In this devotional monologue, M.t. Clark reflects on his personal journey from a life of addiction, loneliness, and worldly pursuits to becoming a follower of Christ. He frames his life as a dramatic narrative with exposition, rising action, climax (finding Jesus), and ongoing resolution, contrasting his pre‑Christ experience with the purpose and meaning found in the gospel. Clark cites One Direction lyrics as a metaphor for love’s cycles, references Shakespeare’s Macbeth to illustrate the futility of a life without truth, and emphasizes that true purpose comes from knowing God. He encourages listeners to deepen their faith through Scripture (Hebrews 11:6, 1 Corinthians 10:13), prayer, church community, and active discipleship, warning against complacency in sin. Throughout, he promotes his ministry resources—mt4christ.org, the Ask Seek Knock podcast, the Freedom in Christ course, and related YouTube content—inviting the audience to engage. The talk concludes with a heartfelt prayer, including a specific intercession for Steve Topper’s health and blessings for listeners and course participants.
Chapters
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 dusky but multi-hued sunset somewhere along River Road in Easton, New York comes to us, I believe, from my wife and Christian podcaster Tammy Lynn Clark, who captured this scene 3 days after our wedding back on January 4th of this year. After a hiatus of a few months, Tammy Lynn released the 24th episode of her Ask Seek Knock podcast yesterday, declaring, "I'm back," in which she explained the course of her life since her last episode. I'm sharing a link on the blog today, uh, for it if you would like to give it a listen. Uh, no spoilers of course, but I was impressed and feel that it, that it provides another piece of evidence demonstrating Tammy Lynn's faith and the reason why I simply had to make her my wife. You have to forgive me this morning, um, I have the— but I have the story of my life, uh, by the defunct boy band One Direction in my head and have to expel it. Uh, the lyrics say, written in these walls are the stories that I can't explain. I leave my heart open but it stays right here empty for days. She told me in the morning she don't feel the same away same about us in her bones. It seems to me that when I die, these words will be written on my stone. And I'll be gone, gone tonight. The ground beneath my feet is open wide, the way that I've been holding on too tight, with nothing in between. The story of my life, I take her home. I drive all night to keep her warm. And time is frozen. The story of my life. I give her hope. I spend her love until she's broke inside. The story of my life. And it goes on. Um, pretty deep for a boy band, right? Anyway, uh, this song about the cycles of love and breakup with its timeless frozen moments of bliss and the sadness when love runs its course came up in my memory this morning, not because I'm lamenting over my love life, but because I'm just overcome with a sense of sheer amazement over all the twists and turns that have transpired over the various chapters and episodes of my life. And reflecting over the course of my life and the journey as I grew up and tried to figure out who I was, all the while demanding personal satisfaction to every whim of desire, and the resultant brokenness of disillusionment with an American dream, the pains of addiction and traumatic losses before coming to Christ, and now the rather substantial course of my life in the Spirit as I increasingly surrendered to the upward call of Christ and moved away from all I was to become the person I am now, I thought to myself, "Wow, my life could be a miniseries on Netflix." And the more I think about it, I don't think that is vanity. In terms of drama, we have lived quite the continuing story arc with its exposition, rising action, climaxes, falling actions, and resolutions as we have been on this journey of faith, meaning, and purpose for 50 years now. As compelling as some of the episodes of My Life Before Christ may have been with its misadventures, all that action, the romance, the comedy, and the tragedy, would have been like— it would have been for nothing. It would have been like what Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, where with everything falling apart and hearing of his wife's death, Macbeth says, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot." full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And why would it have been like that? Because I didn't know the truth. I was operating on limited knowledge and lies that the world tells, like life is meaningless. But that is not the truth. Our lives have meaning and purpose, but few find it. The Creator, God, made us for a reason. To know him and to make him known. He sent Christ to save us and to, to redeem our lives because they, they were headed for destruction. So that's a climax— finding Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But brother, this isn't a movie or even a Shakespearean play. This is an ongoing saga of life in the spirit that doesn't end. God has called us from here to eternity And when we know we— who we are in Christ, we know the meaning of our lives. And the next thing is to play the part of a Christian, to know and discover our continuing purpose in Christ. Our purpose includes our sanctification and helping others to come to know the Lord and to discover their meaning and purpose in Christ. In the 12 years since coming to Christ, there have been ups and downs, victories and losses, and a whole string of characters as I have followed the Lord's call. Before coming to Christ, I spent a lot of time in a basement alone, entertaining myself with alcohol, drugs, video games, and music, sports on TV, and movies. If you did a movie or series or TV series on my life, of my life back then, it would have been— it— let's see, it wouldn't require a big cast or elaborate sets. You could even do a play like a Shakespearean tragedy where I could do soliloquy after soliloquy as I pondered life's meaning, lamented over its disappointments, but found no answers other than to feed myself with circumstantial happiness. But the Lord pulled me out of that life of loneliness and despair and has taken me to places I would have never imagined in the basement in that basement in the woods. And he has introduced me to a multitude of people as I have followed him from all over the world. If anyone ever tells you that the Christian life is boring, I can tell you that they're either— that they either don't know the Lord or they haven't answered his call to surrender to his will and to follow him. Last night I told the men in the Freedom in Christ course that if they want the fruit of the Spirit in their lives or if they want their freedom in Christ, there is great hope for them. But I told them that their faith won't grow unless they do their part in their relationship with the Lord. Last night's focus verse was Hebrews 11:6 that says, but without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. From this I pointed out that if they wanted to please the Lord, they had to have faith to believe he is and that he would reward their efforts to seek him. I encourage them to build their faith by choosing to believe the truth of God's word and to apply it to their lives. I encourage them to read the Bible, to pray, and to join a local body of believers, a church where they could learn, worship, grow, and serve. If you want to be rewarded with the fruit of the Spirit in your life, you have to act on your faith and follow where the Lord leads you. So let's start another episode of the ongoing saga of Life in the Spirit with blank— insert your name here— and see what kind of drama develops and unfolds as you keep walking and talking with God. 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 10:13, and it says, the temptations in your life are no different from what others experience, and God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so you can— so that you can endure. Today's Bible verse assures us that the temptations we face are not unique, and we can rely on the Lord to escape negative consequences of sin because He will show us a way out. Hey, another thing I advised the men last night was to turn from their sin. If we want harmony with God and the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, we cannot rest on the Lord's forgiveness and the "inevitability" of sin. And just flounder around in the sin-confess cycle. We have to fight the world, the flesh, and the devil to say no to sin and to claim victory as those who have been resurrected to new life with Christ. Let's stop patting ourselves on the back when we fall into sin. Instead, repent of them. Romans 8:3 tells us we are free from sin So let's live it by targeting those problem sins and leaning on the Lord's strength to overcome them and repeat them no more. This is possible with God, but we have to believe it, it is true, and show our belief with the way we live our lives. Today's verse tells us that God will show us a way out of our temptations and sins, but we have to follow him and look for the way he wants us to go. And if we do that, we can endure and have the victory and freedom over sin that, that Christ has given us. We can have the abundant life that Christ came to give us if we follow the Lord and take the way out. 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 Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, also known as The Cost of Discipleship. And today we share— continue sharing from chapter 2, the call to discipleship and the examination of the rich young man and Christ's interaction with him. So if you know that portion of scripture and you want to see what Dietrich Bonhoeffer has to say in his commentary of it Go to mt4christ.org and you'll find that at the end of today's blog post. Well, um, today I'm short. Um, I do encourage everyone to check out obviously the mt4christ.org and our podcast and our YouTube channel for all the, uh, our previous posts and, uh, our teachings that we've done, um, for Victory Over the Darkness The Bondage Breaker and Freedom in Christ are all available on the podcast and let's see, and the YouTube channel. Yesterday at the free— I'm sending all our, my participants basically the documents I had from the 2001 class for Freedom in Christ that I taught on the podcast, the transcripts basically, and I shared it yesterday with them before class and One of the men must have read it because somewhere in the class he was like, "Oh, is that your testimony in the story?" And I had totally forgotten that I had written a part of the story of my life in the Teaching for Freedom in Christ. And if you're wondering what that is, I'm not sure which— I guess it would be Lesson 3, whatever one's on— yeah, it's Lesson 3, duh. Lesson 3 of our Freedom in Christ series, if you wanted to hear my testimony or part of it, because apparently it was in the printed documents from which I read when I presented the podcast for that class. So if you wanted to hear part of my story, you can go to the YouTube channel or the podcast and check out Freedom in Christ episode, uh, you know, Lesson 3, um, to hear it, because apparently it's in there, um, you sort of forget. And that's, that's, you know, part of the reason I was reflecting on it, because I share my testimony of all the amazing things that has happened. And, um, uh, in the time I've come to Christ, and I just tell people, you know, my advice is seek the Lord, because man, oh man, um, he'll take you, he'll take you places, you know, as you conform to the image of Christ and answer the call to serve His kingdom, you know, there's going to be some action in your life. You know, you don't need a director because we have the director in God and the Holy Spirit in us to guide us in the way we go. So we encourage that. We encourage you to pray and ask the Lord to, you know, guide your path. And we do that every day, right? So let's, let's pray. Um, Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you've done, and what a story of my life that you've made, and, and all the lives that are being touched by you. Um, God, it's a, it's a grand narrative, and we get to play a part and speak the hope of the new life in Christ because you gave it to us, and that's what you want us to do. Lord, we just pray for everyone who might be listening to the podcast today, Lord, that they'd be encouraged in their faith, and that we pray for you to bless them with your divine favor, your grace, as they go about their life today. We pray for you to come alongside their prayer request. We pray for Steve Topper's healing as he's suffering some autoimmune infection of some sort that's unknown, Lord, but you know, it's not unknown. It might be unknown to the doctors, but it's not unknown to you. So we pray for you to send your healing, send the wisdom to reveal the issue and to solve it, because we know you're the healer and you're the one who brings it. So we pray for Stephen today. We pray for all the men in our Freedom in Christ course and all the listeners today to keep walking and talking with you. Lord, we pray for you to go before us today to open our eyes to the things you want us to see and guide our path into the things you want us to do today, Lord, because it's, it's our, it's our desire to, to have faith and to, to please you and to, uh, do the things that you're calling us to do, the things that you prepared for us beforehand that we need to discover and walk into. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
