Take a Break? Free to Follow, Free to Rest – Purity 751

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 a group of palm trees on the beaches of Fort Lauderdale comes to us from a friend who enjoyed a long weekend getaway to the Lago Mar Resort and Club back on May 27th. Full disclosure, I did take some creative liberties with the photo by cropping out my friend's resting feet at the edge of this photo in the shade of an unseen palm tree to give the their feet privacy and to highlight the natural beauty of God's creation. Well, it's Tuesday, and even though it is only the second day of the first full work week in the month of June, I was moved to spontaneously take a non-typical break from my normal morning discipline of exercise and instead caught a few extra Z's and some restless rest before my non-negotiable time with the Lord in prayer and Bible study. As we have committed ourselves to a lifestyle of walking in the Spirit, we have chosen to be a disciple of Christ, and that is a path that requires discipline. If you didn't know it, the root word of discipline is disciple, and the root word of disciple is student. So in our choice to be a disciplined disciple of Christ, we have decided that we will seek to learn from Jesus and be determined to apply his wisdom to the the way we live our lives. But unlike the other disciplines of, of the world, our membership to the body of Christ is not based on our rigid adherence to a moral code or based on our performance. Our adoption into the family of God is a product of God's grace. It's a free gift of love from the creator of the universe, and once you place your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, there is nothing that can separate you from God's love or take you out of his royal family. We can do nothing to earn our salvation and status as a child of God, and there is nothing we have to do to maintain it. What? Are you serious? I thought being a Christian was all about doing stuff, that if I became a— if I become a Christian, I inherit a long list of gotta's, as in I gotta go to church, I gotta be good, I gotta read the Bible, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. And I thought it included a whole list of can'ts too, as in I can't do this or I can't do that. Unfortunately, this is how most people view being a Christian. Ignorance in some legalistic church cultures have led to this view, but it's an immature understanding of who we are in Christ and what being Christian is all about. This view of Goddard's and Kant's is looking at our Christian faith as a religion, not as what it actually is: a relationship with God. Unlike human relationships and memberships to certain worldly clubs or disciplines, our relationship with God is not performance-based. It is not something that can be lost through our failure to perform. When God invites you into his family, it is with no conditions, and it only requires your humble surrender to the lordship of Christ. When we become Christians, we stop relying solely on our, our own abilities and decide to put our faith and trust in Christ to save us and to guide us through life. Our faith is an acknowledgment of the truth of who Christ is, the Messiah, the Son of God, and God the Son, and it includes our decision to follow him. Like the original apostle, the apostles' call, we are invited to follow Christ. But we are still free regarding how we choose to follow. That's the amazing thing about grace. It's God's unmerited favor to us and for us. Unmerited means we didn't earn it, and since we didn't earn it, we can't lose it. Our position in Christ is steady, but the harmony of our relationship and the peace we enjoy will depend on how much we abide in Christ. Depend on how much we relate— how we relate to God. If we approach our relationship with God as a list of requirements, that is something that— and that is something that is based on our performance rather than a relationship that is permanent and based on love, we will struggle with the acceptance of our identity in Christ and will be an emotional mess as we will cycle between anxiety, anger, and depression by trying to meet the perfect standards of attitudes and behavior that we feel we need to have in order to be be accepted by God. But the thing is, we are— we were completely accepted by God the moment we placed our faith in Christ. If we are anxious, angry, or depressed about our performance as a Christian, we have wrongly taken God's invitation to relationship and turned it into a religion where we separate ourselves from the Lord based on our performance. The joy of our relationship with God comes from knowing that we are free to follow him in the way we choose. But the thing about being in God's family is that you quickly discover that your old worldly ways and sins don't really match up with who you are now in Christ. And when we behave in our old ways, it doesn't feel right anymore. And the more we push to stay in our old ways, the more pain it causes us. When we decide to obey and follow God's call on our lives, we begin to discover that the gospel is true. We really are new creations in Christ, but our old patterns of thinking and behaving and the world, the flesh, and the devil beckon us to stay in the darkness because those shadows are familiar. And the light of Christ is bright and good, but when we approach it, there is no place for our sin to hide. God sees us for who we are and loves us anyway. He loves us so much that he doesn't want God doesn't want us to stay in the confusion, ignorance, and pain of our sin, and gently beckons us to trust Him and to come into the light of our new lives in Christ. But He doesn't force us to go, and we are free to stay in the shadows even though God, and we ourselves, know it would be better to go His way. God doesn't force us to march in obedience to Him. Christ came to give us rest. When we decide to follow Him, we discover that His burden is light, because His path is the path of righteousness and blessings. The old adage of "choose to sin, choose to suffer" is so true. But the opposite is also true: when we choose to obey, we choose to prosper in the riches of God's grace, mercy, and love. The amazing thing about grace is that we don't have to obey perfectly to receive the benefits of our relationship with God. The more we put in, the more we get out of our relationship with God. But God knows us and realizes we are not perfect, so He allows us to follow Him at our own pace. And by God, He even gives us an option of taking a break. He will even call us to rest or wait on Him. So this morning, as much as I thrive in my normal morning discipline of exercise, It was okay to rest. It was okay to take a break and to do so with the full assurance that God wouldn't stop, wouldn't love me any less. I could have taken a break from my normal Bible study and prayers too, but I have come to know the benefits of drawing into God's presence. And while I'm not 100% in anything I do, those means of communication with the Lord are about as non-negotiable as I can get. They are something I simply do not want to take a rest from normally. But guess what? Sometimes I, I don't sit down and do my normal prayers or read the Bible, and that's okay too, because I do it all to draw close to God, not to be accepted by him. But I have to admit that there isn't a day that passes where I don't at least take a moment to thank the Lord for who he is or for what he has done in my life. Because of His grace, I know His love and His rest, and that causes me to thank Him and love Him a little more each day. So don't beat yourself up for not following perfectly, or for not doing all the gotta's, or for not forsaking all the can'ts that God's Word indicates are a good idea or practice for His children. We are not accepted by our performance, but Keep walking and talking with God, because even though our acceptance, significance, and security as a child of the King is assured, the measure of the fruit of the Spirit growing in our lives does depend on how much we, we are enjoying God's presence, how much we are learning about him, and how much of his wisdom we are applying to our lives. So take a break, take a rest, it's okay. But after you rest, jump up and rejoice, because God never leaves you and is always there waiting to walk and talk with you again. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, and they say, because of God's grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it, but whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have, Jesus Christ. Today's Bible verse talks, talks of how, because of God's grace, we can continue to build on and allow others to build on the foundation that we have in Christ. As Christian, the— as Christians, the foundation of our new lives is faith in Christ alone. Our faith in Christ saves us and brings us into God's royal family through the forgiveness of our sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us. We are new creations the moment we put our faith in Christ. That saving faith is a solid foundation that we can stand on from here to eternity, to infinity and beyond. This passage in Corinthians describes the process of growth in our Christian faith. With Christ as our foundation, we can build a life of a Christian disciple. We can allow others to teach us what they have learned from God's Word and from their walk of faith. We can allow them to help us build up our life as a Christian. So that is good news, and it indicates that we are to be in a Christian community where others can help and encourage us in our maturation. We are not in this by ourselves. We have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, we have the Word of God, and and we have the body of Christ to help us build our lives as disciples of Christ. But as today's verse also warns us, we have to be very careful to be discerning in who we choose to build on the foundation of our faith. We must know the word of God for ourselves because the enemy would like to lead us astray and may send false teachers and counterfeit brethren into our lives to build lies into our faith. Christian cults, society at large, false religions, and those who push legalism or licentiousness are all out in the world looking to push us to extremes and would love to build lies upon our Christian foundation. Syncretism, which is the blending of faiths, the belief that there is more than one way to God, disrespect for God's word, and moral compromises are all bricks that the enemy would love to put on top of our pure foundation of faith in Christ. So we must be very careful to reject what is false and only build up our faith with the wisdom that is confirmed by the Word of God. Hey, we are all works in progress, and if we know the Word of God, we will know what's up to code and what's not. We can recognize counterfeits by being familiar with the real. If we measure by the word of God twice, we'll only have to cut once with the way we live our lives, and we can be assured that we are building on the pure foundation of faith in Christ with only that which is good, pure, and holy. As always, I invite all to go to M.t. Clark.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 John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life, concluding the chapter on missions, uh, with the following sections: Ponder the Amnesty Offered to the Nations, Take a Retreat, The Meaning of Your Discontent, and Should I Go On Being a Pastor? And, and you, um, so if you want to see what John Piper has to say under each one of those topics um, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll see that excerpt at the bottom of today's blog post. As always, we invite people to go to the website MT for Christ off, off of your phone so you can see the whole list of, uh, topical labels that we put on our posts. So if you had an area of interest, you could see, see, there is all— see all that there is to see about that particular topic, uh, through what we've shared on the, on the, on the, uh, the website, on our blog. There's lots of, uh, there's entire books basically on our blog, uh, if you wanted to take the time to read them. Or you can, you know, get interested in them and decide to purchase them and read them on your own. Um, and we're just here to encourage and to help build on that foundation of your pure faith in Christ. And we invite you to do that freely, as how you choose, as our, our walk with God is a relationship with him. And, uh, you know, the, the, the commandments of God are really an invitation from the Lord to, to be like him and to follow him into what he has for your life. Um, his commandments are given in love, and, uh, they're good for us, and they result in blessing when we obey. And that's what it's all about. It's not supposed to be strict adherence to a law as much as following the Father's instructions for a life that'll be good and holy and bless us. So that's what Christian discipleship's all about. It's not about whipping ourselves into shape. It's about coming into relationship with the with our Creator, with the person who made us and who wants, wants us to enjoy our lives and to be with him for all eternity. And he made the way through Christ to do that. So I discovered, you know, he showed me that good news, and I'm here to share that good news. And, and, and the full extent of the good news goes beyond just a salvation message, but it goes, it goes goes into the abundant life that's promised in Christ that comes through following him. Like, who knew? The ways of the world, you know, you know, promise us, you know, a false hope in, in, in temporary pleasures, whereas the pleasures of the Lord last for all eternity, and they're not corrupted or, you know, sinful and dark. They're full of light and goodness and purity. So we encourage people to go that way, and part of the way we encourage people is we've shared the classes we taught on Christian discipleship, which are based on the Word of God and the teachings of Dr. Neil Anderson. As we've taught a class on Victor Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, all available on our podcast and on the YouTube channel M.t. Clark Christ 24/7. Um, and, uh, obviously we revere the word of God, and so we share a Bible study that we do once a week with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti. Today I'm asking for prayers for Arthur and Susanna as Susanna's surgery has been completed yesterday. And so we're praying for healing and peace for them, and we encourage anyone who's listening to to offer their prayers as well for them and their sakes. As we've been walking, I've been walking with the Tsinkhanis for quite some time, as Arthur was probably the first person I saw when I visited his church. And I was like, this guy is a faithful Christian. This guy's, you know, in upstate New York, that's a rare commodity. No offense, but yeah, he was sincere, faithful, and true. And he, you know, not— notice I didn't say perfect. Not a perfect person, but had a heart for God. And, you know, he has a real passion for the Word. And I think his relationship to Susanna certainly helped him in that respect. Um, so it's probably not all just because of Arthur. Um, they're, they're a great godly couple, and my prayers are for them today. And, uh, I can't wait to see, see them again, uh, this Sunday, prayerfully. Uh, because we'll be praying for a quick, quick recovery, and we'll get the news and, and see what's going on. This Sunday, as we take things one day at a time on this path, one step at a time, and we trust the Lord every step of the way to guide us into what he wants us to do and what he has for us, and we accept it with peace. All right, um, I think that's enough of the plugging and everything else, so let's, let's pray and let's get, get into the day. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your Kingdom. We thank for, uh, we thank you for our good friends in Christ, everyone who's listening to this message. Lord, we pray for Arthur, Susanna today, and for you to guide them and heal them, um, in the coming days until we see them again Sunday, prayerfully. And Lord, we're praying for other friends here who are listening too. We don't necessarily know all their names or where they're from or, or, you know, who they are, but Lord, we know that if they're listening to this podcast, they got a heart for God, um, because, because we, uh, you know, we, we only speak of the truth of, uh, of a life in Christ and following you, Lord. And we know that's a special call on anyone's life. So if they're listening to this message, we thank you for them, Lord. We ask you to bless them, um, in any way you can in their walk, Lord, with healings, blessings, or just insights and encouragement to, uh, to keep on going, uh, towards you. Lord, we pray for you to go before us today, to open our eyes to what you want us to see and open our ears to what you want us to hear and to guide us into what we should do. Lord, when we walk with you, we just know, you know, every good thing that happens, we're like, that's my God. Um, that might be giving you too much credit, but I don't think we can do that, Lord. We can't give you too give it much credit. We know you as Sovereign are controlling all things in some way, some fashion. That might— may be hard to see, but we know that you're working all things together for good for those who love you and are called according to your purpose. We love that you called us, and we, we love that we have a purpose in you, Lord. We just pray that you guide us into that purpose a little more every day, um, and today Of course, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we, we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.