REAL Prayer and Keeping it Real with Biblical Counsel - Purity 1143

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 crashing waves on the rocky shores of Lake Ontario at sunset comes to us from Celestial Blue Photography. While Oswego is a 3-hour drive away from me, I got to see last night's sunset on Lake Ontario because of social media and because Celestial Blue's Rocco Saya is faithful in sharing his photographic artistry with his friends. Thank you, Rocco. Well, it's Saturday, and as the sun sets on the first week of September, I am grateful for the people that God has brought into my life who so generously share their talents, expertise, friendship, and love. And I am grateful for the people that God has put on my path that I have been able to minister to. While I continually receive a little help from my friends and a whole lot of help from the Lord, I'm more than happy to help others with whatever counsel or guidance I can give because I've received so much. I had the pleasure of offering prayer ministry and counseling to two people in the last 48 hours whom I have never— who I would have never even met if the Lord hadn't guided me to where I am today. Because I had— have tried to follow the Lord's lead, I find myself being trained as a Deeper Walk International prayer minister and and am serving at a recovery/disciple ministry for a church that I didn't know— I didn't even know about a couple of years ago. I am simply amazed by how technology has allowed me to meet, get equipped by, and minister to people from all across the world, and how the Lord has been moving me on the terra firma to boot. On Thursday evening, I led one of my fellow students through a session on REAL Prayer as part of our studies at Deeper Walk School of Prayer Ministry via Zoom. The REAL Prayer Process is a form of listening prayer in which one asks the Lord to guide them into healing. REAL, R-E-A-L, is an acronym that stands for R, which is remember, where we ask the Lord or Jesus specifically to bring to our our minds any memory or memories that you would like to heal today. Then we do E, Explore, which is a two-part process where we, where we explore both the relational or right brain and logical or left brain aspects of the memory by praying, please bring to my mind the sights, sounds, smells, emotions, and other aspects of this memory that I need to remember. In order for your healing to be as complete as possible. That prayer highlights those sensory relational aspects. After, after this prayer, we look at what emotions are coming up and how intense they are. We then pray to see how this memory impacted our beliefs, our logical/analytical processes, by asking the Lord to reveal the false beliefs/lies We hold because of this memory by praying, and you pray, "Please reveal the lies that the adversary succeeded in planting in my heart as a result of this memory or traumatic event." After this, we list whatever lies we have believed and rate how true they seem to us. And then we A) ask the Lord to help us by praying, I ask Jesus to do whatever he needs to do to heal this memory. I invite him into this memory and ask him to allow me to perceive his presence. And finally, we do the L in REAL, which is listen. Once we have asked Jesus to heal the memory, it's time to stop, look, and listen. Jesus tends to reveal himself through sight, sound, or sense. Some people see him or a representation of him in their memories. Others hear his words in their minds. Still others sense relief from dominant emotion and have an experience like a light going on in which the lies no longer feel true. The real prayer process, the instructions and prayers that I've listed here, all come from Dr. Marcus Warner's Real Prayer book. For more information about that process, you can go to deeperwalkinternational.org to buy the book Real Prayer. Real Prayer relies completely on what the Lord brings to the minds of those who go to him in prayer. As a facilitator of the process, you simply guide the participant to pray to the Lord and assist them by repeating and validating what they report. Thursday's session was my first time facilitating the Real Prayer process, and although I was quite a bit— was a bit nervous, nervous for my lack of experience, I was relieved that the Lord was faithful to lead the process and assist the participants by revealing what they needed to see and, and know to bring healing. I just led the participant to pray the prayers and ask Jesus to help them, and, and he did. My experience as a Community Freedom Ministry associate for Freedom in Christ Ministries and this latest training experience with Deeper Walk International has shown me that the Lord can bring healing to root issues that keep Christians stuck or hurting. God is faithful to expose the lies and heal the hurts when we ask him, and all we have to bring to the process is faith in him. Amazing things can happen when we pray. However, my— I was also reminded yesterday that just knowing what is right according to the Word of God, can bring healing too, as I was asked to give counsel regarding some relationship problems from someone connected to my local church. This person is new to the Celebrate Freedom growth group and reached out to tell me some specifics about their situation and to get biblical counsel about what they should do. After I got some basic details of what was going on with their relationship, I advised them that while I'm not a licensed counselor with the state, I have a master's degree degree in Christian counseling, and, and that the advice that I bring would be considered nothetic or biblical counsel. And that is somewhat confrontational because in this form of counseling we examine the person's thoughts and actions against what the Word of God says and would exhort them to do the right thing according to God's Word, unlike other forms of counseling that would leave the interpretation of their lives and next steps up to the clients' subjective thoughts, feelings, and insights. Nothetic counseling confronts clients with their sins and directs them to repent and do things God's way. So after hearing the details of this person's situation, I had the uncomfortable task of pointing out how their troubled relationship had really been broken from the start because the parties weren't married and had no intention of marrying, although they lived together. As for the future of the relationship, I suggested that there was really just one question to be addressed: Do you want to be married to this person? And would you put God at the center of your marriage? While no decisions were made in our short conversation, this person said they really appreciated the clarity that our conversation provided. The confusion over what to do and all the mixed-up emotions were clarified through the filter of God's principles for living. Oh, what do I— oh, I don't know what to do. Well, let's look at the word of God and do what's right. Because the parties weren't married, the person wasn't under any obligation to continue in the relationship. The dysfunction that was rearing its ugly head and the fact that the relationship had already broken up were all pretty clear signs that this person was not the one to get married to, and that it was probably best to say goodbye and make the breakup final. When we operate according to the wisdom of God's Word, things are pretty simple, and the person I counseled really appreciated that I listened and told it to them straight. These two episodes of helping others just mirror what I had learned in my own journey. I prayed, I prayed through and was led through the Steps to Freedom in Christ, and God helped me, so I am just doing what was done for me by becoming a prayer minister. I was given wise biblical counsel and teaching on how to live according to God's Word, so I am counseling and teaching others to do the same, to follow the Lord with the way you live. And, um, let us see, I have received and constantly still receive the Lord's help and help from my friends. So I try to be a brother and a friend to the people God has put on my path by praying for them and with them and telling them the truth of what God's Word says and how to apply it to their lives. I am not giving anything I have not been given, and the amazing thing is the more I give, the more I still seem to receive. So ask if you need it, you know, ask the Lord for healing. And go to your friends when you, when you need their help. There is no shame in receiving help because we need it, and because when we receive it, we most likely will give the help we receive to others. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on anger. Or Kamas hot temper. And today they give us a bunch of verses, so I'm going to read them all and we'll continue. Basically, under this one section of the first point of anger and hot temper, they give us Psalm 7:11, which says, God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day. And then they give us 1 Kings 11:9, which says, "So the LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice." And then there is 2 Kings 17:18, which says, "Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone." And then finally they give us Mark 3, verses 5 and 6. And the Word of God says, and when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. And that final, you know, passage obviously was about Jesus healing, uh, healing a man on the Sabbath in the temple. And, uh, healed him. He, you know, when Jesus gets angry, he heals people. Um, anyway, today's verses fall under the first point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on anger, comma, hot temper. And that first point is: anger is not in itself sinful. According to our research and the context, the verses above demonstrate that God is angry with the wicked God was angry with Solomon. God was angry with Israel. And Jesus was angry with the Pharisees. Today's verses show us that anger is not sinful. God does not sin, and His anger is righteous because it is aimed at those who are wicked, those who rebel against what is right. The LORD's anger at Solomon and Israel comes from the fact that they were not walking according to His ways. Likewise, Jesus was angry with the Pharisees Pharisees because they had distorted God's word by their man-made traditions and refused to see the truth of who he was. And, you know, they were basically saying not to do good on the Sabbath, which, you know, in that one instance, God and Jesus are angry when they see something that is wrong or wicked. So we too can be angry when we see something wrong, but the The key is that we are to also follow the Lord and Jesus's lead and not sin. So we should not develop our hostility. We should develop our humility, patience, and self-control by walking in the Spirit so we can have a measured and righteous response to evil that will not lead us into sin. 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 A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and today's section is from chapter 23, um, The Spirit Witnessing. And today's section is entitled What He Bears Witness To. So if you want to know what the Spirit bears witness to, go to m.tforchrist.org and you'll see that resource from A.W. Pink at the end of today's blog post. Also, if you You'll, uh, you'll see an encouragement at the end of today's blog post to join our Victory Over the Darkness: The Bondage Breaker and Freedom in Christ series of discipleship classes via the M.t. for Christ 247 podcast. Um, those teachings are all based on the word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson, and I taught those back in 2021 at my local church, um, and, and luckily recorded them and put them on the podcast, and they're also on my YouTube channel. However, they are just audio, audio teaching. So if you say, hey, where's the video? There is none. But there's plenty of good biblical teaching from those books, and the subject matter is who we are in Christ, the spiritual forces of darkness, and how to resolve our personal and spiritual conflicts, how to experience our freedom in Christ by going through the steps to freedom in Christ. So we recommend that process. If you want to learn more about that, you can check out our teachings or go to ficm.org, which is Freedom in Christ Ministries website, and go to their store. You can even take an online class basically to lead you through some of those materials. The reason I point these things out is because I wasn't always free in Christ. I was far from the Lord for most of my life. Um, but after I was born again in 2010, I started seeking the Lord and reading his word, and, and, um, he's led me a long way. And I'm very grateful to receive the Lord's help and the help of everyone I've met along the way. And so what I try to do is pass it along by encouraging people to actually live a Christian life. Many of us may have grown up in a liturgical church but we might not have been living according to God's Word, you know, on a daily basis. And I've discovered that a daily spiritual practice of Bible study and prayer sets a great foundation for renewing our minds and changing our behaviors and giving us peace. It's not about following rules and regulations, it's about having a living relationship with the Lord where you have harmony with God and experience the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life. And so, so we podcast, we testify to the goodness of God and the power he has to change our lives for the better. You know, ultimately we're all going to God and we'll either be welcomed as sons and daughters who put their faith in Jesus Christ, or we'll face God's wrath. We pointed out the anger of God because, you know, if we're not— if we're not with him, we're against him, and we will suffer greatly. As Jesus pointed out several times in the Gospels, if you don't believe in him, you perish. So we don't want anyone to perish. We just want— we want you to find the salvation and the peace that comes through Jesus. So that's it. Today's Saturday. I'm not sure what we're doing today, but we're going to have a good day because I am here at my countryside home in Easton and I'm in the presence of my wife. And, um, so we're gonna try to have a great day. Um, that's about all I got to say about that. Um, anyway, um, 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 for us. And we thank you for being able to help others as well, because we've received much, and so we want to give back as much as we can to show other people the love that we've received from you. Lord, we pray for the people who might be listening or reading this message today. We pray for you to come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, because Lord, we all need your help, and I'm asking for it too. So even though I, I don't have a big plan for today. I, I plan on seeking your help and your will for my life. So we, we ask humbly that you open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead our steps in the things you'd have us do. That's all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom until we see you face to face. So Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.