Surrendered to the Moment Here I am to Worship Purity 773

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 twilight over the crowd gathered at the River Rock Christian Music Festival at the Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, Maine comes to us from yours truly as I pause for a moment to capture the beauty of God's creation as I made my way back to my spot amongst my people to the right of the sound tent pictured here. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his play No Exit, is famous for the line, "Hell is other people." And when we first set up our lawn chairs on the grounds of Sunday River, my mild social anxiety had the fear that Sartre's quote would have some real-life application, as I am not crazy about crowds and the people there seemed a little bit different from me. There were some vendors at the event selling quasi-patriotic and political wares in various shades of camouflage, and I started to fear that I had found myself at a Make America Great Again rally. That, coupled with seeing that several members of the crowd were tattooed and adorned with camouflage or biker gear had me a little concerned that I wouldn't fit in, as I don't think of myself as an extremist politically and don't have an affinity for camo, leather, hunting, fishing, or motorcycles per se. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But as I sat awaiting the worship to start, it didn't take me long to realize that the event I was at was unlike any event I had ever been to before. As I took a closer look at the crowd, I realized two things: number one, this crowd was old, and two, no matter what style of dress they had or what political stances they held, as far as I could tell, all these people were my family, as we all had the same adoptive Heavenly Father and had been brought together in his family and at this Christian worship event by his Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As different as the other members of my family seemed to me at first, I realized that the vast majority of the people at this event had a real, had a real heart for God and a deep love for Jesus. And they weren't shy about it, as a good deal openly proclaimed Jesus as Lord with their words, with their actions and with their praises, as well as with the clothes they wore that reflected their allegiance to King Jesus. As my apprehensions were fading but still present in those early moments of the festival, they completely dissolved when the first musicians began to lead the crowd in worship. Tombo Mutombo, a worship leader from a church in Washington State that originally hails from the Congo, began the festivities and my spirit immediately went into worship mode. So can you really worship the Lord at one of these big events? Well, if you have been walking with the Lord like I have, you know that you can worship the Lord literally anywhere and in several different ways, whether it is seated, standing, laying down, shouting at the top of your lungs, singing, or silently. Because we are connected to God through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Our worship to the Lord isn't really a matter of what you do. It is really dependent on what— where your heart is, where and what the— what his Spirit is doing in you. When the worship started, my spirit or the Holy Spirit— even after all these years, I'm not completely sure how it works, but, but it is definitely a cooperative effort of sorts. Our spirit told me that this was the real deal. As always, God was here. When I felt that in my spirit, I remembered Moses at the burning bush in scripture and took my socks and shoes off because I was on holy ground. Through— throughout the day, I found myself alternating between worshiping from my seat, standing with my arms raised high in song and sitting on our blanket on the ground, um, in a meditated posture, or in my chair, silently praising the Lord in prayer. Although I was there with my wife and stepkids, I was completely surrendered to the day of worship and was enjoying the Lord's presence on this mountainside location where his people had gathered to give him thanks and praise. While all the musicians were excellent yesterday, highlights for day 1 for me include included Dave Pettigrew, whose performance and testimony caused me, the non-materialist, to go to his merch table and purchase a couple of his t-shirts and follow him on Amazon Music. Um, Big Daddy Weave, who closed the show and whose songs Redeemed and My Story are near and dear to my heart because I performed them back in my Celebrate Freedom Recovery ministry days and Finally, John Reddick, whose presence of praise brought me to run to the front stage as his soulful performance of his Christian hit "God Turn It Around" and some old gospel hymns brought me to the heights of praise and worship as the Holy Spirit came over me. I'm not sure why there was only a handful of people moved to, to go up front when he performed, but John Reddick took me to church. And although I simply loved his hit song, I am a colossal fan of Mr. Reddick now. So I had my worries and trepidations about whether or not I could do a Christian concert, a Christian music festival, and really wondered about my wife's insistence that we go, who is already lobbying for a return visit next year. But now I see that these events present us with an uncommon opportunity to enjoy the presence of the Lord in a way that simply isn't available to us in our 9-to-5 status quo routines. With this Christian festival that goes from 12 noon to 10 PM at night for 2 days, there's an opportunity to show the Lord that we love him, to hear other Christians share what he has done in their lives, and we, as we loudly or silently give him thanks and praise for what he has done in our lives. Uh, if you are interested, tickets are still available for day 2 of the River Rock Music Festival, and the scheduled events include Leah Lakata, Juniper Worship, Resurrect Me, Ricky George, Rachel DeLong, Right Hand Shade, Clayfoot, Pursuing JC, Blanca, Dave Pettigrew again, um, Micah Taylor, Tina Griffin, and the headliner tonight is Dante Bowe of Maverick City Music and Bethel Music. So tonight, today should be another great day of worship. I'm not sure if the weather will be as good as yesterday was, like in the 90s, but causing me to go under an umbrella for most of the day. But it was It was a wonderful event. So if you are even within a 3-hour radius of Newry, Maine, I invite you to get motivated and jump in the car and come on out and worship with us at the River Rock Music Festival at Sunday River Resort in Newry, Maine. If not, I really encourage you to attend a Christian music event like this. When we seek the Lord on a continuous basis, we can find him everywhere we go. But when we join together in unity with other Christians to sing and testify by the wonders of his love, we get to demonstrate to the Lord that we love him and he is worthy to be praised. But no matter where you are or what you choose to do today, I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God because he is with you. And when you turn to him and lean on him, heaven invades the earth, and you can know beyond all doubt that God is alive and well and walking with you. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Romans 8:5, and it says, "Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit." Today's Bible verse speaks about the battleground of our thoughts, thought lives, and how those who are dominated by the sinful nature nature, the flesh, think about sinful things. But those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit only think about things that please the Spirit. Hey guys, I love the simplicity of the NLT to help Christians read the Bible with a user-friendly translation that is good for our youth, but I am not a fan of this rendering of Romans 8:5, which, which says in the New King James Version For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. I think the NLT tries to make this spiritual verse easier to understand, but in their attempt they simultaneously present the truth of the verse but do it in a way that can easily be misconstrued and develop an error in our thinking theologically. Their use of "control by the Holy Spirit" is the easiest place to start to explain what I mean. I wish I was controlled by the Holy Spirit. Um, then I would just do what God says without question and be free of the choice of sin. Also, I have an even larger problem with the use of dominated by the sinful nature to describe people who live according to the flesh. Being dominated by the sinful nature and being controlled by the Holy Spirit sound like possession terms. That we have no control over. While we do either belong to God's kingdom because of our faith in Jesus Christ or are lost and are in the company of Satan, demons, and other unrepentant men and women, we paradoxically still have the right to choose how we live. A life that is lived to demonstrate that we are "controlled by this Holy Spirit" is better described as living according to the Spirit, because in that life we We choose to live according to the wisdom of God's Word and by the leadings of the Holy Spirit. But we do have a choice. And as for the sinful nature, as children of God through faith in Jesus Christ, our sinful nature was crucified on the cross the moment we said yes to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is finished. But we are, we paradoxically can still choose to live a sinful life. But unlike those who don't place their faith in Christ, the Christian has the power to say no and overcome their sins when they trust what the Lord has said about their new life in Christ and live according to it. The way I say it is, "I am free in Christ, thus I live free. I don't sin like I used to. Instead, I turn from my old ways and start living according to God's ways." and according to my new nature as a child of God. We don't have two natures. We are either born, born-again saints through faith in Christ, or we are dead in our trespasses and sins. A sinner's nature belongs to those who don't come to Christ. A saint's nature is given to those who come to Christ. The difference is between life and death. But as for our choice of action, we are still free to choose our daily path. Even the unredeemed, sinners who without Christ will go to hell, can choose to do good things from time to time or even make a lifestyle of doing good. But when they refuse Christ, they seal their doom. Likewise, a saint, a follower of Christ, can still choose to sin. But if my experience is common, I can tell you that the enjoyment of sins will not be the same anymore. As it will be against, as, as it will be against our new nature and disrupt the harmony of our relationship with God. Who said faith was simple? So we don't have two natures. We have a new life, a new life in Christ. But we can choose among various ways of living according to the flesh or choose to live according to the Spirit. The way we choose to live will be indicated by what we think about. If you are scheming and plotting on how to satisfy the desires of the flesh and are preoccupied with the things of this world, you are living according to the flesh, or our old and dead sinful nature. If you are thinking about how to live out your faith and are interested in the things of God, you are living according to the Spirit. So keep an eye on your thoughts and change the way you think to be in line with God's Word, and you will experience that when you, when you do, the peace, love, and joy that you always wanted grows in your life when you walk in the Spirit. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from the, uh, from Clinton E. Arnold's Powers of Darkness, and today we enter into chapter 5, and that's the teaching of Jesus. And today, uh, the section that's highlighted is, uh, Jesus is Attacked: The Temptation. So if you want to read about what Clinton Arnold has to say about the temptations of Christ, uh, go to m.tforchrist.org to check out the that resource at the bottom of today's blog post. As always, we encourage people to live out their faith as a lifestyle of Christian discipleship with a Christian worldview. It's not a political view, it's a view that God is King. So you can have all kinds of different political opinions and lifestyle choices in life and hobbies, but the one thing we all have in common is the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the salvation that comes when we choose Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And the thing I've discovered is after that choice, you know, how do you live this Christian life? Well, it's not easy. You're not going to get a lot of guidance from the world— none, quite frankly. And quite frankly, there's a lot of various opinions and, you know, authorities in the church that might lead you astray. So what do we do? We get the word, we read it for ourselves, and we discover what the word means and says. We don't rely on other sources to teach us the truth. We seek it ourselves, and we seek to apply it to our lives and let the word and the Holy Spirit guide us. As we join churches that, that, that are, you know, that their teachings are in line with the Bible. You know, we want a Bible-believing church, right? So that's the reason why we don't want to be led astray, and we certainly don't want to be taken advantage of by somebody who just wants to run their agenda and use scripture to manipulate us. We want to be free in Christ. And to pursue our purpose. And we all have a role in the local church to play, but usually the Lord calls us outside those four walls to do something where we can give him glory and bring his joy and his peace and his love to some, some people outside of the church. So if you want to, you know, start to examine these things, um, you can learn a little bit from the classes I taught because they're based on the Word of God and they're based on the work of Dr. Neil Anderson. I did 3 classes for it: Picture of the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. And they're all available on the podcast and our YouTube channel, M.t. Clark 24/7, or 247, um, on YouTube. And, uh, and so, so yeah, check them out. You know, I learned a lot before I came in contact with his material, but it was all presented in a nice, you know, a lot of the things I discovered was written about years before by Dr. Neil Anderson as he was a student of the word and, you know, a Christian counselor, and he saw how the application of our faith is real and powerful to real-life situations. That's what we try to do— push, push success, push joy, push victory and peace that comes to our faith in Jesus Christ. And so it's all based on the word of God, and we revere the word of God, and we share our Bible study that we do once a week normally with Arthur, Susanna, and Cati. If you don't have a Bible study, you want to check ours out, you'll find it on our podcast and our our YouTube channel under Bible Study with the Sinconys. As we do topical studies week to week where we just discuss the things of God as we're trying to live according to the Spirit. Um, of course, uh, I am on the road at the River Rock Music Festival and we will not be doing a Bible study tomorrow. We'll be packing up to return and, uh, it's in New York State at some point tomorrow. And so we took a week off from the Bible study, but we never take a week off from praising and worshiping the Lord in some way. We'll do it tomorrow, whether it's online or— yeah, most likely an online service will be the Shupe du Jour tomorrow in some way, either while we travel or before we leave. So I encourage everyone to worship the Lord in their own way. And to, uh, follow where he leads. Um, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Thank you for Saturday, for the day off from work for most of us. Um, Lord, we pray for you to go before us today. Uh, we thank you for the people listening. We pray for you to bless them, uh, come alongside their prayer request. Lord, we pray for you to open our eyes to wonderful wonders that you have for us to see. Pray for you to keep us safe and, uh, to move us in your presence today and to lead us into the things you would have us do. Lord, we thank you for this unheritable opportunity to worship and praise you today, and we do pray for good weather over the festival. But Lord, we'll take whatever we can do, we'll endure whatever weather you present, and we will give you praise and worship today because we know that that you are good and that you love us. And, uh, we want to demonstrate, even if it's just for a day, that we love you. We thank you for today, the only day that's promised to us. Um, we choose to worship you. Thank you, Lord. We pray and we love you. We thank you. We praise you. And all these things we pray in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.