comfort for ages past, and when we are reminded of God as the Good Shepherd, we can find comfort knowing that He provides, He protects, and He will guide us by His goodness and mercy all the days of our life. These words give us strength in times of loss and grief and comfort us in all the seasons of life, especially when we never leave the Good Shepherd's side by faithfully following and living by his leadership. So stay close to the Good Shepherd and experience his care all the days of your life. As always, I invite all to go to m.t. forchrist.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 God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And we're, we're playing catch-up and, and stepping a day in advance, uh, by, by finishing the Advent, um, Advent messages for day 6 and day 7 of week 4 today. So we have 2 messages from Bonhoeffer, and I'll do my best not to stammer through them. And so we— Bonhoeffer writes the first message. It's called The Unfathomably Wise Counselor. And Bonhoeffer writes, Wonderful Counselor is the name of this child. In him, the wonder of all wonders has taken place. The birth of the Savior child has gone forth from God's eternal counsel. In the form of a human child, God gave us his Son. God became human, the Word became flesh. That is the wonder of the love of God for us, and it is the unfathomably wise Counselor who wins us this love and saves us. But because this Child of God is his own wonderful Counselor, he himself is also the source of all wonder and all counsel. To those who recognize in Jesus the wonder of the Son of God, every one of His words and deeds becomes a wonder. They find in Him the last, most profound, most helpful counsel for all needs and questions. Yes, before the child can open his lips, He is full of wonder and full of counsel. Go to the child in the manger, believe Him to be the Son of God, And you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel. And then from poet Lucy Shaw in God with Us, our devotion shares the following: In winter, it seems that the season of spring will never come, and in both Advent and Lent, it's the waiting that's hard, the in-between of divine promise and its fulfillment. Most of us find ourselves dangling in this hiatus, which in the interval may seem a waste of time, but the longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy. With such motivation, we can wait as we sense that God is indeed with us and at work within us, as he was with Mary. As the child within her grew. That was from poet Lucy Shaw in God with Us. And finally, uh, for day 6, uh, they share Galatians 4:4-7, and the word of God says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law. So that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father!' So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child, then also an heir through God. And because I don't plan on doing a purity message on Sunday, we are sharing day 7 of Advent, our, from our Advent devotional, and a message that Bonhoeffer, that's entitled, that Bonhoeffer wrote, that is entitled The One Who Became Human. And Bonhoeffer writes, who is this child? This God is the one who became human as we became human. He is completely human. Therefore, nothing human is foreign to him. The human being that I am, Jesus Christ was also. About this human being, Jesus Christ, we say, "This one is God." This does not mean that we already knew beforehand who God is, nor does it mean that the statement "this human being is God" adds anything to being human. God and human being are not thought of as belonging together through a concept of nature. The statement "this human being is God" is meaning— is meant entirely differently. The divinity of this human being is not something additional to the human nature of Jesus Christ. The statement 'this human being is God' is the vertical from above, the statement that applies to Jesus Christ, the human being, which neither adds anything nor takes anything away. But qualifies the whole human being as God. Faith is ignited from Jesus Christ, the human being. If Jesus Christ is to be described as God, then we do not speak of his omnipotence and omniscience, but of his cradle and his cross. There is no divine being as omnipotent, as omniscient, omnipresence. And finally, let's see, Maria von Weidenmayer to Bonhoeffer in a letter on December 10th, 1943, wrote, and now Christmas is coming and you won't be there. We shall be apart, yes, but very close together. My thoughts will come to you and accompany you. We shall sing Friede auf Erden, peace on earth, and pray together but we shall sing 'Erfreut Gott in der Höhe'—glory to be God on high—even louder. That is what I pray for you and for all of us, that the Savior may throw open the gates of heaven for us at darkest night on Christmas Eve so that we can be joyful in spite of everything. And that It was from Maria von Weidenmeyer to Bonhoeffer on December 10, 1943. And finally, our devotional shares Luke 2:1-7, the Christmas story. In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son, and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn. That concludes our sharing for— from God Is in the Manger for Advent Day 6 and 7. And, uh, we're, we're ready for Christmas, uh, today, uh, here at Countryside Estates, or my Countryside home in Easton. My stepchildren will be coming over or their little family tradition of watching the Polar Express with hot cocoa and eating mass quantities of sugar-laden snacks. And so I pray for your help and guidance for me to navigate the next 48 to 72 hours, trying to have some semblance of balance in terms of my food plan. I think I'm gonna, you know, I think I'm gonna suspend the food plan But I have an accountability coach who wants me to give 1/10 of the calories I go over on my plan. I gotta do 10 push-ups. Well, let's see. Yeah, whatever amount the caloric overage is, I have to do 1/10 in push-ups. So I don't know if I want to push that. You know, if I go over 500 calories, that's 50 push-ups. If I go 1,000 calories over, that's 100 push-ups. And frankly, while I could do those push-ups, I'd rather not. And the whole idea of me going over is sort of against what, you know, the higher goal I have of maintaining good health. So it's difficult, you know. When you make a decision to have a life goal of good health, monitoring and keeping track of what you do is is a necessity. And if you suspend that, you just sort of know you're deceiving yourself. And so it's, you know, it's difficult because part of you wants to have reckless abandon for a couple days. You realize that you don't necessarily need to, but if you don't, you know, if you monitor it, you're going to curtail what you, you know, if you count everything, you're going to be disgusted with yourself and and not given fully to what you would if you didn't monitor yourself. And so, do you want to live a lie where you don't live in the truth of what's going on? You just ignore reality and give in to the flesh? Well, part of you would say, "Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I want to do," because the truth is just too hard to bear. But is that wise? Is that good? You know, even in the name of celebration, you know, do we want to give in to, you know, total abandonment, you know, giving up of self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit, to celebrate, you know, in, in the name of celebration of our Savior? You know, they seem antithetical to one another. And so I'm, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna, I'm gonna enjoy Christmas and sort of be— try to be mindful of the things I eat. And that's, that's a big challenge for me because when you, you know, in previous days I would not care and go full, full gusto out and, you know, wouldn't count it. But my accountability coaches keep me accountable, saying you can do what you want, but there'll be a penalty. And I sort of like that, you know. Some people are like, wow, he's you know, that's a little off base. He's sort of overstepping. Not me. I think that's great, you know, because otherwise, you know, you don't want a pushover for an accountability coach. You want to make him— he wants, you know, you want him to make you accountable. And so Scott threw that out there yesterday, and I sort of started slipping yesterday. I said, ah, well, I'm going to shift my plan to the, you know, to carb cycling, where more carbs are allowed. And so I was under on carbs, but paradoxically, when you go to the carb cycling, it's like they allow you to have so many more carbs, but the calories don't increase that much. And so I was sort of caught off guard there, and I went over my food plan last night, a few hundred calories. First I only thought it was a few, but because I monitored everything, I realized it was like 470 calories over. And so by the calculation, 1/10 of that, $4.70, I spent doing push-ups this morning. 47, but I rounded up to 50, as you know, sort of a wake-up call. Like, you know, this is, this is your priority. Your goal is physical health. So, uh, you know, know the cost and don't, don't ignore it just because it's a holiday, you know. So, you know, I pray You know, if you're trying to overcome an addiction, you need to treat it as an addiction. And you got to realize that there's some, you know, even times and seasons are not a good reason to go back into your addiction. So, you know, food's a difficult one because it's so culturally based. And, you know, there's the social aspect of, you know, eat something and finish what's on your plate and, you know, indulge yourself, have you know, celebrate, you know, let yourself go. You're fighting all of that, and you're fighting your flesh that hungers, you know, you know, for it. So it's, it's tough. And, you know, that— and the truth is, you do have liberty, you do have freedom to feast. But what's, you know, what's better to have some sense of it? Now granted, We can get past a feast or relapse, if you will, when it comes to food by, you know, fasting a few days after and, you know, getting back on track and not going, you know, back to that regularly. It's okay to indulge occasionally, but not always. It's probably better to have a balanced thing all the time, you know, staying within your limits all the time instead of, you know, going mindless and just letting yourself go. So that's my struggle today as we go into hot cocoa day, Polar Express day. Not a fan, by the way. The ridiculousness of Santa Claus sometimes, like, yikes. And I don't know, I didn't think the Polar Express is a very good movie. Yeah, shots fired. You know, there's like no Christian message in it. At all. And if you disagree, you can send me an email at mtforchrist247@gmail.com. I'd be willing to listen to any defense for Christ being in that movie because I'm sure it's there somewhere. But man, not a big— I don't know if it's computer animation or just the whole Santa Claus myth that's propagated in that film, but I'm not a big fan of the Polar Express, but I will sit and enjoy it with my family today, and I'll be looking for a good message, uh, other than general, general things. I'm looking for something to point me to Jesus, so I'm going to watch it again, you know. So we'll see, and I'll let you know if I see anything in it this time. Anyway, beyond that, Christmas Eve, I'll be going down to my parents' house to celebrate with my immediate family of the past before coming back to Countryside to spend Christmas Eve night, you know, sleep here and wake up with Christmas Eve with me and Tammy Lynn. So looking forward to Christmas. Anyway, I'm not sure what we'll share tomorrow, if we'll share anything on Christmas Eve. I have some plans, but I'm not making any promises. Uh, Bible study has been suspended because things here at Countryside are going to be a little crazy in the morning. So, um, if you're looking for the Bible study with us and Cotties, you're going to have to look towards the next week. Um, but we'll be back, um, for, for New Year's Eve and, you know, every day, almost every Sunday, I'm sure, in 2024, God willing. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for all the blessings of this life, especially Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Um, Lord, and you, um, for, for saving us, for giving us a new life in Christ, and, um, you know, teaching us wisdom, um, through your word. We pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that they'd be blessed that you come alongside them in their prayer request. Give healing to those who are hurting this time of year, and, and, you know, help them to focus on the good that you are and that they have all the days of their life in you. Uh, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today. Open our eyes to the truth. Uh, help us to be strong and courageous in, in defending our, uh, food plan, uh, goal and, uh, giving us wisdom to, to celebrate freely all the same, um, and to be accountable for any overages. Lord, so we'll need your help. Show us the things you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go today, Lord, because all we want to do is represent you and to give you glory. So thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.