The Joy of Finished Business and Looking Ahead - Purity 1233

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 pink and blue sky, uh, well, pink and blue morning sky over a roadway that is lighted with Christmas lights comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who captured this scene presumably near their home back on Christmas Day of 2020. Well, it's Thursday, and I share this blast from the past because of its simple beauty. It's— it features a pathway, and as we get closer to a new year, I tend to take a look back to reflect and resolve things from the past. So by sharing this photo on the blog, I will delete it from my phone's photo archive and be one photo space freer going forward. It's good to reflect on the past from time to time, and it is absolutely wonderful to get rid of things we no longer need. And to tie up loose ends. Every problem we solve is one less burden to carry as we go forward in life. And I am happy to report that yesterday I had a humongous burden lifted from my shoulders, my mind, and my credit report that I previously had only hoped and prayed for deliverance from. In 2019, my divorce agreement was signed and finalized, and among the terms of the agreement was this was the sale of the house at 7 Birch Hill Road in Quarryville. I vacated the home in what I think of as my Exodus to Stuyvesant, New York, as the Lord used my determination, hard work, and other fortuitous circumstances to give me the means to buy a house for my children and I to go to in 2020. My ex remained behind, but, but basically refused to sell the house until yesterday. The house has been sold and the closing is completed. And even though I expected to receive next to nothing from its sale when I signed the divorce agreement in 2019, the Lord was faithful to move all things together for my good, as I was blessed with a buyer who paid us more than we did for the property, enough to cover all the associated costs and expenses and to give me 66% of the money I had paid off the principal of the mortgage. While I didn't walk away rich, I did walk away with enough to pay off all my debt and bankroll a trip to Disney World in February. So I'll take it, and I'll thank the Lord every day, as is my habit, for who he is, what he has done, and what he continues to do. I am far from perfect and still have many areas to improve in, but I will do my best to follow the Lord's will for my life. And I will praise and thank him all the days of my life for the new life he has given me in Christ. The path of Christian discipleship has not always been easy. I have suffered loss and have been challenged to rethink everything I knew about life as I've tried to understand who the Lord has made me to be and to turn from my ways of doing things to his way. And while it has been difficult at times, I have no regrets and earnestly encourage any and everyone who is reading or listening to this message to make Jesus their Savior and to completely surrender to His Lordship and to follow Him with the way you live. Christ is definitely— Christ's is definitely the path less traveled these days, but I will proclaim with my dying breath that it has made all the difference and leads to peace, love, and joy. So with 2024 right around the corner, let me encourage you to get on the path of Christian discipleship, to become the person God created you to be, the person you always wanted to be but never thought you could be. And watch and see just how good and faithful God is when you decide to live with and for him. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Crews. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on Comfort, and today's verses are Psalm 139:1-12 from the New American Standard Bible. And the word of the Lord says, O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is too high. I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from your spirit, or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you. Today's verses fall under the fourth— well, the fifth point of our counseling reference resource sections on comfort, and that fifth point is God knows us more intimately. He holds and guides us by his hand. Today's verses tell us of the one who never leaves us or forsakes, forsakes us, who follows us wherever we go throughout the earth and who knows us completely. God is all-knowing and ever-present. No matter where we go, there we are and there God is. He knows our location physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually at all times. He knows us better than any other, any other, and knows where we were in the past and where we are going in the future. So why not walk with him and trust him to help you with the rest of your life? God is with us whether we like it or not, so why not make peace with him by putting our faith in Jesus and trusting him to guide us into the future. Trust me when I tell you that his plans are better than your plans. God is with us, so make peace with him and be comforted by his presence. 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 God is in the Manger. Reflections on Advent and Christmas by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And today we're sharing from, I think it's the third day of Christmas, um, with, as we go through the 12 Days of Christmas and the Epiphany. Um, today's message for December 28th from Bonhoeffer is With God There Is Joy. And Bonhoeffer writes, everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. Since ancient times in the Christian Church, acedia—sadness of heart, resignation—has been considered a mortal sin. Serve the Lord with gladness, urges the Scripture. For this our life has been given to us, and for this it has been sustained for us to this present hour. The joy that no one can take from us belongs not only to those who have been called home, but also to us who are still living. In this joy we are one with them, but never in sadness. How are we supposed to be able to help those who are without joy and courage if we ourselves are not born by courage and joy? What is meant here is not something made or forced, but something given and free. With God there is joy, and from him it comes down and seizes spirit, soul, and body. And where this joy has seized a person, it reaches out around itself, it pulls others along, it bursts through closed doors. There is a kind of joy that knows nothing at all of the pain, distress, and anxiety of the heart, but it cannot last. It can only numb for a time. The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the distress of the cross. Therefore, it is invincible and irrefutable. And then our resource shares from Kathleen Norris, uh, Norris's book, uh, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, uh, this following passage. Acedia may be an unfamiliar term to those not well-versed in monastic history or medieval literature. But that does not mean it has no relevance for contemporary readers. I believe that such standard dictionary definitions of acedia as apathy, boredom, or torpor do not begin to cover it. And while we may find it convenient to regard it as a more primitive word for what we now term depression, the truth is much more complex. Having experienced both conditions, I think it is likely that most of the restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia, and enervating despair that plagues us today is the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress. And finally, our resource shares Psalm 100, and the Word of God says, make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the, all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever. And his faithfulness to all generations. That concludes our sharing from Bonhoeffer's God is in the Manger for December 28th. And I would impress upon you to try to experience that Lord of, you know, that joy of the Lord. Acedia basically was sort of, you know, Saint Augustine apparently called acedia sorrow over spiritual goodness. In other words, you know, they felt the— somebody felt the burden of being a saint, um, and was, uh, lost the joy of the Lord. They became depressed about trying to follow God, and they sort of lost the joy of their salvation and, and just sort of was, you know, was a, was a depressed Christian.

And so this acedia, you know, is, uh is that spiritual sadness, basically.

And it can happen when we don't follow the Lord and we lose our focus and try to find experiential pleasure, um, you know, in life itself without a good, uh, good relationship with the Lord. You can, you can easily get depressed about, you know, the, the state of our flesh and what we're supposed to, supposedly supposed to experience as being a Christian. And that's why we persist in our daily practices of prayer and Bible study, to be reminded of who we are in Christ, who God is, and be aware that he's alive and well and active throughout the earth, and that he's with us in good times and bad. And so it can be difficult, especially as we draw near to the, near to the end of the year, as we reflect and look about, look at what's changed, the things we've lost, the people that are no longer with us. You know, there's, there's an opportunity to, to reflect and, you know, look ahead, or, you know, with hope, or to look behind and and to be depressed.

So there's, there's a choice there, and, uh, it's best to count your blessings and move forward and move on, um, with things.

You can't live in the past, but God is with us in the present, and he will guide our future.

So it's best to follow him.

That's what we're here to do, is to encourage that and to encourage you that you can overcome the problems of this world.

Through your faith and from doing what is right according to the Lord.

So we encourage that because we've experienced it ourselves.

We'll be thanking the Lord every day of our life for saving us and changing us as we've escaped addiction and bad relationships and, you know, just the worldly ways as we continue to try to, you know, grow. And follow the Lord.

You know, I was looking at photos from 2020, and among the photos were photos of me.

And, um, I don't know how much weight I've lost since, since 2020, but I'm in the best physical shape of my life, and I barely recognize the person in the mirror from the people— from the person from 2020.

And that's a good thing.

I feel wonderful physically, and I just know, you know, I've learned so much about how we're enslaved to the things of this world in terms of substance and, you know, men's performance-based, you know, ideas about what we're worth and the goodness of God.

I'm going to keep talking about it and encourage people to follow the Lord. I'm not asking you to follow me, I'm asking you to follow God. That's more than listening to the pastor at church or serving in the building. That's discovering your purpose and meaning in life according to the Lord.

And we try to serve him and point, you know, people to him to discover their purpose and meaning. It's a good, good life that the Lord has given us, and it's best realized when we walk with him.

So that's what we'll be doing for the end of 2023 and prayerfully all of 2024. We encourage people to keep walking and talking with God every day. Today I have off.

My wife and I are going to go away for the weekend tomorrow, so I'm not really sure what we have today, but I'll be diving into Neil Anderson's Discipleship Counseling as I have a class that requires that reading in the new year.

So I'm going to do that, or at least some of that today, and enjoy my Christmas vacation. I've been blessed with the time off, and I've been blessed with the closing on my old house.

And right now I'm as free as I can be, I think, in terms of, you know, my freedom in Christ and freedom from financial burdens. And we're going to enjoy it. We're going to rejoice. So thank you, Jesus. Thank you, God. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

Let's pray.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You delivered us out of the darkness of addiction and sin, and you continue to lead us in the way we should go. Lord, we owe you everything. You've given us our lives and our freedom, and, uh, we dedicate our life to follow you from this day forward and forevermore. Um, from here to eternity and beyond. So we thank you, Lord. And Lord, we pray for anybody who's listening or reading today's message, that you would bless them and come alongside their prayer requests and their walk of faith so you can show them just how free they can be. Um, Lord, we pray for you to bless them. And today we just pray for you to go before us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and move our steps the way we should go, because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord. As, um, you've shown us what life means and love means, and, uh, we just want to point other people to discover— discover you and discover what you have for them.

So, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.