Rejection’s Lies - Purity 1210

To see today's photo, go to nt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a darkened highway and the foreground of the Skodak Creek and the Hudson River down the road apiece at twilight time comes to us from yours truly as I purposely took a moment to appreciate my river view after returning home from work yesterday. Well, it's Wednesday, and although I didn't share any mountainous humps to visually represent our arrival at the midpoint of another work week, I figured I would share the one, uh, one of the latest photos I have taken as a check-in of current, uh, for current events. Um, while you can't assume that my circumstances or mood match the tranquility of this twilight photo, I am happy to report that I was fully at peace when I decided to appreciate where the Lord has placed me down by the river. Speaking of check-ins and being moved by the Lord, I am happy to announce that the Celebrate Freedom growth group at Starpoint Church will resume meeting this evening, and I am excited to see how the Lord will use tonight's lesson to encourage those who come, uh, in their faith. Tonight's topic is identity, the And the focus of the lesson will be on what our identity is as born-again followers of Jesus Christ, and how the acceptance of our new identity can be a major key to experiencing victory over and freedom from our hurts, habits, and hangups, and can be the foundation on which a life of peace and joy can stand and walk. The focus is on being a Christian and making that mean something in regard to how you think, feel, and live. Uh, the reason I started this blog was because I discovered the truth of how I was actually a new creation after I put my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and that when I decided to follow the Lord with the way I live my life, I received healing, freedom, and a life that was defined by peace and joy more than anger, anxiety, depression, and darkness. So, this is my continuous message of hope. This is my ministry of encouragement. Among other things, tonight's lesson should convey that our new identity in Christ means that we are accepted by grace because of our faith in Jesus Christ and that we don't have to perform to be accepted. When fully realized, this is a game changer because it encompasses the love of God and goes contrary to just about everything the world teaches us. We don't earn our way into God's kingdom. It's a gift given to us by God. That can be hard to understand because the world is full of rejection and standards to meet in order to be accepted. We have to earn our place in many places in the world. We have to accomplish things in order to get things, and sometimes in the world that includes love. If we act foolishly or fail to perform, we run the risk of being rejected in the world. But while God will— but while God will encourage us to do what is right according to his word, to be wise and righteous, if we put our faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, God will continue to accept us even if we mess up. God doesn't make us earn his love. I have faced a lot of rejection in my life. Hey guys, guys don't— let's see, hey, not all guys, yeah, I gotta correct my stuff. Hey, not all— I see I make mistakes. Hey, not all the guys make the team. Right? Some guys don't have the right stuff or don't know the right people or come from the right side of the tracks. And even though you perform, your performance may earn acceptance in some circles, there are some places that where you will— some places that you will never— where you will never be accepted. Some places where you will never be accepted no matter what you do. If someone doesn't love you, there may be nothing that can change that. As a teenager, my first love, or obsession, was with a young lady that shall remain nameless, who I honestly didn't think much of upon first meeting her. But we became friends and talked, and as I got to know her a little, I realized that she had captured my attention and my, uh, my heart. Yeah. We had one date at a pizza place, but although I went into that meal with a great deal of hope, the topic of conversation made me realize that she only considered me to be a friend. Yep, friend-zoned. Oh yes, but I was really dumb, and instead of taking her no as an answer, I decided— didn't even told her that I would, I would earn her love. Yeah, and that she would change her mind. She didn't. Things ended very badly. And despite the disaster and the end of all contact with her, a part of me held on to the idea that unrequited love was the best love because it didn't come easy. That love had to be some epic quest. And so that wound of rejection created so many strongholds, it's not even funny. Such as: "You are not good enough." "No one will love you for who you are." "You are deficient, fat, ugly, stupid, crazy, bad, or just plain evil." "You have to earn love." "Nobody worth anything would want you." But to my credit, I still believed in love and tried again. Got friend-zoned again, and that relationship, although it never went anywhere, took a considerable time and a good amount of heartache and frustration to end. But after that and similar rejections, oh brother, my heart, my broken heart made me as cold as ice. And I went from someone who earnestly was seeking love to someone who saw love as a lie and decided to never let anyone close to my heart and to just seek shallow physical relationships. And all because of how— and it was all because, uh, because of how I saw myself as someone that people would reject and as someone who had to earn it. Uh, that's why tonight's lesson on identity and knowing who we are in Christ is so important. It tells you the truth about the world and about the ultimate things of God's kingdom and how they relate to you personally. After you put your faith in Jesus, you can know that you are loved, accepted, significant, and secure. And living from— and living from that point of view puts things into the proper perspective of God's view on things, the view that matters the most and ultimately will be the only view that matters. So let me encourage you to check out the Who I Am in Christ statement sheet PDF from Freedom in Christ Ministries. I'm sharing the link on the blog today. Uh, it will tell you who you are in Christ, and it's all good news. When you meditate upon and accept those statements as true about you and live according to those truths, you can have peace and joy because you will know that you, you, you don't have to earn anything from God. And like I said, making mistakes and corrections, uh, and that he will always love you no matter what and will live with you forever. So renounce the lies that the world has told you and agree with the truth of who you are in Christ and live it. Keep walking and talking with God because he has good things to say about you and will guide you to experience just how true all those statements about your identity in Christ are. Yeah, so, uh, then we move along. Uh, today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scriptural Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on the church, communion of the saints. And today's verses are Ezekiel chapter 33, verses 7 through 9. And the word of God says, so you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, 'O wicked one, you shall surely die,' and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you shall have delivered your soul. Today's verses fall under the 13th point of our Counseling Reference Guides resource section on the church, Communion of the Saints, and that 13th point is: Office Bearers Must Warn the Wayward. Today's verses indicate that we have an obligation to tell people to repent. As much as we want to love our neighbors as ourselves, we have to share the hard truth from the word of God that would define much of what we believe and do in the world to be sin. Ezekiel shared the message, so we don't have to worry about someone's blood being required at his hand. That may be difficult to discern the meaning of. Is God saying we could lose our salvation if we don't tell the wicked to repent? I take the view that statements like these in God's word aren't prescriptive but are descriptive. For instance, the verses regarding drunkenness in 1 Corinthians 6 and other places that say that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God may cause some to think that if a Christian were to get drunk, they would— could lose their salvation. But I believe that these verses indicate a general truth in regarding— in regard to the sincerity of someone's faith and whether or not they are a true convert. If your life reflects your faith in drunkenness more than in God, it may indicate that you are fooling yourself. Although you say you believe, your actions reveal what you really believe—that God is—God's word is useless and you are not a slave to or follower of Jesus Christ. Likewise, if we say we believe the word of God but never tell anyone the truth about sin and warn them to repent, it may indicate we believe the word of God is useless. And we really don't believe because we don't profess the truth or show our love for others by sharing it with them. So speak the truth in love and try to reflect that you really love the Lord by obeying his word. 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 as I stated, it's not Advent yet. It begins on December 3rd, this Sunday. But my resource here is, you know, gives us enough weeks to cover if we had an early Advent. So because of my 6-day schedule with the blog, I want to get all of those messages out there. I wanted to read this for myself to prepare my heart for Christmas, and because I love Dietrich Bonhoeffer, um, uh, his work and everything. So, uh, today we continue sharing from that resource, God Is in the Manger by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And this is for Advent Week 1, Waiting, Day 6. And this message is called Silence: Waiting for God's Word from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We are silent in the early hours of each day because God is supposed to have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because to God also belongs the last word. We are silent solely for the sake of the word, not in order to show dishonor to the word, but in order to honor and receive it properly. Silence ultimately means nothing but waiting for God's word and coming away blessed by God's word. Silence before the word, however, will have its effect on the whole day. If we have learned to be silent before the word, we will also learn to be economical with silence and speech throughout the day. There is an impermissible, self-satisfied, prideful, offensive silence. This teaches us that what What is important is never silence in itself. The silence of the Christian is a listening silence, a humble silence that, for the sake of humility, can also be broken at any time. It is a silence in connection with the Word. In being quiet there is a miraculous power of clarification, of purification, of bringing together what is important. This is a purely profane fact. Silence before the Word, however, leads to the right hearing, and thus also to the right speaking of the Word of God at the right time. A lot that is unnecessary remains unsaid. This next section is from a letter from Bonhoeffer at Tegel Prison to Ebhard Bethke on November 21st, 1943. Today is Remembrance Sunday. Will you have a memorial service for B. Reimer? It would be nice but difficult. Then comes Advent with all its happy memories for us. It was you who really opened up to me the world of music making that we have carried on during the weeks of Advent. Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent. One waits hopes, and does this, that, or the other things that are really of no consequence. The door is shut and can only be opened from the outside. And finally, our resource shares Psalm 62:5-8. The Word of God says, for God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation. My fortress, I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor. My mighty rock, my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your hearts before him. God is a refuge for us. That is the end of our sharing from God Is in the Manger for Day 6, um, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So thank you for listening. Uh, as always, we encourage people to go to mtforchrist.org to check out our blog posts and to go to the M.t. for Christ 247 podcast and YouTube channel where we share resources such as our freedom, uh, our freedom courses, our, our discipleship courses, um, from 2021, um, for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. We encourage you to check them out. We even did a series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship. So if you like Bonhoeffer, you can check that out. That one's all video of me sharing, sharing, sharing PowerPoint presentations and reading through the text. So if you have patience and are a forgiving soul, you might enjoy that. Anyway, well, today is another day in the life of a Christian Christian discipleship, and that includes work. So, uh, we're going to go to work, um, where we pray for the Lord to go before us. And like I said, right after, uh, work, we got the Celebrate Freedom growth group at Starpoint Church. If you're in the Capital District, you're invited. If you'd like to register, you can go to starpointchurch.com and go under events, uh, where you will find the Celebrate Freedom meetings. And If you click on it, you can sign up to join us. So that's all I have to say. Uh, looking forward to, uh, to that tonight, to, uh, listen to some, uh, teaching on, you know, our identity in Christ, because that's the game changer. Anyway, 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 all you made us to be in Christ. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you would come alongside them in their their prayer requests and their walk of faith because they need your help. And Lord, we need your help too. And so we're praying for you to go before us today, uh, help us to open our eyes to the things that we need to see and lead us in the way we should go. We pray for your protection and guidance today as we are— have to work and as we have to lead the ministry tonight. We just pray for your Holy Spirit to be with us continuously help us and guide us in that, because all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom and to invite other people to know you and love you more. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.