Rest in Peace - Purity 1319

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 the confluence of turquoise-colored waters, white sand beaches, and black rocks of some tropical beach scene comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who shared this scene on social media on or around June 29, 2021. If this is your photo and you want, let us know and we can share the location and give you your proper photo credit by updating the blog after the fact. Well, it's Saturday, and even though I have— I always have plenty of things to keep me busy when I'm not working, I am officially on vacation this week and share this serene aqua sea scene this morning with the prayer that my friends will all find some rest and relaxation this weekend. To reassure us that it's okay and to inspire us all to rest, I am sharing a link from open— openbible.info's 100 Bible verses about rest, and to impress upon us how our relationship with God, founded on the peace we have with God through our faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior gives us rest. And Jesus encourages us in Matthew 11:28-30 to come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Our faith life is a light burden, and when we are in harmony with God, we have peace and rest. David encourages us to find the rest and peace that comes from a relationship with God and the safety only he can provide in Psalm 4:5-8, where he instructs us to offer the sacrifices of righteousness and to put your trust in the LORD. There are many who say, Who will show us any good? LORD, lift up the light of your countenance upon us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the season that their grain and wine increased. I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. We are only ever truly safe and able to rest when we are good with God. For He is good, as David proclaims in Psalm 34:8, which says, "O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy is the man who takes refuge in Him." My simple encouragement for this weekend is to take refuge, find your safety, peace, and rest by reminding yourself of how much God loves you and has welcomed you to be with Him forever as His beloved adopted child. And how you will simultaneously live forever and still be able to rest in peace. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's Bible verse comes from the section on death and eternal life, and today's verse is Psalm 23, verse 6, which says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Today's verse is the first of two passages of scripture that fall under the second point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on death and eternal life. That second point is: The believer will dwell in God's house forever. Today's verse reminds us of the eternal state of goodness and mercy that we get to enjoy forever when we have peace with God and decide to dwell in the house of the Lord. Forever. The house of the Lord is synonymous to the church, or the body of Christ, the kingdom of God, his royal priesthood of adopted sons and daughters. And it is within that fellowship and that close personal relationship with God that we can experience the goodness and mercy that only comes through the Lord. So let's rejoice and rest in the peace that comes from receiving the goodness and mercy that the Lord has for us. As always, we invite all to go to mt4christ.org, 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 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. In today's chapter is John chapter 11, and from chapter 11 he shares a portion of John verse 11, um, John 11:11, which says Lazarus sleeps. And Alford writes, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, was and is the only one to make such a statement. In his presence, death is as sleep. Hence, he could say Lazarus sleeps. A little farther down this chapter, the Lord says these words: I am the resurrection and the life. What is death in the light of this pregnant statement? No wonder the apostle could challenge the king of terror, saying, O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? 1 Corinthians 15:55. In the light of this whole chapter, death appears to be the means through which God manifests his glory. It was so on this particular occasion. Christ's death was the means through which God was glorified. John 13:23-28. Death to self is the only basis on which Christ will be glorified in me. Ends his devotion by praying, daily let me die to self so that you may be glorified. Amen. Amen. And yeah, we die to ourselves and we are raised to life in God's kingdom. And yeah, the rest— and John 11 is, you know, one of the portions of scripture that I point to quite quite often, because right after Jesus declared himself to be the resurrection and the life, he asked Martha, "Do you believe this?" And it's a pregnant statement, a pregnant question. Do you believe this? Because if the answer is yes, then you must put your faith in Jesus and follow it and live according to it. If you don't believe it, then you don't believe it. It's really the quintessential question of our faith. Do you believe that Jesus is the life and the resurrection? Yes or no? And, uh, when you answer yes, you find the peace and rest that comes from a deep personal relationship with God and the safety that he affords us. That our sins are forgiven and we are given eternal life as Jesus's life and, and righteousness is imputed to us, and we're given the power to live by faith and to overcome sin and death. Um, if you can't find peace and rest in that, you, you need to understand the gospel. Yeah, so I'm on vacation. I decided to take this vacation because even though I don't have plans of going anywhere tropical or anywhere in particular, after the Freedom in Christ course and the Advanced Encourager training through Freedom in Christ Ministries that I've been taking, I just— and doing the recovery ministry one day a week You know, having and performing 8 Freedom Appointments in the last several weeks, I sort of looked at the calendar and said this will be a good time to take a rest. We're going to need, need, need some time to, to relax, and I'm looking forward to the following week where I will have a staycation down at River House. I might decide to clean up my yard from pine cones and downed branches that have happened over the last several months. But I think I'm just gonna rest. I might do some of that, have a bonfire or two in my burning barrel to clean up the yard, but other than that, I'm gonna try to rest. And just take the time that I normally spend at work and study, sleep, and remind myself of how blessed I am to have had the opportunities to learn and to help others in the body of Christ in the last, you know, 12 weeks or so. It's truly a blessing. And I received an email from one of the guys I led through the Steps to Freedom in Christ yesterday, and he told me how significant his Freedom appointment was for him and how he's found peace. And according to his testimonies, he's found physical healing. He states that he had nagging back pain throughout his life, and he always wondered about the possibilities of it being some sort of curse on him. And well, through the Steps of Freedom in Christ, he broke all the curses, he renounced all the lies, and he walked free. And the morning after his Freedom appointment, he seemed to be free from pain. So you may have received physical healing through this, and I would say that's a first for me, but that's not the first for the Steps of Freedom in Christ. The Bondage Breaker speaks of people being freed for things like epilepsy and other diseases by going through the steps that the enemy apparently used on the ground and permission that he had in these people's lives to cause physical symptoms and pain to them. But when their, their personal and spiritual conflicts were resolved through the prayerful repentance process that the Steps to Freedom in Christ is, they no longer had those symptoms. They were free. They were healed because of the Steps to Freedom in Christ. Christ. And that's one of the reasons why this ministry will always be, you know, administering the Steps to Freedom in Christ, facilitating the freedom appointments, will always be part of my, um, my ministry going forward. Um, I, I was healed from nagging, condemning thoughts, uh, low self-esteem, uh, that someone say, but I believe those were demonically inspired thoughts, um, and temptations. Because after I went through the Steps to Freedom in Christ, I had great silence in my mind, great peace that came through that process and the repentance I've done since that I've been given through the Holy Spirit since coming to Christ and wanting to be an authentic Christian and to be a real Christian, be authentic in my faith. The Lord encourages us to do that. That's his will for our lives, is our sanctification. And when we earnestly pursue it and follow the Lord and seek the Lord, He blesses us with it and increases our freedom, increases our peace. And, um, you know, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the fruit of the Spirit is peace. And when we walk in the Spirit, we find it and we get to enjoy it. And joy is another one, you know. So that's why I don't mind working a full-time job and doing ministry in the part-time. You know, which is sort of a full-time on the other end at times, different times of the year, because of the peace I have in that and the purpose I find in representing the Kingdom in this way. So that's all I got to say about today. It is Saturday. I do have— today is the last day of training for the Advanced Encourager training, as I will be in an online practicum for most of the day apparently, as we get deeper teaching on the Steps to Freedom in Christ. They want us to be fully equipped and they're giving us specialized training to, to be, to handle the tougher cases that we might face in these steps appointments. So it's good to get teaching, it's good to come into fellowship with other people from Freedom in Christ Ministries that, you know, really want to help people. And that's what we get to do today. And after that, I'll really rejoice because we'll have a little more space in our day as our Monday nights and our Thursday nights will be free. And for now, um, really the only ministry nights will be Tuesdays with with Peter Markovich's Way of Escape group and our Wednesday overseeing of Freedom, uh, the Celebrate Freedom group at Starpoint Church, which really just, you know, great ministry for fellowship and watching people get transformed. So that's all I got to say today. I pray for you to find rest and peace with your relationship with the Lord this weekend and always. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you so much for this past season, uh, and the rest of the rest you give us. Um, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and guide us in the way we should go. We also pray for our friends that they would find some rest and, and a moment or two to reflect on their relationship with you and how good gracious and merciful, loving you are, Lord, and how you bless us. So we pray for them, and we pray for you to come alongside them in their prayer requests, to help them, Lord, because we all need your help, uh, while we're here on earth. Until you, until you, until you return, we're going to wait and rest in the knowledge that you love us and you're there to protect us and guide us. Lord, thank you. We thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.