Relational Joy 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 7 – Purity 1063

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 couple's shadows joined hand in hand on the sandy pathway that runs through palm trees beneath pleasant blue skies comes to us from yours truly as I captured this photo of me and the missus while on our mid, midwinter recess trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina back on February 21st. Well, it's Thursday and I share this photo, uh, this particular photo today for multiple reasons. Number 1, uh, it features a pathway, and as is my habit, I share photos of pathways on Thursdays as a visual reminder or encouragement to all who see these messages to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship. Number 2, it relates to today's Joy Chat. Joy Challenge. Uh, more on that in a minute. And 3, it features a scene of God's creation from which and by which we can remember to be thankful for all that the Lord provides us with. And 4, it features the shadow of my dearly beloved wife, and I want to highlight her as today, June 8th, is Tammy Lynn's birthday. So thank you, Lord, for another day in your kingdom. Thank you for this life, and thank you for bringing me Tammy Lynn to be my faithful Christian wife. Happy birthday, Tammy Lynn. I love you and can't wait to see what the Lord does in your life this year. I thank God for the gift I have received in you and will do all I can, uh, to make you feel loved and appreciated, as you are a constant source of joy in my life. And that brings us to our current series where I am walking through the 28-Day Joy Challenge, because we are encouraging ourselves and others you to find peace in our lives by increasing our capacity for joy and by building our emotional resilience through simple practices of quieting and appreciation. The 28-Day Joy Challenge is based on Dr. Marcus Warner and Chris Courcy's latest book, The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People, and you can sign up to take it for free and purchase a variety of books from Warner and Courcy on the topic of joy by going to 4habits.org, and the link for that is on the blog today. So if you want to go and check that out, you'll find it at m.t. forchrist.org. So let's jump into day 7, which will direct us to remember a relational encounter that gave, that gave us joy, that, well, let's see, a relational encounter from this year that gave us joy. Oh boy. And so we jump into the 28 Days to Joy Challenge with Day 7, Reflecting on Times of Joy. Welcome to Day 7 of the 28 Days to Joy Challenge. Today's encouragement: you are working hard to make joy the fuel that runs your life. Today marks one week you have been practicing joy. Way to go! Whether you have easily completed each exercise or have had a bumpy start, You are doing a great job. Keep going. Today's practice, Exercise 7. Today we focus on, focus on remembering a relational encounter that was meaningful in some way. How this exercise will benefit you. We reflect on times of joy to train our brain to feel some satisfaction and peace. Thinking about the special moments of life creates an internal reaction where your brain and body respond as though you are reliving the joyful moment all over again. This practice keeps joyful memories alive and changes your brain. Exercise steps: Identify a favorite emotional, uh, relational encounter from your year and share your thoughts with that person or someone else, including why this interaction was meaningful. Have fun with this exercise. We pick up tomorrow with more joy practice. That's from our friends at 4habits.org. Um, as I sat down to do this morning's joy challenge, I immediately thought of the relational joy that I have in the regular encounters I have with my wife. Tammy Lynn is the love of my life, my best friend, and my wife because we share the love we have for one another, for the Lord, and for exploring and enjoying both God's creation and the creations of men. We love to go out and experience the wonder, uh, of— and beauty of God's creation in nature. And we love to appreciate the things of beauty in the world by going to museums and art galleries and just spending time together. So I knew that I would have a wealth of memories from which I could draw upon to remember a meaningful relational encounter with her. The trouble was which one, uh, which one I would pick. So I decided to look back in time and in the archives of my phone's photo gallery to try to narrow it down. Tammy Lynn and I make a regular habit of going places and doing things to enjoy our lives together. And I look— as I look back through my photos, I was reminded of several of the little day trips we have made over the last weeks and months where we enjoyed something worthwhile and one another's company. Anyone, any one of these weekend trips would, would meet today's joy challenge criteria, but I decided to share today's photo to represent the meaningful relational encounter that Tammy Lynn and I enjoyed in February for what was Tammy Lynn's first encounter with Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. That trip back in February was a family vacation as Tammy Lynn and her youngest kiddos and I took to the road and headed south for a few days to enjoy some non-winter-like weather. But even though we had Tammy Lynn's youngest daughter and son along for the ride with us, when we arrived at Myrtle, the kids stayed in our suite as Tammy Lynn and I scoped out the beachfront, uh, beachfront shortly after our arrival. We were alone. As I got to show Tammy Lynn Myrtle Beach, and I had to pause for this, for this shadow photo to document our first steps on the beach, or some of this, some of our first steps on the beach. After a long drive, it was nice to have a moment to ourselves to enjoy the scenic beauty of the beach and one another's company. There's nothing like getting some rest at the end of your travels and Those first moments together on the beach were a wonderful way to welcome us to Myrtle, and to remind us that we were in this together no matter where our travels may take us. The memories of our travels and our time together are a constant source of joy that I can tap into. So let me encourage you to appreciate the people in your life. You know, that, that, and this is off the block, off the blog comments, um, you know, that, that trip was like, uh, the first time, um, Tammy Lynn got to see Myrtle Beach, and it was so great. You know, I was so happy to be a part of it because I had been to Myrtle a few, on a few occasions with family vacations and whatnot, and I always loved it. And I was, I was so glad that I got to share with her and that we had moment to ourselves. So just, that's, I expand a little on that because I didn't in the blog. Anyway, but let me encourage you, whether you spend time together doing something worthwhile on the road or whether you are enjoying the simple pleasures that are close to home, let the people in your life know how much they mean to you by spending quality time with them. Where you can express the love you have for one another. In light of the recent losses of loved ones that friends of mine have suffered, I have been reminded of just how finite our relationships may be, as we are never promised tomorrow. So make it a point to love the ones you, you are with and to make them aware of just how much they mean to you. And while you're at it, don't forget to thank God for them and for the love and joy that you have experienced in this life. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Psalm 55:22, and the word of God says, give your burdens to the Lord and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. Today's verse encourages us to give— encourages us to give our burdens to the Lord, and promises— and with the promise that God does care for us and will help us to stand. Last night's Celebrate Freedom growth group lesson based on Celebrate Recovery's TURN lesson was all about turning your life and will over to God's to the Lord's care and making the continuous decision to trust the Lord and to change our ways to follow His ways. Um, we can give our burdens to the Lord because He is faithful to help those who decide to follow Him in earnest. He will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. And the key to not slipping and falling is to be godly. The godly resist the world, the flesh, and the devil. The godly submit to God. The godly pray for God's strength and guidance to overcome. So, we just have to trust that God will take care of us and continue to walk in His ways, and we won't slip and fall. I podcast and blog to assure Christians that God's Word is true when it says we have been set free from sin. We don't have to fall into temptation. We have the power over it. We can say no to all of our former ways of darkness by choosing to trust the Lord and by deciding to follow Him. So, if you do not want to slip and fall, just follow the Lord and He will care for you. The Word of God is true, but you must believe it and live it to receive it. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.org where I always share insights from the prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and we're concluding chapter 7 today, which is on the Holy Spirit and Christ. And A.W. Pink ends the chapter with some misguided theories. So if you wanted to see what some misguided theories were about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. And yeah, so I'm a little intrigued of which misguided theory A.W. Pink might be sharing, because there probably are several misguided theories about the Holy Spirit, one of which is that there is no Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is just God's poetic license that the Bible takes to describe God's power. That it's a force, not a person. But that's, that's, that's a misguided theory. That's not the truth. Some people say there's, you know, that there's God the Father, that's it, and yet Jesus is not God and the Holy Spirit is not God. But, you know, Scripture reveals the Trinity and the three persons of the Godhead. I'm not gonna explain the Trinity today, but there's lots of scriptural evidence for that Trinitarian view, and that is the, you know, the doctrines of our faith is the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed, you know, basically tell us we believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and You know, it's— God's a little complicated. He's not easy to figure out. And, uh, but the good thing is that he gives us clear instructions to trust in Jesus, make him our Lord and Savior, and to receive eternal life. And that when we walk in his ways, we can be renewed, we can, uh, we can be free. And It's good life when we do that. Sort of. Today's sort of a crazy day for me personally. As you know, I have a shifted schedule this week, so today is actually Saturday for me even though it's Thursday, meaning I have the day that I have a one-day weekend right here today, this morning, and I'm spending it at my countryside home. I wanted to be with Tammy Lynn on the morning of her birthday to wish her a happy birthday in the center of Roth. So it's a little earlier than usual because I skipped my regular exercise routine. The accommodations here at Countryside are quaint, but I don't have a lot of space, and jumping around at, you know, 2:30 in the morning might be a little disruptive. And it's just the facilities ain't here anyway. But it means I, I'm able to do the podcast and whatnot a little sooner and spend some quality time with Tammy Lynn. So if this is a shorter message than normal, I apologize, but it's for those reasons. Um, and, um, and so yeah, um, so that's that. Um, That's the disclaimer for today. We do encourage you to keep walking and talking with God as we provide our discipleship teachings based on Dr. Neil Anderson's work, Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, to help you in your walk. They're on YouTube under those names, and if you wanted to take a deeper dive, you could always email me at mtforchrist247@gmail.com to receive the class materials. For those. So we do it free of charge. We also encourage Bible study. That's why we do a Bible study weekly broadcast with Arthur and Susanna Sincaidi called Bible Study with the Sincaidis, to encourage you to do your Bible study. That's another thing about my, my, my walk this morning is I jumped right into the message so I can complete it, and I'll do my Bible study in And then I'm gonna slip back into bed with my wife before she has to run off to work, you know, basically just to spend some quality time with her as much as I can. So, um, so we got it. Everything's upside down and backwards this morning, but it's all, it's all good in the Lord. Um, so let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the gift that you've given us in Tammy Lynn on her birthday. Um, you know, we can't— you know, it's an amazing story of what you've done in our lives to bring us together. And I thank you, Lord. And I thank you for the other people that have been brought into my life that I might not even know about, or, um, you know, that I might have never met personally. That's all the people who are listening or reading this message that I deeply appreciate and joyfully encounter their, you know, their encouragements online or through Facebook or messages on Reddit. You know, I just, I just love, you know, people are following me and I just hope they, they know that I appreciate that very much and I pray for them today. As Lord, we pray for you to come alongside them and their prayer request and their walk of faith, that you would encourage them to find the joy that's set before them in their lives by following you. Lord, we pray as always that you go before all of us today, um, you know, show us the things you want us to see and lead us into the things you would have us do, as all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord. And, um, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.