Suffering from Poor Choices and the God of All Comfort - Purity 1759

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. Good morning. Today's photo of a nearly cloudless blue sky over the lush green grass and foliage on either side of a clear asphalt pathway comes to us from yours truly as I captured this moment while walking down Old Feathertown Road in Hudson Falls, New York, uh, during my visit to the Five Combines Glen Falls Peter Canal Historic Site. Well, it's Thursday, and I share this pathway photo, um, today's tranquil pathway photo, as a visual reminder to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship, where we can appreciate our journey in the context of God and abundantly receive his comfort and joy. I'm feeling the joy this morning as I received the good news from my doctor yesterday that my injury doesn't require surgery and I could start weaning myself off of the crutches. Had been ordered to use since fracturing my left tibial plateau a month ago. While I am ready to say goodbye to my twin aluminum friends for good, I am trying to temper my enthusiasm to be able to walk free again because I don't want to do something stupid that will undo the healing that the Lord has done thus far. I still have pain in my leg when I move it in certain ways, and that tells me I have to be, uh, patient, patient, and take my physical recovery one day at a time. I see my physical therapist today, and I will take their advice on how far I should push it. I have suffered the negative consequences foolish actions in the past and don't want to suffer any setbacks on my road to recovery. Speaking of suffering for the foolish choices we make in life, the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotion for today speaks about that, so I'm sharing it on the blog to remind us that when When we put our faith in Jesus, God accepts us as we are and comforts us even when the pains we suffer are our fault. Dr. Charles Stanley writes, the comfort, uh, the God of all comfort, that's what it says. And Charles Stanley writes, referencing John 8:1-11, he writes, our Heavenly Father offers us comfort in all situations, even when our pain is self-inflicted. We know that God promises to comfort us, but will he be there if the affliction is one we brought upon ourselves? Many believers ask this question, and they often assume the answer is no. However, the Lord does not condemn us for sin. In fact, Hebrews 8:12 says he forgets our sin. What remains are the consequences of our wrong actions. If we turn to God, he will guide us through the painful fallout. Remember the woman dragged before Jesus by the Pharisees? She had been caught in adultery, which was a violation of the law. The religious leaders were prepared to stone her to death, but Jesus spoke to her with compassion. Although he in no way condemned her sin— or condoned her sin— he did recognize that she was already facing consequences for her unwise choices. He forgave her, saying, "Go from now on, sin no more." Nothing we do can ever separate us from the love of God. One way he expresses that love is through the promise of comfort when we hurt, even when the pain is self-inflicted. We can allow shame to chase us away from his loving arms, convinced he wouldn't offer encouragement to one who disobeyed. Or we can believe scripture, which says he is the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. That was from Dr. Charles Stanley, and I say amen. You know, this one hits close to home because a great deal of my problems and pain in the past was the direct results of my sinful choices that I made. Um, not only did my sin cause pain in my life, but it also caused pain in others. My selfish and sinful choices hurt people I barely knew and people I deeply cared about. In some cases, I even led others into sin, as wickedness wishes to be replicated and spread like a fire, destroying everything in its path. In my old life, I would often think, if not say, "I hate my life," because my decision to do things my way resulted in disasters or led me to be ill-equipped to deal with the normal pressures and responsibilities of life. I caused myself the pain, and I hated myself for it, but was unable to really change. But the God of all comfort changed all that. In calling me into his family through faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord gave me the joy of my salvation, the freedom of forgiveness, and the peace of unconditional love and acceptance. And the God of all comfort doesn't relent in his efforts to love, comfort, encourage, and assure us that his love is real despite what have done and continue to fail to get right even now, God tells us to stop condemning ourselves and to humble ourselves to receive his comfort, strength, and guidance. So accept the Father's love for you. Receive the freedom that comes from knowing you are forgiven and accepted because of what he has done, not because of our— your merits. We might not feel worthy, but God says we are. And we would be wise to just shut up and accept what the Father says about us and move forward in obedience. God knows all about our sin, and he has dealt with it through Jesus on the cross. So let's humble ourselves and receive the comfort that the Lord longs for us to have. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. This morning's meditation verse comes from the section on peacemakers or peacekeepers. And today's verse is Matthew 5:9, which says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Today's verse falls under the first point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on peacemakers, and that first point is Jesus declares peacemakers to be blessed. Today's Bible verse reminds us that God calls us to make peace with one another. As Jesus equates being a peacemaker with being a son of God. While the world would tell you not to get mad but to get even with our enemies, Jesus tells us to love our enemies and to love our neighbors as ourselves. He is the Prince of Peace because he brokered a peace between God and man by dying on the cross for our sins. Peace matters, and if we seek to be followers of Jesus, we should do our best to bring peace wherever we go. And to encourage others to find their peace with God through faith in Christ alone. 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 365-day devotional, and we're on day 258, where Adams shares a portion of Luke 24:27, which says, so beginning Starting with Moses, he went through all the prophets and explained. And J.E. Adams writes: What a Bible class it must have been! Wouldn't you have liked to have heard Jesus explain the Scriptures? Note that he found material concerning himself in all the Scriptures. Jesus is, as the introduction of the book of Revelation says, the Spirit of Prophecy. It is about him that prophecy principally speaks. Those who are so caught up in what is predicted about our future that they forget Jesus missed the point of prophecy. His second coming is primarily just that—his coming, not your going. It is his day of revelation and glory as the great God and Savior that he is. As Paul says, expectantly await the joyous hope, even the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. Beware of prophecy hounds who hunt down every jot and tittle concerning the future and entirely miss the fact that prophecy mainly speaks about Jesus. Luke tells us, then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with the scriptures, he announced the good news about Jesus to him. Preachers today must do the same. Amen. And there are, you know, and I say amen because there are a lot of prophetic circles out there, um, you know, there are a lot of end times prophetic preachers who point to the news headlines and things that are going on in the world and seek to impress people with being able to see the future of what's happening and what's— to interpret today's events in light of Scripture and to offer us a word about what's going to happen, about the possibility of the rapture and the tribulation and the Antichrist. And while that's all, you know, very compelling and something we, you know, should have a view on— I'm not sure about concern about— you know, we have to recognize that the prophecy points to Jesus from the Old Testament to the New Testament, and the New Testament to our future, that he will return. You know, the Book of Revelation points to Christ coming back and taking control of God's creation, the Earth, and establishing a new heaven and a new Earth. So the story is not over. And, uh, end times, you know, disaster prophecies aside, well, we're going to be very happy because Christ will come back and, you know, punish the guilty and, you know, take over and, you know, rule and reign. And, uh, I can't wait for But I think about Jesus more than I think about, you know, worrying about stocking up supplies or doing anything. I'm probably not so, you know, really well equipped for a disaster, but I trust in the Lord, and I trust the Lord to provide. And I do have some things, but, you know, I trust in him mostly. And that's why we always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Are you trusting in yourself? Are you trusting in the Lord? Are you trying to do things your way, or are you trying to do things his way? We recommend the latter, doing things his way, on the path of Christian discipleship. Why? Because I've discovered it's the pathway to peace as I've, you know, been set free from my sin of alcohol, drug addiction, sexual addiction, and continue to, you know, struggle with other things. But we thank God for what he's done. So because when he says, you know, when Jesus says, go and sin no more, you can actually do that. And so we encourage you to, you know, follow the Lord and do that, and, you know, to find your peace and purpose in Christ. Part of my peace is to encourage others to find their peace, and I do that in one place at the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church. It's a Christian recovery and discipleship group, and we meet on Wednesday nights. We met last night, and it was a good evening, and we invite you to come out and join us next week, next— this coming Wednesday. Basically for the next installment. We will be in the K-3rd grade classroom at Star Point Church at 6:30 next Wednesday, and we invite you to come out. If you can't make the meeting locally and you wanted to hang out, I joined the Renovare Book Club, and I decided to volunteer as an online discussion group leader. And that book club is going to last from October 25th all the way to May 2026, where there's— we're going to do 4 books over that time and meet once a month to discuss what we find. So if you wanted to hang out, basically we just have to join the Renovare Book Club. There is a cost for that, but, you know, hang out with me at the online discussion group is completely free. However, we do offer other teachings that do have a cost, and one of those is the Grace Course that we plan on doing from November 4th to December 23rd, if anyone should sign up. The cost is $100 for 8 weeks of discipleship fellowship, Zoom online, Zoom community, and, um, you know, teaching. Um, so we encourage you to sign up by going to mtforchrist.com group coaching events, and you'll see it there. Um, other than that, um, we always offer, you know, we try to give, give everything away for free, but we can't. Um, so what we do is we, we, we do the podcast. Uh, we try to share our encouragement and, you know, the things we've experienced that we found helpful, uh, in our little program here and, uh, in other series we've done in the past. And we have those on our YouTube channel. Uh, you can watch them by going to— you can search out playlists that we've done by going to YouTube, or we can— you can go to mtforchrist.com where you find all our playlists listed as well. Um, beyond that, if you find what we do to be encouraging, we'd be greatly encouraged and appreciate your support. By donation. You can go to emptyforchrist.com and you can give today. We greatly appreciate it. Beyond that, we always end each message by asking the question, are you empty for Christ too? And that just means, you know, are you trying to empty yourself of the things of God and to be filled with the— well, wait, empty the things— not— don't empty yourself of the things of God, empty yourself of the things of this world and be filled with the things of God and filled with the Holy Spirit. Like I said, I'm not perfect, And, um, that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for comforting us even when we mess up and it's all our fault. Um, Lord, we need your help, obviously, and we ask for you to go before us today. Just open our eyes to the things you want us to do and lead us in the way we should go. Empower us for our walk with you, Lord. And, uh, Lord, we also pray for anyone reading, listening, or watching this message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, because I'm sure they need your help too, Lord. And we're asking. So, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.