Remembering When - Our Help in Ages Past - Purity 1551

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, uh, 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 tropical pathway disappearing around the bend of a barren tree comes to us from your Truly, as I captured this photo on, on Honeymoon Island while on, uh, Tammy Lynn's and my honeymoon vacation in Florida, Tampa, Florida, back on February 22nd, 2022. Well, it's Thursday, and as always, I'm sharing today's pathway photo as a visual encouragement to get on or to stay on the pathway of Christian discipleship, where you will boldly follow the Lord into the unknown. Trusting him to help and guide you to where you need to be. Last night, the Celebrate Freedom support group, uh, began meeting again at Starpoint Church, and I was overwhelmed by the arrival of some old friends and some fresh new faces to our fellowship, and at the prospect of what the Lord will do with their lives if they trust and follow him into the freedom that he has for them. Going into recovery can be a scary prospect, and last night I tried to do my best to impress upon the group the fact that they are not alone. The group members and God himself is with them, and when they ask God for help, they can expect to receive it if they are faithful and continue the journey they began last night. Little do they know it, but if they continue where they started last night, they've begun an adventure that will be as exciting as it is transformative. I can remember when I went into recovery just under 10 years ago and was just hoping to be free of alcohol and drugs. And God was faithful to set me free, but I had no idea what I was in store for, what was in store for me. After I successfully completed the Celebrate Recovery material, I entered into ministry and began teaching others how they could walk with the Lord into their freedom. Since then, the Lord, you know, I've followed the Lord wherever I felt the call, you know, the call to go. That includes vacation mission trips, jail ministry, community volunteering, a Christian Master's, a Christian counseling Master's degree, various certification programs programs to equip me to help others to be victorious in spiritual warfare and find their healing and freedom in Christ. Now, whenever I face struggles or trials, I can look back at all the Lord has done in my life, and I can remind myself that if God was faithful in the past, I can be assured that He will be faithful to help me in the present and in the future. Speaking of remembering how the Lord has helped us, uh, the Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah's daily devotion today addresses this topic. So I'm sharing it on the blog today to encourage us all to remember when to help us today. And David Jeremiah writes, our help in ages past, and he starts with Deuteronomy 8:2, which says, remember that the Lord your God led you all the these 40 years in the wilderness. And then he writes, in an old devotional book, this comment appears under Deuteronomy 8:2: When anxieties disturb or troubles depress, do I remember God's goodness in the past and how thus far he has brought me through every difficulty? And does the remembrance fill me with thankfulness for the past and courage for the future? When a new, when a new mercy meets me, do I see a Father's love in it, and do I follow cheerfully where his providence leads? While our faith may be weak and our eyes dimmed by illness or discouragement, there is no missing what God has done for us in the past. We should look back and remember that he who was our help in ages past is our hope for years to come. He has led us all the way. If you're struggling today, take a moment to look back at a specific time when the Lord helped you. Then remind yourself that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that was from Dr. Jeremiah. And, uh, he shares a quote from Tyron Edwards which says, could we look upon our entire life and take in all its changes by a single glance, every step would be seen to have been guided by God's mercy. Amen. Uh, walking in the Spirit is generally a forward-looking progression as we try to let go of what lies behind us to answer the upward call of God on our lives to become the people he made us to be. But just as the old saying goes, those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Um, you know, so while that doesn't come from the Bible, the principle behind it is in scripture. On the negative side, if we don't learn from our mistakes, we will repeat them. But on the positive side, if we remember the past and learn from it, we can navigate through life more skillfully. Thus, with our faith, we should never forget our history with God. As Stanley— well, as Jeremiah points out, when we are suffering or going through trials, uh, Remembering how God was faithful to help us in the past can encourage and strengthen us to trust God to help us today and in the future. Remembering all that God has done for us and how he has helped us not only helps us to do life better, it also helps us to develop a relationship with the Lord that is based on love and joy instead of fear. So don't forget to remember when often, uh, because when we do, it builds our faith, makes us stronger, and causes us to follow God because of our love for him. Today's Bible verses come from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crewe. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on humility and pride. And today's verses are, um, well, they reference Titus 3:3-8, but they share, uh, verses 4 and 5, which says, but when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. Today's verses are the fourth of four passages of scripture that fall under the sixth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on humility and pride. And that sixth point is: Are you a Christian, born again? If so, God alone gets the glory. Today's Bible verses remind us that we should be humble because our place in God's kingdom was not on the basis of deeds that we have done in righteousness, but it was according to God's mercy. When we finally do the right thing and start following the Lord, there's a trap that we need to avoid: the trap of pride and self-righteousness. This is the trap that the well-intentioned Pharisees fell into. While we can't know all of their individual motives, I believe some of the— some, like the Apostle Paul, really wanted to help to bring God's kingdom to earth, but their preconceived ideas about what they— what that looked like kept them blinded to the entrance of God's kingdom that came through a seemingly simple but charismatic carpenter from Nazareth. Because of their vast knowledge of scripture and their positions in the Jewish community, the Pharisees became proud and self-righteous. They believed that they had earned their position of good standing in their community and with God. But God's kingdom comes through grace, not because of our performance. So even though we may know some scripture and have victory over our more obvious sins, we need to be careful to avoid pride and remember that God's mercy is the only thing that can save us, and to let that simple truth humble us, uh, no matter how well we may think we are doing God's will. 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 their walk. Today we continue sharing from Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams. It's a 25— uh, 365-day devotional, and We're on day 50, uh, where he shares a portion of Proverbs 16:29, and it says, a violent man baits his neighbor and leads him along a way that isn't good. And J.E. Adams writes, the idea that one Christian might tempt another to sin is repugnant, yet it happens. A woman baits a man with her eyes, a man baits a woman with his prowess. There are hundreds of ways in which one may encourage another to walk in paths of sin. Not only should you not indulge in such behavior, but you ought to do all that you can to encourage others to walk in paths of righteousness. In this passage, a man attempts to lure another into violence. That may happen among Christians today, not so often with physical violence perhaps, but by the sort of violent language that is used. Violence is growing in our society. And we must not go along with such things. There is no place for violence in the Church. Instead, there must be care, loving concern, and kindness. Indeed, it might be wise to begin luring others into acts and words of mercy and concern. Wouldn't that be more salutary to all concerned? How about it? How about it? And, uh, I wish I could say, you know, I was a Christian when I did some of the worst sins of my life. Um, you know, so I get it, uh, that we can encourage each other into sin. Um, I was sort of a corrupter of people before coming to Christ fully, and then even afterwards. And, you know, I have great shame and embarrassment about it. Um, But I know I've been forgiven through Christ, and now I encourage people to find God's forgiveness and grace and to encourage people to do the right thing, you know, instead of the wrong thing. To, you know, do those acts of love, concern, and kindness, as Adam says. And, you know, that's why we always ask the question, you know, have you fully surrendered to God? Have you turned from your sin? Have you made Jesus your Lord and Savior? And are you following him? Um, are you encouraging others to, to find the pathway to peace as well? Um, we hope you are because we know that when you take that pathway, it leads to freedom and victory and meaning and purpose. And part of my purpose is, uh, as I stated, leading the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church on Wednesdays. And, um, you know, we're— we've begun. Yesterday was January 8th, so I'll have to update that slide Um, but we're, we're good to go, um, for the duration. We're going to be going up from now and all the way through June, um, uh, and we'll be able to walk through all the Celebrate Recovery material. So if you're in Upstate New York and, uh, can get to Clifton Park on a Wednesday night, we invite you to come out to our Christian fellowship. Our meetings start at 6:30, and we encourage you to get there early, um, for Christian recovery and discipleship. Now, if you're not in upstate New York, you may say, oh man, that sounds like it's good. Well, there's an alternative. I'm currently producing a series called Celebrate Freedom. You know, actually it's called Christian Recovery, or, you know, basically I wanted to try to make it clear, this Christian Recovery Celebrate Freedom. And I just, earlier this week I produced the first 2 episodes. The ABCs of Celebrate Freedom and the first lesson from Celebrate Recovery, Denial. So if you'd like to go into recovery via YouTube playlist, you're welcome to follow me along as I'll be uploading a new one each week, or at least that's expectation until I get through all the 25 lessons of the Celebrate Recovery. So in total, it should be 26, 26 episodes long, and it'll address all the 12 steps and the 8 principles of Celebrate Recovery, and hopefully it'll, it'll bless someone in their recovery. So we are asking for donations, um, basically for our ministry, and you can do so if you want to support Christian Recovery and my efforts to encourage people. Um, you can go to mtforchrist.com to our donation page or our group teaching page, which tells you all about the Celebrate Freedom, um, um,, series that I'm doing on YouTube. Anyway, I've done other series in the past too, so if you want to support those, basically you can do that through the same links. Um, but, um, we believe you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by, you know, joining one of these podcast classes that I did in the past. Um, we've done teachings on Picture Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker: Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom Discipleship Course. And, uh, we encourage you to check those out. Go to our YouTube page, our YouTube playlist page, and you'll see a lot of different playlists, but you can seek and find these in there. Or if you want to find my, my stuff, you can go to emptyforchrist.com where I have a whole page dedicated to the playlists that I've created. And you can always get daily encouragement through our podcast. Uh, anyway, we always end by asking the question: are you empty for Christ? Too. Um, if so, we say keep on walking and talking with God. Um, if not, we encourage you to pray and, um, to ask God to reveal himself to you. Ask God to help you. And we believe that God will answer those prayers, and we believe he'll lead you in the kingdom, encourage you to make— and draw you to make Jesus your Lord and Savior. So if you seek him, you will find him. We ask you, you know, we're praying that you'll seek him. And speaking of praying, we believe in prayer, and we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do for us. Um, we deeply appreciate your love for us, Lord, and we need your help to be the people you may want us to be. Um, Those are— Lord, so we're asking you to go before us today, uh, show us the things we need to see and help us to do the things we, we need to do. And also, Lord, we pray for you to, um, bless the people who are reading or, or watching or listening to this message, that they'd be encouraged in their faith and that you'd answer their prayers. Lord, um, Lord, we, we all want to follow you and represent your kingdom. But we need a lot of help with that, and we're asking for it 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.