Spiritual Reset - 21 Day Prayer Challenge & Waiting in Faith - Purity 1419

Welcome to the MT for Christ 247 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Um, good morning. Today's photo of a rainbow over an otherwise dreary urban view of crosstown traffic comes to us from Dave Bond Photography. Uh, as Dave shared this scene on social media back on July 26th, reporting that he was happy to be riding shotgun so he could capture this spectacular rainbow as he was being driven into the city of Hobart on the island of Tasmania, south of Australia. Well, it is Monday, and I am sharing Dave's photo, uh, with the hope that it will brighten our day and will be a sign leading to a pot of gold of spiritual renewal. As I have recently been driven, driven by old familiar flesh patterns and anxious condemning thoughts into a Tasmanian devil-like tizzy that undoubtedly has a little of the real devil somewhere in the mix. When our confidence, peace, and joy are shaken by negative circumstances, we have to be careful of how we respond, because if we fall into the enemy's trap of seeking comfort from food or entertainment from this world, or other things. We may get some pleasure or rest in the moment, but by giving into worldly ways of coping, we can easily repeat, repeat the same poor indulgent decisions to the point of diminishing returns, where those things that worked a minute ago will fail to— don't satisfy anymore, and which may cause us to do do more of the very thing that we know is not good for us. Um, the cycles of addictions operate, uh, in all kind— all types of activities. And when you feel desperate, um, uh, desperation, futility, guilt, shame, and depression, you know you have left the path of Christian discipleship for the world's wide road of destruction. And rather than just rolling along you may need to do something drastic to stop and get off the ride. If you're feeling condemned, guilty, and shamed by your fleshly behavior, there really is only one solution. Stop it. Uh, stop doing what you're doing. Go to the Lord, ask for forgiveness, and ask for his help in getting back to living with him. And that's where I am today. My time off from work because of a minor injury has been accompanied by some listlessness and spiritual attacks that have kept me anxious, frustrated, and fearful, and have resulted in me deviating into comfort eating and just not feeling right. My weekend with my wife was a great comfort because of her loving presence, but even Tammy Lynn's kindness couldn't convince me that I was quote unquote okay. I tend to relax at Tammy Lynn's, and I felt the conviction that the last thing I needed to do to get out of this funk was, was to relax. Um, I need to press into the disciplines that give me physical and spiritual health. And even though I know in theory I could do them at Tammy Lynn's, in practice I know I had to abandon ship and go back to River House where my daily spiritual and physical disciplines were developed and where I would regain home field advantage, as I— as my place down by the river has the facilities I need and, not for nothing, is not in the spiritual enemy territory of a Mormon's rental. Uh, howdy neighbors. Um, yeah, so I'm returning to repentance mode, and I'm going to press in earnestly to my faith by accepting the invitation of charismatic deliverance pastor Vladimir Savchuk, as his ministry is hosting a 21-day prayer challenge. If you want to check it out, you can go to pastorvlad.org/prayer to find the 21-day challenge and sign up. Begins today, so today's the day. Um, I recently became familiar with Pastor Vlad's ministry, uh, which focuses on evangelism, deliverance, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, uh, in reviewing his books Get Free, Fight Back, and Hosting, uh, Hosting the Holy Spirit. Um, or Be a Host for the Holy Spirit, and other books. Um, after viewing a few of his messages on YouTube, I've been impressed with his teaching and passion for helping the body of Christ to experience God's power, presence, and freedom. I think that I found Vlad's ministry at the right time, uh, not only because his messages, his messages echo my sentiments regarding faith and freedom in Christ, but because I could use a spiritual reset. Um, so I will use the resources and fellowship, uh, that this 21-day challenge will provide to ask for the Lord to refill me with his Holy Spirit and to light a fire that I can bring with me to celebrate Freedom and the Freedom in Christ course that I will lead next month. Our faith works, it really does, but it only works through God's power. And when we go astray into the world or the flesh, we have to return to our Heavenly Father, uh, to get back on track. And that track is laid with prayer. So I'm going to trust God, press in, and wait for his help, uh, to reset my orientation to his path. Um, yesterday's daily, uh, daily devotion with Charles Stanley's In Touch Ministry talked about patience, waiting, and receiving God's help. Uh, With this, and with this new renewed commitment to prayer and repentance, I wanted to share it on the blog today to encourage us. As Dr. Charles Stanley wrote, Waiting in Faith, uh, he writes, living in a fast-paced culture has programmed us to expect everything immediately, including answers to our prayers. Have you ever been impatient or frustrated when God hasn't operated according to your schedule? Delayed timing from our human perspective is perfect timing from his viewpoint. An omniscient God who created and rules over time can never be late. Waiting on him requires faith. Just because we can't see what God is doing does not mean he's not— he does not mean he's inactive. The Lord works outside of our visible realm, orchestrating events to fulfill his plans, plan for our life. His work is like a seed planted deep in a garden. We cannot see the underground process, but just as a budding plant eventually appears, we can trust that in time the Lord's ordained outcome will come about. Whatever problem you're facing, the solution is in God's hands. Cling to the truth of his love for you. His knowledge of all things and his power over everything. Then you can confidently walk by faith rather than by sight, knowing that his good purposes will be fulfilled. Amen to that. Uh, whatever problem we face, we need to know that God has the solution for us, and we need only reach out to him in prayer to experience his presence and to reestablish our harmony with him by asking for and receiving his forgiveness. Uh, or for our mistakes, and then listening to and obeying his guidance. He may call us to wait, but when we wait in faith, we are not alone, and we can have peace and joy knowing he is with us and will be with us until his way of freedom and victory becomes clear. Today's Bible verse comes to us from The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on fear And, um, today's verse, when we actually shared the other day, uh, in our commentary, was Matthew 10:28, which says, 'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' Today's verse falls under the fifth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on fear. That fifth point is Do not fear those who can kill the body. Today's Bible verse, um, reminds us not to fear men, uh, because though they can kill us, even though they can kill us, um, we should fear God only as he determines our ultimate destiny with him forever in his kingdom, or to hell for those who refuse to put their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. These are the words of Jesus, and as much as some love to share his golden rule, rule to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, we have to remember that Jesus was a quote-unquote hell and brimstone preacher, as he, he, according to John Piper, said more about hell than anyone, anyone in the Bible. While statistical analysis could be used to support various cases, when I read the Bible, I was shocked and frankly a little frightened by all of Jesus's statements regarding hell judgment and why we needed to believe in him. Jesus doesn't pull any punches in presenting himself as the only way to the Father. And with that in mind, with our salvation assured with faith in Jesus, we can adopt a different perspective to our lives, a biblical worldview, to see that the evil that men can do has a limit. Men can kill us, but they can't destroy us. In hell. Only we can do that to ourselves by not believing in Jesus. So be brave, keep your faith in Jesus, and warn other men to do the same, because the question of faith is life and death. And if people don't have Jesus, there will be hell to pay. 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 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 from the New Testament. Today's chapter is Philippians 4, and from Philippians 4, Philippians 4, he shares a portion of verse 18, which says, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And Stephen Alford writes, Paul uses this beautiful word picture to describe the gift that he has received from the church at Philippi. The picture, of course, is borrowed from the temple offerings. He sees their gift being accepted by God as that sweet-smelling incense which arose before the holy place to God in the temple. Gifts in the sight of God are Pleasant fragrances, they rise into his presence as the incense in the temple arose to him. Acceptable sacrifices, whatever is true, uh, whatever is true sacrifice is acceptable to God, for true sacrifice is the real expression of love. Well-pleasing, such gifts receive the divine approval of God. And Stephen Alford ends in prayer, right, praying, Lord, let all that I do be a sweet, pleasing, and acceptable gift to you. Amen.

Amen.

One of the things that the incense and the altars— you know, it's from the Old Testament picture of the, uh, the temple or the tabernacle with the incense of offering.

You know, one thing they One thing I learned was the incense offering was symbolic of the prayers of the people, that our prayers would go before God, and our sacrifice of prayer was an acceptable sacrifice and well-pleasing and sweet to the Lord. So this 21-day challenge of prayer, um, you know, we hope to offer up sweet, pleasing, and acceptable gifts to the Lord as we seek to draw close to him once again.

Um, good news is that we never have to go too far away from God when we fully surrender to him. Um, so, so that's what we do. Um, our orientation— we might go astray, but we keep going back to the Lord.. And, um, we do that through prayer and Bible study every day and by just trying to live, uh, according to our faith.

And that's what being empty for Christ is all about. Uh, we surrender our will to God to be filled with the Holy Spirit and his purposes for our lives. We do something with that word of God.

And one of the things that we've been led to do is we lead a support group, uh, the Celebrate Freedom support group, Wednesday nights at Starpoint Church. It's a recovery and discipleship ministry. And, um, I'm happy to lead it with a good leadership team. It does the teaching, and we invite anyone in the Capital District of New York State to check us out by going to Starpoint Church's website, look up support groups, find Celebrate Freedom, and register. Or you could just show up some Thursday—

Wednesday night at 6:30. We'll be there to welcome you.

And another place we welcome you is online, uh, in fall— in the fall, on September 3rd, we begin an online Freedom in Christ course for men, um, on Tuesday nights. So you can register for that now by going to ficm.org and looking up Tuesday night men's group, um, you know, Freedom in Christ course. But there's other courses available too at ficm.org. So if you're not a man or you don't want to be in my class, uh, there are other classes to, uh, to sign up for where you can learn about your identity in Christ and learn the prayerful repentance process, the Steps to Freedom in Christ, that will free you from the things that keep you stuck, those personal and spiritual conflicts. Prayer is a big part of our ministry. We are certified, we are trained encourager from Freedom in Christ Ministries and certified um, prayer minister for Deeper Walk International.

And, uh, we understand the power of prayer, and, uh, we've seen it set people free. So, um, there's healing, there's freedom, there's deliverance available through prayer in your faith in Jesus Christ, in your commitment to follow him and live according to your faith. And so that's what we— that's what we encourage.

And we ask the question, are you empty for Christ too? Are you waiting to be filled with what God has for you in your life? If so, uh, keep on walking and talking with God. You're on the right track. If not, you know, prayer will bring you right back into repentance, right back in the Lord's presence.

So we encourage you to pray today.

And as we pray right now, Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for the freedom you've given us, the grace you've given us, the forgiveness you've given us, Lord, because when we make foolish or fleshly or selfish decisions, we see the error of our ways, and it affects us emotionally and spiritually.

And we just want to come back to the peace that we've known, and we know that, that's—

that peace can only be found in you.

And so, Lord, we, we ask for you to forgive us and to draw us into your peace and your purposes for us over the next 21 days as we seek to connect to you. And a new way to, to receive from you whatever it is you have for us to receive. A renewed spirit, uh, spiritual reset, or just, um, just your presence and peace, Lord. Um, light a fire in our spirits through the Holy Spirit to help us to be a force for your kingdom, Lord, as we just want to represent you and, and what you would have us do on Earth. Lord, we do pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer request and light a fire in their faith and help them, Lord, because we all need your help. Lord, as for today, we just pray for you to open our eyes to the things you want us to do. Lead us in the way we should go, because all we want to do is, um, is be with you, Lord.

Well, we thank you, we praise you, we love you.

And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.