The Path to the Light of Life Purity 855

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 setting sun fading into the horizon, resulting in Waite Road fading into darkness, comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene during a late afternoon walk back on September 24th. Well, it's Thursday again, and even though I have shifted the night of the Freedom in Christ course that I facilitate on— facilitate for Freedom in Christ Ministries to Tuesday nights, some traditions die hard, and I still like the idea of sharing pictures of pathways on Thursdays to encourage my friends to be intentional about following the Lord with the way they live their lives, because I know it is the best advice I can give them, and because Thursdays, um, were the night I had taught and led the Christian recovery ministry Celebrate Freedom a couple of years ago. Yeah, 2020 at Rock Solid Church in Hudson, New York. Time flies, it sure does fly, uh, as we live our lives. And I can recall from my distant past of my undergraduate college days that Thursdays were also considered the beginning of the weekend, as Friday classes were avoided in general. And if I did register for one, they suffered sporadic attendance. As my lifestyle of debauchery in my college days led me to pursue things other than higher education. Um, well, so I guess it was, uh, appropriate having Recovery Ministries on, on Thursdays. Uh, it was a good choice as a substitute activity to purge those tendencies to kick back and lose myself in my addictions. Uh, the process of recovery definitely has— was a hard road to walk at first. But the more I sought the Lord and believed the truth about who I, who I am in Christ, um, the road to recover— the road to recovery and repentance was a lot easier as I learned the threefold keys to victory and overcoming. The three keys, uh, the three things we need to know intellectually, emotionally, spiritual— spiritually, and experientially to overcome, to experience victory and our freedom in Christ are: Number 1, my sinful choices are not right or good for me. Our sinful choices violate God's moral law and the laws of common sense, as our sins do us damage in our mind, body, soul, and spirit. Most of us know this. But unfortunately, some of the negative consequences of sin— somehow the negative consequences of sin never seem to be enough to stop us from sinning for good. Two, we need to know that my new identity in Christ is not compatible with my old sinful, selfish, and fleshly ways from my pre-Christ life, where I was dead in trespasses and sins. Also, my new identity, my new life in Christ, has actually given me the power to say no to my sinful ways for good. The narrative that needs to happen when we consider falling into sin is, "That's not who I am anymore. I am a Christian. I follow Jesus, and I don't do those things anymore. I walk in the light, not in darkness anymore." Here we not only stand in our identity in Christ by affirming our belief of what God has done for us, we also act on it by shunning sin and thus verifying the truth that we are indeed alive to God, dead to sin, and new creations in Christ. Uh, the third thing we need to know is my sin disrupts the harmony of my relationship with God. And because of what he has done for me and who I am now in Christ, I don't want any— to do anything to get in the way of the peace and joy that I have with God. My relationship with God is too precious precious to mess it up even for a second. While I know I have been forgiven of all my sins, I have sinned enough in my past and choose to obey the Lord to keep my communion with Him unsullied. I love Him and I want to do what pleases Him. This obviously seeks to foster our love for God and reflects the truth that sometimes we do things for our loved ones that we would never do for ourselves. You might not find these, uh, find the, this 3-step recipe for overcoming anywhere else. Um, the Lord knows it took me a long time of seeking him and his righteousness to see the different aspects of my victory. And it is my prayer that you see that the, the 3 steps are more steps of faith than, than works of our will. I seek to encourage people to keep walking and talking with God because I know that if someone seeks God, uh, God's will for their life by studying his word and by applying its wisdom to wisdom in life, the Lord will empower them to repent and not be complacent about the sin in their lives. Unfortunately, many churches are so graceful and compassionate that they will console their congregations about their sins rather than challenge them to overcome them. Uh, the just a sinner saved by grace mentality keeps Christians in bondage to their sins and in the negative mind states that result from the guilt and shame of their moral failures, and the demonic influences that gain a foothold in their lives because of their failure to repent. So pervasive is this compassionate care of failure and forgiveness that many Christians don't take seriously the Word of God that tells them that they have been freed from sin. They disbelieve the Word of God, and while they will proclaim that Christ is the Lamb who overcomes the sin of the world, somehow he has failed to overcome their personal sins. That the Christian faith may work for some, but it doesn't work for them. If they don't— if they don't think that victory over, over the sin— sins that besets them is possible, why would they even try? Besides, they have been forgiven, like the woman caught in adultery. Christ won't condemn them. You will actually hear that rationale from some, some Christians, but I always encourage them to read through to the end to see that while the woman caught in adultery was given mercy, that was not all she received. John 8:10-12 tells us, when Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, woman, 'Where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?' She said, 'No, Lord, no one, Lord.' And Jesus said to her, 'Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.' Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life.' Go and sin no more. What? When we put our faith in Christ, God forgives us everything we ever did or will ever do. But he calls us to follow Christ and to repent, to sin no more. Now granted, we are all sinners to some degree because James 4:7 tells us that— tells us to do what is right and not to do what is sin. And none of us does everything good, every good thing that we, we know we should do, because none of us is perfect. However, there is a big difference of being guilty of the failure to do good and the rebellious violation of from God's moral standards or blatant sin. To rest in blatant sin is to lie down in darkness and to deny God's power to give us new life. To remain hard-hearted towards God's commands to repent could reveal that we don't worship him, that we worship ourselves or our sin, and the love of God is not in us. We claim to be Christians and remain unchanged by continually falling into the same old sins of our past. We may discover that our faith was false. We may hear Christ repeat those words spoken in Matthew 7:23 where He says to the false converts of Christianity, "I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." This verse and verses like them put the fear of God in me and caused me to seek the Lord to assure myself that I was His. They caused me to pray and seek repentance. And the Lord was gracious to answer my prayer and to give me the strength and wisdom to agree with His word and to leave my darkness behind. I am not special. I tend to learn from trial and error and have made lots of mistakes in my life and on the path of Christian discipleship. But the word of God is true, and the Holy Spirit lives in us to help us, to comfort us, and to guide us in the way we should go. It only takes a little bit of faith to believe we can overcome. The word of God teaches a gospel of repentance and transformation. We simply need to believe it and follow the Lord to find it. So keep walking and talking with God. He may, he may, he may have found you in the darkness, but he doesn't want you to stay that— stay there. He was He wants you to know him and the peace, love, and joy that comes from walking out of the darkness and into his light of life. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses— verse is Romans 14:12, and it says, so then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Today's Bible verse reminds us that each one of us will give account to God for how we lived our lives. Today's verse should convict us and cause us to examine how we live our lives and choose to make the decision to repent and follow the Lord's ways for what is left of our lives. Some brash and not too bright people may say things like, "Wait until I get to heaven, I'm going to give God a piece of my mind." But the truth is they will be humbled and not hurl accusations or condemnations towards our Heavenly Father, but will have to answer to Him with how they lived their lives and failed to worship Him or failed to read His Word or obey His commands. And if they fail to put their faith in Christ, there will be hell to pay. But the good news is the Christian does not go to hell, and their account of their lives will be used to determine their rewards rather than to determine their punishment. So put your faith in Christ and be saved from God's wrath, and start the good works that God created you, you for, to store up for yourself treasures in heaven. As always, I invite all to go to mteamforchrist.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters with Christ, 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 concluding Chapter 5, Discipleship and the Individual. So if you want to read that last section from Chapter 5 of Bonhoeffer's work, uh, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see it, uh, at the end of today's blog post. And it is Thursday, and although I don't teach discipleship on Thursday, I am doing a teaching on Bonhoeffer's book. And as fate would have it, we're doing Chapter 5 tonight on Discipleship and the Individual. So if you want some entertainment or some education, tune into tonight's lesson when I upload it on YouTube, where I'll be joined most likely by my good friend Peter McCabbage and possibly others as I present a PowerPoint that breaks down Chapter 5 of Bonhoeffer's work. As always, we encourage people to follow the Lord. We provide teachings on our podcast and YouTube of Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. We also provide a Bible study discussion with Arthur and Susanne Cinkati called Bible Study with the Cinkatis. So if you want to be encouraged, you know, we offer all that to you to encourage a life of faith. Well, it's Thursday, time's running short, and I gotta pray., before running out the door. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we just thank you so much for all that you've done for us and that you've led us to repentance. And we see the joy of the light of life, uh, that we have now in Christ. And we just want to shine that light to, uh, encourage other, other people to come to know it, um, to surrender to your will for their lives, and then to discover the abundant life that you always meant for us to have. Uh, Lord, we pray for anyone listening today. We come alongside their prayer requests. We know life's not easy and there might be challenges they need help with, Lord. So we're coming alongside them. We ask for your divine favor and grace to be poured upon them, uh, Lord. And we just pray the general prayer we pray every day. Lord, uh, please go before us, uh, set things up for our benefit and our, and our our sanctification and lead us in the way we should go. Open our eyes to the beautiful things you want us to see and lead us to do the things you would have us do, as we, we only seek to do your will and to represent your kingdom here on the earth. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.