The Pathway and Process of Brokenness - Purity 1509

Welcome to the MT4Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, uh, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a winding wooden pathway making its way over the mud and around broken trees of the forest along the Wilkinson National Recreation Trail in the Saratoga National National Historic Park comes to us from yours truly as I capture the scene while taking a hike with my wife Tammy Lynn back on April 27th earlier this year. Well, it's Thursday, and while, uh, and I share this pathway photo as a visual reminder or encouragement to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship, which begins with the joy of our salvation and continues with the joy of our freedom and transformation transformation in Christ, or at least it should. While our salvation is a free gift that we receive by the grace of God, our freedom, sanctification, and transformation is a cooperative effort, um, of us and the Holy Spirit, where we actually grow in and continue to experience the grace of God. Peter's— the Apostle Peter's final words in Scripture tell us Uh, in 2 Peter 3:17-18, uh, I am warning you ahead of time, dear friends. Be on guard so that you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All glory to him, both now and forever. Amen. Yep, we can grow in grace and have a better knowledge of Jesus when we guard ourselves from the the errors of the wicked people of the world system, uh, that would deny the gospel of Jesus Christ and tempt us to believe in anything other than Jesus. The path of Christian discipleship causes us to go beyond our understanding of Jesus as Savior and invites us into the depths of experiencing Jesus as Lord, and to be led out of the darkness of the world's ways and into the grace that empowers us to experience freedom and victory over our sins. The In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotional for today, uh, addresses this topic, so I'm sharing it on the blog today to encourage all of us to enter into what Stanley calls the process of brokenness. Charles Stanley writes, Brokenness: The Process. Sometimes God works in us in painful— wait, sometimes God's work in us is painful, but the result is always beautiful. It's tempting to think we don't need much improvement. While many people can see they could probably use a little bit of maintenance in some areas, they will usually add, but I'm a good person. However, the truth is that the Father refuses to settle for humanity's meager vision of good enough. He wants something so much better for us. God sees each believer as the person he or she will be when fully yielded to Christ. He then sets about achieving that complete renovation by transforming the present self into the image of his Son. An essential step in God's remodeling work involves removing whatever is ungodly in our life. This process is often uncomfortable, but it's worth it. God targets habits, attitudes, and relationships that don't honor him. He applies pressure to direct our attention to those places so we'll surrender them to him. Conforming our will to God's changes who we are. In the midst of our transformation, pain from his tools may temporarily obscure the beauty of his design, but nothing is more splendid to the Lord than a committed obey-no-matter-what follower. Submit to him so that he might remake you into the son or daughter daughter he has in mind. That was from our good— well, from, uh, someone we really respect, Dr. Charles Stanley. Um, and I say amen. You know, just like the original apostles, Christians are invited to leave everything behind to follow Jesus. And while Jesus meets us where we are, where we are at, uh, when he calls us into the kingdom, he encourages us not to stay there. Jesus came to heal and set the captives free. God forgives us of all our faults, faults, but gives us the power through the Holy Spirit to leave them behind. God understands our weaknesses and is patient, so he doesn't expect instant perfection, but does supply us with all we need to make progress. And when we decide to obey no matter what, to do things God's way instead of ours, We may struggle at times, but if we keep following the Lord, we will be amazed at the changes that God does in us. The Lord set me free from alcohol, drugs, sex addiction, and has done some mighty work renewing my mind and body in the area of food addiction. I still struggle with this battle and sometimes get discouraged that I haven't been able to reach my ideal weight, but this morning I looked in the mirror and realized that the man looking back at me was completely different from who I was when I was much younger. I've made incredible progress since starting this journey in 2010, and the Lord put it on my heart to rejoice over what we've accomplished so far. Yeah, I said we because I didn't and couldn't have done this by myself. The Lord gave me the power to overcome I just followed him. At this— and this morning he put it on my heart to remind me that I am a long way from where I started, and that I am so free from where I was that the enemy had to settle for stealing my joy over my victory by getting me to focus on my lack of perfection. The Lord reminded me that he doesn't expect perfection. And, and that when we are following the Lord, we are already standing in a place of victory. We have everything we need in Christ, and our Christian walk is just the process of receiving more from the Lord. God doesn't want us to be trapped in bondage to sin and will patiently work in and through us to increase our, our peace, freedom, and joy. So let's rejoice for what the Lord has done. And let's keep going to where he wants to lead us. 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 giving, and today, uh, the verses are Luke 6:27-28 from the New American Standard Bible. The word of God says, but I say to you, hear, love your enemies Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Today's verses fall under the 10th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on giving, and that 10th point is: Be merciful and do good even to your enemies. Follow God's example. Today's Bible verse, uh, verses are the words of Jesus that confound us and show us that following Jesus is completely different from our natural tendencies. Jesus is God and knows the truth about eternity. And because he knows what lies in store for those separated from, from God, he commands us to be compassionate and loving to our enemies. Our enemies need the grace and mercy of God just as we did. And so we should not only forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing, we should love them, do good for them. Bless them, and pray for them. God loves all his children, and our enemies are just like us, in need of a savior. And so the Lord directs us to give our enemies the mercy and grace that we have received from God, and to pray for them in the hope that one day our enemies will become our brothers and sisters in Christ. 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. And today we continue sharing from Day by Day Along the Way by J.E. Adams. It's a 365-day devotional, and we are in day 7, where Adams shares a portion of Hebrews 3:13, which says, 'Encourage one another every day, as long as we can still call it today.' And Adams writes, 'While awaiting the dawning of the new world of heavenly rest, you are keenly aware that it still lies ahead as you see sin and misery all around. Since the path you travel is narrow, you come into contact with others making the trip. They struggle, stumble, and fall just as you do. You therefore need to mutually encourage others in the thing— other— encourage each other, sorry, in the things of the Lord. You should not forsake church attendance because there others stimulate you by preaching and godly mutual exhortations. Mutual encouragement is needed to enable you to continue in your way until the day dawns and you eventually see the noonday sun. But rather, we must encourage each other, and all the more as you see the day, day drawing near. Hebrews 10:25. You need others. They need you. God fashioned his church so as to provide the stimulation and encouragement we all must have. Don't fail to appropriate all it offers. God recognizes no such thing as a lone wolf Christian. Amen. And believe me, I understand the tendency for those who want to be a lone wolf Christian. You know, some, you know, hurt people hurt people, and there's a lot of hurt people in the church. And sometimes, you know, with that ironing sharpens iron, rubs you the wrong way. So if we can forgive our enemies, which, and, you know, pray for them and, and do good for the enemies, we can do good for each other in the church because we need each other. This pathway of Christian discipleship is the, is the road less traveled. And we will be persecuted for our faith. And so we need to be, um, you know, an encouragement to one another. And that's why I do this blog. It's, you know, I never really thought about these verses in Hebrews that tell us to encourage each other every day, um, but that's what I try to do. That's why the podcast is M.t. for Christ 24/7, because we, we're going to walk with the Lord the rest of our life, and that's every day. And so we try to throw something out there to encourage you know, someone, myself included, you know, to keep, keep on walking and talking with God. And so we ask the question every day, well, at least 6 days a week, have you fully surrendered to God? And we invite you to do that. Jesus says, come and, you know, come and follow me. And the apostles dropped everything to do that. And so we should drop the things that are ungodly and, you know, not right, um, and drop those things and follow Jesus. Um, it leads to a pathway of peace and joy and love and service and meaning and purpose. And, uh, one of the, one of the purposes that I've been blessed with is the, uh, uh, to lead the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church. I'm happy to announce I met with our discipleship pastor, uh, last night, and we will be continuing, uh, serving our, the body of Christ in this manner for the next year. So 2025, we're going to be doing it again. We'll be there Wednesday nights except for holidays and a few weeks during the summer. We'll be there every week because we need each other in the body of Christ and we're there to support one another and grow together, you know, as we overcome those hurts, habits, and hangups. It's a Christian Recovery support group, but don't make, you know, make no mistake, this isn't your AA meeting. This is a Christian, you know, Christian support group and discipleship is encouraged, um, as we remind ourselves of who we are in Christ continually and support one another to live that out in the real world. So we invite anybody in Upstate New York to come out to Celebrate Freedom on Wednesdays. We'll see you— well, except for next week, we won't be there the day before Thanksgiving. Like I said, those holiday weeks, um, sometimes they're the exception. But in 2 weeks, first week of December, uh, which looks like it is the 4th, we hope to see you there. Beyond that, if you want to hang out with somebody for the holidays, uh, you can hang out with me, uh, if you're a guy. Of course, it's for men only. Our Grace for the Holidays online teaching and support group basically leads, uh, leads participants through the, uh, the Grace course, the original Grace course from Freedom in Christ Ministries. Uh, week 1 is done, but it's not too late to jump on board if you, uh, see this message and get, you know, convicted by the Holy Spirit to join us. You can go to m.tforchrist.com, the group's, uh, group coaching event page and register today, and we'll give you the video for the sessions that you missed. So it's never too late to join us for the holidays, and until it's over, I guess. But after that, if you wanted to, you know, you saw one of these in the past, I would, you know, I would share the materials with you to encourage you, whatever time of the year it is. Anyway, beyond that, Like I said, we're looking forward to the new year too. Um, so in 2025, sort of, you know, the schedule's filling up already. Uh, when is— Wednesday is going to be Freedom and, uh, you know, Celebrate Freedom. And Tuesdays in the new year, starting on January 7th for about 11 weeks, uh, we'll be doing the Freedom in Christ course for Freedom in Christ Ministries online for men, uh, at 6:30 PM Eastern time. So any men interested in finding or increasing your freedom in Christ, we encourage encourage you to join our group, uh, at ficm.org. Sign up for the courses. And for you ladies out there, um, there are other courses available for you, so you can go to ficm.org to find those. Beyond that, uh, we— and no matter who you are, what time of year it is, we, uh, we, we encourage you to find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of our podcast classes on YouTube. We have classes for The Bondage Breaker, Victory Over Darkness, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom discipleship course. We even have a course on Bonhoeffer's discipleship. So there's a bunch, bunch there, a lot of material, a lot of playlists that you can check out on our playlist page, either on YouTube or on mtforchrist.com with our playlist page. So check those out. Anyway, beyond that, every day we ask the question, are you empty for Christ too? What does that mean? Means you're available for the Holy Spirit to fill you and guide you into the way you should go. Um, as a play on words, my initials are M.t. Clark, and it sounds like empty. So that's how we came up with the ministry name. Um, so we empty ourselves to be filled with the good things God's got for us, and we encourage you to go that way too. Um, if you're doing that, we say keep on walking and talking with God. If not, we encourage you to pray and ask the Lord to reveal himself and to, uh, make Jesus your, your Lord and Savior, um, because he'll lead you in the way you should go. We believe in the power of prayer. We've seen things, amazing things happen through prayer, and so that's why we pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for showing me the, the progress I've made, Lord. And how you've transformed my life this morning, you know, and not to beat myself up over every bump in the road, but to keep following you, Lord. And, uh, Lord, if, if you're calling, I'm coming, and I need your help. So we just pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead us in the way we should go. All we want to do is represent you and your kingdom, and, uh, we need a lot of help with that. And Lord, while you're at it, we're also praying for Anyone who's reading or listening or watching today's message, um, Lord, that you come alongside them and their walk of faith and their prayer requests and help them, Lord. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.