The Epic Journey Continues Relationships Dynamics Inventory – Purity 884

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 the afternoon sun shining through a hazy sky over the Hudson River and Skodak Creek and my driveway comes to us from yours truly as I stopped to capture the view from my front yard upon returning home to my home down by the river back on October 30th. Well, it's Wednesday and I am hitting the road to go to the shores of Lake Ontario in Oswego, New York tonight after work as part of a spiritual journey that will culminate in my volunteering for the ministry that delivered the radio message that saved my soul back in 2010. I will be serving as— serving at An Evening with David Jeremiah at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo on Friday and letting the Spirit guide me between now and then. So I'm excited and short on time. This morning I utilized some information one of the participants from the Freedom in Christ course provided in the chat last night to create the following relationship dynamics inventory. And because I took the time to make it, I am sharing it today on the blog and podcast. So here goes. Relationship Dynamics Inventory. As we seek to walk in the Spirit and become aware of the lies we have believed and recognize the things that, that, uh, the things we may have done or have failed to do or that we may have experienced from our parents, caregivers, family, loved ones, friends growing up, we have to take an honest inventory of our past and our past performance. A Freedom in Christ course participant shared the following list that he received from a ministry that seeks to reconcile relationships and to help people to honestly look at the things they have done or have been perceived to have done. And the list is a list of bullet points that reads as follows. Basically, the idea is that you would assess whether or not you're guilty of the following things, or may have done, or may have not have done the following list. And it's It's a fun list. So here goes: lack of interest in the things that are special to me, breaking promises, criticizing unjustly, allowing my brothers or sisters to put me down, misunderstanding my motives, speaking carelessly, punishing me for something I'd already been punished for, telling me that my opinions don't really matter, giving me the feeling that you never made mistakes, Not being gentle when pointing out my weaknesses or blind spots. Lecturing me and not understanding that all I need is some support. Never saying I love you. Not spending time alone with me. Being insensitive and rough. Being thoughtless. Never saying thank you. Speaking harsh words. Being inconsistent. Being taken for granted. Being told how to do something that I was doing on my own. Nagging me. Bossing me. Feeling unnoticed and unappreciated. Being ignored. Not being considered a thinking, feeling person. Being too busy to care for me. Being too busy to listen to what I have to say. Dismiss— dismissing my needs as not important and yours are more important. Bringing up mistakes from the past. You can utilize this list by providing it to your children, spouses, family, or friends to allow them an opportunity to honestly assess you, assess you without fear of reproach and with the intention of reconciliation and rebuilding and healing broken or troubled relationships. You can also use it for self-evaluation or evaluation of your relationship dynamics with parents, children, extended family, spouses, significant others, or friends. Friends. The basic principles of Christian discipleship recommend that you repent of any known sins, study God's Word to renew your mind, develop a daily prayer practice, and to seek the community, counsel, and accountability of other mature Christians. I would recommend that you also utilize the teachings presented in the Freedom in Christ course and Victory Over the Darkness regarding handling emotions well, Forgiving from the Heart: Relating to Others, uh, with the focus on working on one's own character and seeking to meet the needs of others without expectation, to help you in the process of evaluation and sanctification before attempting any reconciliation. For resources from Freedom in Christ Ministries, go to www.ficm.org. This document is is merely a tool to use for evaluation and should be used with wisdom and discretion. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me. Yeah, I know, that is one harsh list of things we may have to face. The participant in our Freedom in Christ course actually provided that to his wife and children to get the hard truth of how they felt he was doing as a husband and father. Talk about humbling. But sometimes we need the hard truth to help us to change, and there is no truth harder or more true than the Word of God. When we are faced with our failures and sins and relationship blunders, hope can be found in seeking the Lord and in repentance. The Lord can help you to change. He can transform your life. And while he can't change what happened in the past, He can help you move past it and correct your course going forward. So look in the mirror and see how you are doing, but be sure to look in God's Word and see how— who God made you to be. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, but you have to believe it and you have to start living like it, preferably in all the areas of your life. But God is gracious and patient, and he will meet you where you are and guide you little by little, one day at a time, into the new life that he has for you. But you have to be honest and have to surrender and decide to follow it. So as I will be letting the Spirit lead me over the next couple of days to Oswego tonight and to the KeyBank Center at 3:30 PM on Friday without much of a plan in between, Let me encourage you that even if you may not be 100% sure where the Lord will take you, you can trust that if you are following Him, that it will eventually lead you to a good place. So turn from the past and the ways of the world and follow the Lord into a new life that is epic and abundant with meaning and purpose and filled with the fruit of the Spirit. The epic journey starts the moment you follow him. So put your faith in Christ and go. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is Proverbs 24:12, and it says, don't excuse yourself by saying, look, we didn't know, for God understands all hearts and he sees you. He who guards your soul knows you knew. He will repay all people as their actions deserve. Today's verse reminds us of the sometimes painful realization that the Lord is all-knowing and he will repay people as their actions deserve. Uh, yeah, God knows everything, including what we know and don't know. So that is why I recommend to all those I encourage to be honest with the Lord, because there is no fooling him. Also, God is holy and will repay everyone as their actions deserve. Without Christ as our Lord and Savior, that means hell. So put your faith in Christ and avoid any chastisement by being honest, by not making excuses, and by living according to the Lord's wisdom and ways. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship. And today we continue— I think we're going to conclude— The Hiddenness of Prayer from Matthew 6. So if you'd like to see what Bonhoeffer has to say about the last half of the Lord's Prayer, go to mtforchrist.org and you'll find that, um, well, you'll find that resource at the end of today's blog post. Also at the end of today's blog post, you also find links to our podcast and our YouTube MT for Christ 247. So you can check out all our discipleship teachings for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. Those teachings I mentioned in the document that we should learn and apply to our relationship dynamics, they're all taught in those podcasts. So if you want to know what, you know, is taught, you can listen or, you know, watch the teachings on YouTube. For Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. The material is all based on the Word of God and the teachings of Dr. Neil Anderson, and they are transformative in nature. They set the captives free. They give you— they give people a new understanding of who they are in Christ, you know, by what? Basically teaching them who they are in Christ, because most of us don't know. Most of us grow up in cultural Christianity that we don't really fully understand what God has done for us, that we are new creations and we have amazing power to overcome and change. But we can do it— how? In the sweat of our brow? No, by faith, and faith in Christ alone and the power of the Holy Spirit. So if you don't know how to do that, we recommend you check out our teachings on the podcast or to go to ficm.org to get those resources directly from our ministry. Which is Freedom in Christ, of course. Well, the ministry I volunteer for. Anyway, we also revere the Word of God. There's no getting past that truth. That's the best hard truth and true truth that you're ever gonna get, and it's between the pages of the Bible. And, you know, and how, you know, we read that word, and it's not just stories, it's lessons, it's history, it's everything. It shows us what's true and who God is and who we are. And when we study it and learn and apply its teachings to our lives, you know, we are walking in the Spirit. We experience the fruit of the Spirit. So be a real Christian. Study the Bible and pray and live according to what it says. You know, choose God's way instead of your way. You'll find the fruit of the Spirit of peace, love, and joy. Are along his path and not necessarily along ours. So as we jump, uh, jump ahead here, uh, I gotta sort of do things backwards today. I do my Bible study after the podcast because I started the panic about running out of time, and I'll be out of time in no time. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for the amazing things I heard and saw last night, the Freedom in Christ meeting that we had, the testimonies of how, you know, these men have come into your presence humbly and have come away with a new sense of freedom and purpose and meaning. And Lord, it encourages me to keep walking and talking with you. And Lord, we just pray for anyone who might be listening or reading the message today, that they'd be blessed, that they honestly look at what— how they've lived their lives in relationship with that relationships dynamic inventory and say, wow, you know, maybe I'm not the greatest guy after all, and maybe I need to walk in a new way. Maybe I could follow the Lord into a new life. Lord, we know it's possible. We know you've done it in our lives, and if you did it with me, oh brother, we know you can do it for anybody, but they have to follow you. And so we, we pray for the people listening today that they would be encouraged in their walk. And we're praying for you, Lord, to bless them with your grace, divine favor, and the Holy Spirit to guide them. Lord, as always, we pray for you to go before us today. We need you to open our eyes to the things we need to see. We need you to guide us in the way we should go, quite literally, because, uh, we'll be working and then we'll be on the road., for a few hours. And, uh, we just pray for you to be with— well, we know you'll be with us, uh, but we pray for you to guide us and, uh, protect us along the way. Um, Lord, we pray that for everyone listening as well. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we, we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.