Raw, Wrecked, and Restored - Purity 1455

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. Uh, to see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com, or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a, of a part of my hand, uh, sidewalk pathway Green grass and Old Glory under pleasant blue skies on the campus of Victory Christian Academy comes to us from yours truly as I capture this moment while on a mission trip to Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, back on February 24th, 2017. Our team from Rock Solid Church went to help Christians affiliated with the school and Victory Harvest Church with flood relief restoration projects as floodwaters from August 2016 had devastated their church and homes. Well, it's Thursday, and I share today's imperfect photo as a visual encouragement to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship and to step out of your comfort zone every once in a while, uh, to do good works of restoration, uh, whether that is rebuilding and renovating churches, schools, or homes devastated by natural disasters, or if it is rebuilding the temple of the Holy Spirit through repentance and recovery. I stepped out of my comfort zone in 2017 to go to Baton Rouge to work during my mid-winter recess vacation. While it was nice to go south to take a break from winter for a week, I was greatly humbled by the hard work of body and spirit that happened as we worked together to restore Victory Harvest Church's sanctuary, parts of Victory Christian Academy, and various homes of the congregants. It seemed I was selected for every grunt job you could think of, and while others were able to go into the community, see some of Baton Rouge, my duties kept me at the school and church for the duration of the trip, where I really came to terms with some of my inadequacies and where I came to the realization that when you decide to do good works in Jesus's names. You don't do it for a church, a pastor, or even a family looking for approval or thanks. You do it for the Lord, to give him glory. Looking back all these years later, Baton Rouge was a distant memory, but when I look at myself then and where I am now, I realize how very raw I was still, even after nearly 2 years of sobriety back then. I would have declared my walk at the time as one of freedom and victory, but looking back now, I see just how broken I still was and marvel over all the other trials and victories there were yet to come. Last night, I hosted the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church and was delighted to welcome a new member and a few familiar faces who hadn't been in our company for quite some time. A few prodigals came home last night, and while their individual circumstances are vastly different, they more or less all confess the same thing. To one degree or another, they all became frustrated with the cares of life, were deceived by the world's promises of happiness, or were led into temptation by friends and family to the point where they fell into sin, trials, and pain, and now were looking to be restored to where they were a year ago. Uh, they had wrecked, uh, to one—

they had been wrecked to one extent or another and were looking to restore them, uh, themselves to sanity.

Some inexplicably, even though they had come back to a recovery support group, were still holding on to the lies that led them into darkness. But I know from my own experience that it takes time to come out of your denial and to surrender to God's ways of living. They, like me in the past, are wrecked and raw, but I also know from experience that if they are faithful in choosing to believe what God says about them and, and, and life and to lean on him for guidance and strength, they can be healed and set free. They can be restored to sanity and be transformed and to the people that God made them to be. Recovery—

see, I shared the text on this one—

recovery, repentance, sanctification, and maturity are a process, but through our relationship with the Lord, we can experience progress and the fruit of the Spirit when we keep on walking and talking with God. This influx of a new member and some familiar prodigals seem to have given our ministry a new life. As the Celebrate Freedom team is motivated to help the lost get found and are willing to walk alongside them as they grow.

After weeks of minimal attendance, it seems that the Lord is reaping a harvest of repentance for us to work with, and we are motivated to do what we can to help guide people out of the darkness and lead them back to the pathway of the Lord's light.

Today's Bible verses come from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crowe. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on the forgiveness of sins, and today's verses are Isaiah 44:22-23 from the New American Standard Bible, where the word of God says, I have wiped out your transgression— transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Shout for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done it! Shout joyfully, you lower parts of the earth! Break forth in a shout of joy, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and in Israel he shows forth his glory. Today's verses fall under the 29th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sins, and that 29th point is God sweeps our sins away and wants us to sing for joy. Amen. Today's Bible verses speak of the joy that comes from being redeemed by the Lord. Oh, the joy when people answer God's call on their lives to return to him to be forgiven and restored in their relationships with him. I particularly enjoy how today's verses make it clear that our being redeemed is not the fruit of our hard work. Verse 23 says, "Shout for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done it! The Lord has redeemed Jacob, and in Israel he shows forth his glory." Our redemption only comes from God as an act of mercy and a gift of grace. We couldn't redeem ourselves, and thus we should have joy over our forgiveness, salvation, and relationship with God. With the God who loved us enough to rescue us from ourselves. 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 our walk. Today we continue sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And in Alford's devotional, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture And, uh, today's chapter is Hebrews 10. From Hebrews 10, he shares a portion of verse 37, which says, he who is coming will come and will not tarry. And Stephen Alford writes, what a blessed hope, how it should purify the heart even as he is pure. He who is coming will come and will not tarry. The meaning here is undoubtedly the same as that in the verse in Revelation. Surely I am coming quickly. Revelation 22:20. It really means when he does come, he will come quickly. There will be no tarrying. His coming will be like lightning, suddenly, in a moment, like a thief in the night. The hour has merely to strike when he will suddenly appear, and events will follow with rapid succession. He will not tarry. It will not be a case of getting ready then. And Stephen Alfred ends by praying, oh Lord, Help me to live as not to be ashamed.

Amen.

Amen. And yeah, the Lord, you know, if you want to look at the end time, end times calendar, you know, certain prophetic teachers will tell you that everything, you know, everything that needs to happen has more or less happened for Jesus to return, that he could show up any minute. Um, So you may agree or disagree with that, but, uh, the scripture is clear, is that when he does come, he won't tarry.

And Jesus himself said that he'll come like a thief in the night, and, uh, you know, suddenly, suddenly he'll be there. And he'll, you know, he pondered whether or not he'd find anyone faithful when he returns.

And so as Christians, we are to, uh, endeavor to be faithful.

And, um, you know, be ready for his coming. And how do we do that?

Do we, you know, prepare some sort of end times bunker for the return of Jesus?

No. Um, I mean, you can do that if you're afraid, um, of the world and how it might progress in history.

Um, there's a lot of apocalyptic fear out there, um, that guide people to do these things, but For the Christian, we should, you know, live faithful lives by doing what we do and be ready for Jesus to show up.

And just, you know, by living a good life, doing good works, and proclaiming the gospel and trying to make disciples out of other people, that's all we really need to do to prepare for the coming of the Lord. Because as it is, we won't be prepared. He'll come suddenly like lightning, and, uh, we'll, we'll be surprised.

We'll all be surprised when Jesus arrives. Uh, but, you know, and that's why we ask the question, you know, have you fully surrendered to God? Uh, if not, you know, you probably should. There's, you know, there's verses in the Bible that indicate that if you're living a certain way, meaning a lifestyle of sin—

my favorites, uh, for that is 1 Corinthians 6:9 9 through 11, which, you know, lists a whole bunch of different sins of the flesh. And, uh, you know, the, the bad news is that if you live according to those sins of the flesh, you know, Paul declares that, you know, that they won't— if you do these things, you won't inherit the kingdom of the Lord.

But verse 11 says, thus were some of you, that you were changed. And how do we become changed?

We become changed from surrendering to the Lord and his will for our lives. We come out of our denial, recognize the sinfulness of our lifestyle, and decide to go, you know, Jesus's way, to follow him. What we think about God is important, but what we do with God's word is, is what I say is the most important thing. If you believe this, will you follow it, and will you surrender to the Lord's will? When you do surrender to the Lord's will, a lot of things will change.

And one of the things that might change is that you might draw you into ministry. Uh, I was blessed to— am blessed to lead the Celebrate Freedom support group at Star Point Church. And like I said last night, we had a great meeting.

Um, I was moti— you know, when you got people showing up, I'm always motivated to share the freedom message. But when more people show up, you get more motivated because you, you can touch, you know, hey, that guy's gonna get this too, or, you know, that woman over there is, is needed, needed to hear this, you know, because we preach the, the truth of who we are in Christ and, and the fact that God will help us to, to be transformed. So if you're in Upstate New York and, you know, that sounds good to you, we welcome you to join our fellowship for Christian recovery and discipleship that meets in Clifton Park at Starpoint Church on Wednesdays at 6:30 PM.

However, if you're not in the neighborhood, you know, there's hope for you too. Um, you know, we believe that you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of our podcast classes on YouTube. Um, they're free of charge.

They're just audio.

Uh, three of these, uh, playlists are audio playlists, so, uh, you can listen in to the Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, uh, classes that I taught at Rock Solid Church back in 2021, or, and, or listen to the, uh the single presentation of my Freedom in Christ presentation, also audio.

And if you want to watch video, last year we, we recorded the Celebrate Freedom discipleship course on video via Zoom. So if you wanted to check out those teachings, they're infused with good biblical wisdom and the freedom message to— for you to grab a hold of and to follow., to help resolve your issues of the past and, uh, to move forward in the life that Christ has for you.

And thus we end to ask the question, are you empty for Christ too?

You know, we empty ourselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the good things that God has for us. And when we do that, you know, uh, life changes. So if you're empty for Christ, uh, keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we suggest you pray, Make Jesus your Lord and Savior and make the decision to follow him into the life that he has for you. Um, you know, I want to be empty for Christ in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And when we surrender and empty ourselves, the Lord comes in to fill the space with good things. And so we pray. Uh, let's pray now.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom.

Lord, we thank you so much, uh, how you take You took our empty lives and filled it with goodness, and how you took our wrecked-in-law rawness and you grew us into maturity and grew us in sanctification and purity, and, uh, you gave us a hope and a future and a purpose for living and meaning for our lives. And it all came through the truth of your word and the power of your Holy Spirit in us to draw us closer to you, Lord. To, you know, accept your forgiveness and to accept the life that you have for us, Lord. So we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message that you would come alongside them and their prayer request and lead them into the life that you have for them, Lord. And as it is, we also ask for your guidance, Lord. As always, uh, we pray for you to open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go. Because we know that, uh, when we follow you, Lord, there's more work to be done, uh, the good works in the world and the good works of, uh, changing ourselves more into the image of Christ. And we can't do that on our own, Lord. We need the— we need your grace, mercy, and power to help us with that. And so that's what we're praying for today.

Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you.

And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.