Thankful for God’s Marvelous, Matchless, Infinite Grace - Purity 1596

Welcome to the MT4Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark and this is today's photo. Good morning. Today's photo of my canine pal Harley walking up Waite Road as the morning sun comes shining through roadside forest trees comes to us from yours truly as I captured the scene yesterday morning. Well, it's, it's the first Monday of March and even though the temperatures this morning in upstate New York are more like February, I am rejoicing because the light of God's grace comes shining through regardless of the weather outside and shows up to bless us sometimes when we least expect it. Yesterday I was privileged to lead one of my Freedom in Christ course participants through The Steps to Freedom in Christ. For those who don't know, The Steps to Freedom in Christ, written by Dr. Neil Anderson, is a truth encounter. with God, where the faithful humbly come before the Lord in prayer to confess their sins, forgive those who have harmed them, and ask the Lord to set them free of all their spiritual and personal conflicts. And I am delighted to say that the Lord was again faithful to show up to bring freedom and healing. As I struggle with my conquering food addiction. I struggle to conquer it. Um, I haven't done it yet and failed to perform to the level of my expectations in various areas of my life and in my desire to serve the Lord more fully or effectively. I often wonder why God saved me and doubt whether or not I'm on the right path or if my efforts at ministry are just a waste of time. But yesterday, at a critical moment in the Steps to Freedom in Christ the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit showed up to let me and the participant know that God was indeed with us and had indeed set this brother free. I'm talking about the participant, of course, but that applies to me too. Recently, the Lord showed up in my life in another way that I can't mention that blessed me, a blessing that is almost beyond belief. But awesome as it was, after I received it and put it to use, I almost took God's favor for granted. Um, when you get help, you apply it to your problems. And if we aren't careful, we can be like one of those— one of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed, who were miraculously healed in an instant and just hurriedly went on their way, not even pausing for a moment to thank him. So yesterday at church, I was moved to recognize how the Lord came through for me and gave me— gave him thanks in prayer. And later in the afternoon, during the Freedom appointment I facilitated, the Holy Spirit moved again and showed me that the blessing I received was no fluke or pleasant happenstance. It and God's presence in that prayerful repentance process was further evidence of God's grace in my life. Whether I deserve it or not. Um, speaking of God's grace, the Turning Point, uh, with Dr. David Jeremiah, uh, devotion for today talks about God's grace, and I'm sharing it on the blog today to encourage us to know, to appreciate, and to continually seek it in our lives. David Jeremiah writes, marvelous, infinite, matchless, and David Uh, Jeremiah shares Ephesians 1:7, which says, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." And David Jeremiah writes, "The word grace occurs more than 150 times in the Bible, and most of them come from the pen of the Apostle Paul. He's the apostle of grace, and grace is the keynote of his teachings." In Ephesians 2:7, he talked about the exceeding riches of his grace. 1 Timothy 1:14, he said the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant. In Romans 5:20, he said grace abounded. It's this exceedingly rich, exceedingly abundant, abounding grace that meets every need in your life, that sends every blessing, that hears every prayer, that heals every hurt, that calms every fear, that forgives every sin, that makes Goodness and mercy follow you every day of your life. John 1:16 says, "Out of the fullness of his grace he has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another." The hymnist called it marvelous, infinite, matchless grace. Grace is God's gift to us, and Jesus is the embodiment of grace. He is God's gift to us, our Savior. If you want to draw a picture of grace, simply draw Jesus. Give thanks today for God's abundant grace. Amen. And, you know, I am very thankful for God's grace. But David Jeremiah also shared Max Lucado's quote that says, the meaning of life, the wasted years of life, the poor choices of life, God answers the mess of life with one word: grace. Amen. And I can say amen to that too, because he cleaned up the mess of me. You know, David Jeremiah's statement on grace, which I highlighted in bold on the blog and tried to in the PowerPoint here, has to be one of the best sentences that I have read about grace. To recap, Jeremiah said grace meets every need in your life sends every blessing, hears every prayer, heals every hurt, calms every fear, forgives every sin, and makes goodness and mercy follow you every day of your life. The typical definition for grace, unmerited favor, sums these points up, I guess, but at the same time seems to be inadequate to fully express what grace is. Grace is like art. It's hard to express verbally, but you know it when you see it, and it moves your heart to be moved and filled with a variety of emotions which can range from sadness to joy. Grace is one of the hardest things to articulate to others but is the easiest thing to experience because it is wholly God's work in your life. Grace is like the wind. It's invisible, but you can see its effects when it moves. And the human heart, it can move us to gratitude, grief, or joy. What is the world— what in the world can do something like that? Well, God can, and we know when he gives us his grace because it is like nothing else this world has to offer because it's his presence in our lives. Many people don't know his grace, and even Christians might not know how to describe it, and many others haven't fully experienced the depths of his grace. Honestly, I don't know if any of us have, but I do know that not enough people know about God's grace, and so I've been moved to try to help them to understand it and prayerfully to connect with God to experience it by doing the Grace Course online in April, you know, 2 weeks before Easter. The Grace Course is scheduled to begin. And the only question is, will anyone sign up for the journey to seek it?

If you're interested, you know, more about that later, but you can go to mtforchrist.com/group-coaching-events to sign up today.

Um, anyway, we move along. Uh, this morning's meditation verse comes from the section on loving and serving others, and the text highlights John 13:2-17 but just shares verses 14 and 15 from the New King James Version. Uh, the word of God says, if I then, your Lord and I have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Today's verses fall under the 7th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on loving and serving others. And that 7th point is: By washing the disciples' feet, Jesus modeled for us, showing us how we must love one another. And today's Bible verses remind us that our love is expressed in service to others. And I'm short on time today, so enough said. But seriously, I'm not that short on time. I believe that God gives us grace through our, through our faith in Jesus Christ for a reason: to be used by, by God to love and serve others, to give him glory, and to potentially bring more people into his kingdom. So let me encourage you to do something to represent God's kingdom and to show and share God's love, mercy, and grace to others. 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 95, where Adams shares a portion of Proverbs 5:6, which says, "She doesn't consider the path of life." And J.E. Adams writes, "The alien woman," verse 3, "is the one who has no part in the life of a believer because her, her sinful lifestyle is totally alien to all that God commands. The Christian must not keep company with her." She is the adulteress and the prostitute, one who was to be alien to the Commonwealth of Israel. She has no place in the land, nor should she have any place in your life. Her path is a prime example of the undisciplined life we discussed yesterday. She observes no boundaries but lives as she pleases. She considers only that which will please her at the moment. By not considering her path, she ignores the future, the consequences of her wanton life, and the end of such a path. She stumbles onward, drawing ever closer to death, until suddenly she is cut off without remedy. Christians undisciplined by God's rightly structuring word wander in sin as well. Are you one of them? Do you chafe under discipline? You may not, you may not be a prostitute, but do you live like one? Think again. Oh, and, uh, yeah, so, so J.E.

Adams really puts the, uh, you know, uh, puts the world on trial here, um, basically, and, and saying that, you know, they live for what they want, they don't consider their future.

That's living in the moment, you know, as, as the world what the world tells us to do and seek pleasure and, you know, everything, everything that the world can give you to make you feel happy. But if you don't consider your path and realize that your life will end someday and there is a God who made you and made you for a purpose that you'll have to answer to, you'll suffer greatly.

And not only will you suffer from the negative consequences of the sin you, you choose to do on Earth, You know, you'll, you'll end up in hell, uh, by not having faith in Jesus, and, um, because you won't consider the spiritual things until it's too late and you're gone.

And, you know, um, you know, and, and J.E. Adams, you know, puts it on Christians. If you're undisciplined and undisciplined by God's rightly structuring word, you'll wander into sin. And, um, you know, that's not what we're supposed to do.

And that's the reason why we always ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? And, um, have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? And are you trying to live, uh, according to his ways? Um, that's the path to life. And we really can't recommend anything else, um, because we know God's grace. We're thankful for God's grace, and we've experienced it change our life. Um, and, uh, it's given us a hope and a future and a purpose.

And part of the purpose is— my purpose is to celebrate, uh, is to celebrate my freedom and lead the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church. It's a Christian recovery and discipleship ministry, and, um, we, we encourage people to walk in the spirit away from their hurts, habits, and hangups. And, um, if you're in Upstate New York, we invite you to join our support group. Um, We meet at 6:30 Wednesday nights, and you can register online by going to Starpoint Church's websites and looking up the events, finding one of our meetings, and clicking on the link that says register, uh, to let us know you're coming.

Um, we're there for you to help.

And, um, the good news is if you can't make it to one of our meetings, um, we are sharing, uh, a series currently called Christian Recovery Celebrate Freedom with M.t. Clark on YouTube where we're sharing all the teachings that we give out at Celebrate Freedom. So we encourage you to go online and go to mtforgrace.com or YouTube and look up our playlist page where you can find that teaching. Beyond that, you can also find other teachings that we believe will you know, find or help you to find or increase your freedom in Christ. We've done series on the Victory Over the Darkness, the Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ in the past, and they're all available to you.

And if you appreciate those things we've done, we'd love to hear about it.

You can email us at mtforchrist247@gmail.com. And if you really feel moved and are appreciative Well, actually, before, before I say that, um, as I mentioned, we are doing the grace course. As, as long as someone signs up, we're doing the grace course in April, beginning on April 1st, online, Tuesday, 6:30 to 8:30. I'm leaving this open to anybody who wants to register, and you can register today by going to mtfreshprice.com/group-coaching-events our coaching events page.

The cost is $80, and it'll be 8 weeks of Christian teaching that encourage you to know and experience God's grace. And it's 2 weeks after Easter, so—

or 2 weeks before Easter, so you can experience, get to know about God's grace before Easter.

Come on, what an opportunity.

And if you appreciate what we do here, we would appreciate your support and your donations. You can go to m.t. forchrist.com, our donations page, donations/patreon.

Payments page and, uh, you know, give today. You can give via Venmo, PayPal, or the Cash App, and we greatly appreciate your support. Thank you.

And beyond that, we always end by asking the same question we asked before in a different way. Uh, are you empty for Christ too? Um, it's just another way of saying, have you, you know, fully surrendered to God?

And, um, did you invite the Holy Spirit to come in and you know, move you to, uh, to do what he wants you to do.

If so, we say great, keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we encourage you to pray. We know the power of prayer. We've seen it in our lives time and time again.

And we believe that if you pray for the Lord to reveal himself to you, he will. And if you pray to make Jesus your Lord and Savior, you will be saved. So we encourage you to do that. We know prayer works, and that's why we pray every day, like right now.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom.

We thank you so much for all that you do for us, Lord, and how you showed up, uh, most recently with that blessing, and, um, yesterday during the Freedom appointment, Lord, to show me that you are with me and you are for me and not against me, and you know, leading me in the way I should go, um, Lord. And we're asking for you to continue to do that today, um, as we go into work. We need you to open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead us into the way— lead us in the way we should go. Because all I want to do is represent you in your kingdom and do a good job for you, Lord. So I need your help, and I'm asking for it.

And Lord, while you're at it, we're asking help for, um, you to help anyone listening, reading, or watching this message, Lord, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith. And that you bless them too.

Your grace is amazing, and I know you have plenty of it to give, and we're asking for you to be gracious and to dispense it to as many people as you, as you see fit, Lord. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.