The Little Tree and The Big Sky – Peace and Joy Right Now Purity 899

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 short tree with abundant shade under a pleasant blue sky on the shores of an unknown beach comes to us from a, from the photo archives of my phone and an unknown friend who shared this scene back on social media back on November 25th, 2021. In my zeal to share beautiful scenes of God's creation, I will save photos that friends have shared, but when you have as many well-traveled friends as I have, you end up saving more photos than you use. So this morning I decided to dial it back a year and see what I could find. This was the first one that grabbed my attention, so I shared it, and I am setting it free. I'm putting it out there and deleting it from my phone. So if this memory is yours, thank you for going there and sharing it. If you want to let us know who you are and where you went, we will update the blog. Yesterday my wife dressed up in a red and white dress and Santa hat to do face painting at Troy's Land— Troy's Landscape Supply. Yeah. Supply in Cahoes for their Black Friday event where scores of people picked up their Christmas trees. So when I look at today's photo, I'm thinking of Charles Schulz's Peanuts and Linus's humble little Christmas tree and am reminded that sometimes the little things, the simple things, can mean a lot. Let's face it, our little tree that could on this unknown beach isn't much to look at. The sky's pretty, the water's pretty, and yeah, this bonsai-esque tree is cute, but where's the sun? But sometimes we don't need the flash and big things to have joy. Sometimes we can just rest in the peace of what is and appreciate life for what it is. Last night I was out walking my canine friend Harley at 6 PM, which means it was as black as midnight outside. I wear a headlamp when I take the dog out at night because I would like to see where I am going, and I would like any motorists that are flying down Waite Road to see me too. The thing about walking under the light of the headlamp, though, is that you sort of have tunnel vision. The headlamp is a good one and casts quite a strong beam of light into the distance, but the contrast of the dark of night makes it feel like the world outside of the light has faded to black and more or less disappeared. But last night, on the return trek back to my countryside home, I happened to look up to see that all— although the land was dark, the sky above me was illuminated by a galaxy of stars. It was a real planetarium-like view just overhead. But my headlamp was obscuring the show, so I stopped the dog from walking for a moment and turned it off and just beheld the glory of outer space, standing in the dark on the side of a road in upstate New York, and enjoyed this little moment under the great big sky. And these two experiences of the little tree on an unknown beach and the great big night sky last night remind me to remind you to step outside the situations of your life and to immerse yourself in the joy and peace that you can find in the present moment. In every life there is drama— the bills, the people, the work, the news— and all of these things can so preoccupy our minds and emotions, it is as if we are walking in the night and out and our light is only shining on them. Our light is only shining on them. Our preoccupation with these problems or ongoing situations give us tunnel vision. While we should always take care of the things we need to take care of, when we are only focused on the problems or dramas of our lives, we can miss the moments of peace and joy that are there for the taking. Our lives can become so busy taking care of business that we end up missing the moments where we could have found a little bit of peace or a little bit of joy. And that's why I recommend a life of Christian discipleship, of walking in the Spirit, where you keep walking and talking with God. Because if you are doing that, you will gain two things: one, an understanding of what really matters in life, our relationship with God, and 2) freedom from the preoccupations with the, with the world system and what other people think. And when you have those 2 things and agree with what the Bible says about you, you have freedom in Christ, and you will experience the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life as your meaning and purpose come into focus as you widen the lens of your vision. Last night, I thanked the Lord for the moment under the stars and the walk back to the house and the cool evening breeze that told told me I was alive and well, and I thanked him for his presence that told me that I would never be alone. I came to the realization again that rather being consumed with the dramas of this world, there is great joy and peace to be found from the little things, from the big things, and from just the experience of life. These are things that anyone can dig on because when you have a relationship But when you have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, you can enjoy the mystery of life even more because you know there is a purpose to it all, because you know the author of the story. And even though we have no idea, um, what's going to happen next or how the dramas of our lives will play out, when we stay in his presence, we can enjoy the show all the same. So take a timeout to look around and realize, hey, I'm okay, and enjoy the fact and, and enjoy the presence of the Lord who created that moment just for you and who has a whole host more of them waiting for you to experience and appreciate as you keep walking and talking with him. 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 9:25, and it says, all athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will— they do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for a pri— for an eternal prize. Today's verses— verse encourages us us to be disciplined in our training, reminding us that the work we do for the kingdom of God will never fade away. Discipline, discipline can be viewed as a dirty word because it is usually associated with performing some, something repetitive that is done for our own good, but that may not have immediate results. Also, discipline can be associated with hard work. When contemplating change, we like the idea of the finished result, but in the grueling process of getting there, the discipline our goals require, and the discipline our goals require, we can easily grow weary and decide to take a break from or quit altogether the disciplined activities we decided were necessary to accomplish our goals. But those who stick with their disciplined plan of action consistently and with a commitment to the long term discovered that discipline is actually a good thing. So if you have a health goal or a financial goal in mind like I do, let's encourage one another to walk out of this Thanksgiving, uh, weekend with a renewed commitment to be disciplined in our approach to accomplishing them. This can be a rough weekend for discipline when it comes to those two areas of our lives, and believe me, I am preaching to the choir when I say we should endeavor to get back on on that bucking horse and not give up on our goals, regardless of how much pie we ingested or how much money Black Friday deals may have cost us. That's the great thing about being a Christian. There is grace for our failures, and there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. However, we should answer the call to repent when we realize that we have stepped off the path. The good news is that in Christ we are accepted regardless of our performance. So in one sense, it doesn't really matter what we do. But careful now, because the devil would love to tell you to remain lazy, selfish, and sinful because of God's grace. That's a trap. Paradoxically, while one— while in one sense it doesn't matter what we do, in Christ we have been given the power to do things that we normally would have considered impossible. To quote myself, when I discovered that the Lord was willing to do the impossible in my life, I said, "What's next?" So that is why we engage our discipline and decide to follow where the Lord leads us, because if he puts something on, on our hearts to accomplish, we should know that we are able to perform it. But we have to pursue it and do it. God has given us the eternal prize in everything for life and godliness, so let us agree to stay disciplined and keep walking in the way the Lord would have us walk, and let us go accomplish the good works that He has prepared for us to perform. 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 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're sharing from the interpretation of— from The Messengers, the interpretation of Matthew 10, with the section called The Apostles. So if you want to see what the names of the apostles are from Matthew 10:1-4, see what Bonhoeffer has to say about that, go to M.t. Clark forchrist.org, and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. And as always, um, we encourage you to check out our discipleship teachings that we did back in 2021, uh, that are available on our podcast. They're based on Dr. Neil Anderson's works and the word of God, um, called Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. Those are all available on the podcast and the YouTube channel. And we also provide a Bible study of sorts as our friends Arthur and Susanna Sincotti join us each week for a Bible study discussion at Arthur— Arthur Walthers. So if you want to check that out, there's, there's the archive of all our Bible studies on there as well under the heading Bible Study with the Sincatis. And I am looking forward to— because we took off last week for Arthur and Susanna, was— were on the road in Mississippi somewhere or in Louisiana somewhere on Sunday morning, and they— we didn't do the Bible study. So I'm not sure where in the world the Sincatis are today at this moment. But it is my prayer that Arthur will— it's my prayer that they return home and/or are on the road and have prepared a Bible study. I don't know. I don't know if we'll have another episode or another week off, but that's okay. I don't have to know. I can enjoy the moment when it gets here, and that's the point. You know, I've learned that one of the realizations I had last night as I was walking out in the night was, you know, we really have to appreciate our lives for what they are as we live them. And that's just the joy of being, the joy of breathing and being okay, being not in pain and not being consumed with the problems that we have with other people or situations or whatever. We'll have to deal with those things, but we don't have to deal with them every minute of our lives. And we should be able to enjoy the simple things in life. We have a roof over our heads, you know, we're not in— like I said, we're not in pain or not in too much pain. And this is the day that the Lord has made, and I'll rejoice, you know, and be glad in it. Regardless of what I face, because I know the Lord. And that's the thing, you know, we can have a peace that goes beyond understanding when we have the assurance of our salvation and the assurance of God's good plans and purposes for our lives. Um, Christ came and, uh, he died for us, and everyone who puts their faith in him lives forever. So if we live forever doesn't really matter much what happens here on earth and this, in this thing. One day we're going to be with the Lord, either when he returns or when, when we leave this mortal coil and enter into his heavenly kingdom. So he takes away the fear of death and the power of sin, and when we walk in the freedom that He's given us. That's where we find that fruit of the Spirit of peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, patience, and even self-control. So let's keep walking and talking with God until we get there perfectly. It is Saturday, so enjoy your day off and get ready for Christmas or whatever you need to do. I'm at my countryside home, so I'll When I return on Sunday, maybe I'll put up the Christmas tree at River House. I'm not sure if my wife and her daughter will decorate the house or not here at Countryside. I'm sure they will, I just don't know when. But I'm gonna find peace in the moments in between now and then and everywhere in between. So I encourage you to keep walking and talking with God to, to experience that for yourself. All right, um, that's it. I'm gonna pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the life you've given us. Lord, we pray for the people listening today, that you bless them, come alongside them in their— with their prayer requests, and, um, just guide them in the way they should go. Lord, as we pray every time, we pray for you to go before us today, to open our eyes to the things You want us to see and to set things up and to move things and to encourage us to walk in the way we should walk. Lord, we thank You, we love You, and we praise You. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.