The Trap of Condemnation & How to Walk with God - Purity 1567

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I am M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or, uh, watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a magnificent blue sky over the rocky shores of what I believe to be a lake somewhere in the Adirondacks comes to us from an unknown Facebook friend who shared this almost summer seen on social media back on June 20th, 2022. This memory is yours. Let us know and I'll photo credit you on the blog after the fact. Well, it's Tuesday, and as I have, uh, shifted to our one-day weekend on the docket for today, I will be looking to balance the day with rest, spiritual practices, and ministry work. Doing freedom or recovery ministry work is my labor of love, and as much as I am the facilitator or doctor for the courses I lead, I am also reminded that I still have a lot to learn about maintaining my peace and, um, and keeping a proper exercise of my self-control. Um, yesterday I testified about giving in to negative emotions and thoughts over the weekend that caused me to choose to forget all about my healthy lifestyle— it was willful— and to indulge the flesh with some mindless snacking and less than stellar food choices, which led to feelings of guilt exasperation, frustration, and condemnation. Yesterday I righted the ship food-wise, but still had a few instances of negative thinking that briefly led to despair over not meeting the expectations I had for myself, for my life, and my ministry. Seeing my failures as a curse of which I was powerless to change, I briefly started to lose hope and was ready to call the Lord to take me home. That even what I wanted to do I wasn't very good at, and so there was no point in allowing me to live and take up space here on Earth. These negative thoughts and frustrations were common, uh, in my pre-Christ existence and would usually lead to fleshly indulgences. And I could see that this pity party, uh, was probably demonically driven. Who loves to lead us into temptation? Uh, who loves to lead us into despair? Well, the enemy, that's who. Um, while I won't claim to have seen demons or heard demonic cackling in my mind, I thankfully saw that the dialogue of my thoughts was not what God would want me to think, and I didn't want to think that way either. So I started thanking God for the brightness of the day and the things he has done for me in the past, and sure enough, the mully grubs lifted, and I could see life in a more positive light. And today I feel much better emotionally and spiritually as I reminded myself of who I am in Christ, and I recognize just how blessed I've been that I now know the truth and have learned how to walk in the Spirit to continually cycle back to the fruit of the Spirit. Um, speaking of walking in the Spirit, the In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley devotional from Saturday, January 25th, addressed this topic, and I'm sharing it on the blog today to help us to all to understand how to walk with God. Dr. Charles Stanley writes, How to Walk with God. If a relationship with God is our priority, we can rest knowing he will direct our path. Scripture tells us that Enoch's walk with the Father was so close that God took him. Genesis 5:24. This implies Enoch didn't die but was taken directly into the Lord's presence. It pleases God when his children seek to follow him., with the same closeness. Consider these aspects of a vibrant walk with the Lord. Reconciliation. This term essentially means God moving toward us. We can be joyful because the responsibility is all his. Through the cross of Christ, God has already made his move in our direction. Uh, 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Uh, there's trusting God. We have— we must have faith that through Jesus, God provides all we need in order to walk intimately with him. God provides it. And then there's agreement. To appreciate the closeness God longs to have with us, we must agree with what scripture teaches about his son His word, the church, and sin. And then there's fellowship. Just as human relationships fall apart without regular interaction, our intimacy with God weakens when we don't spend time with him. The walk of faith is a beautiful journey. When we seek the Lord above all else, he'll direct our— he will direct our paths. And that was from Dr. Charles Stanley. And I say amen. You know, when I contemplate just how one-sided our relationship with the Lord was in the beginning, I am truly humbled because even though I made a decision to make Jesus my Lord and Savior, it was God who moved towards me and who moved time and space together to create the moment and the circumstances where I came to the end of myself. And could finally understand the truth of the gospel of who Jesus was and is and what he could do and could be for me. You know, God gave me life as Creator, but he gave, he gave me a new and everlasting life in Christ that allowed me to be reconciled to him, caused me to see the truth and to be able and willing to trust him and to agree that his word is true. And of course, it caused me to choose to walk with him, uh, for the rest of my days, from here to eternity and beyond. Before Christ, I was in a false religion where, as a practitioner, I would do all sorts of spiritual practices to attempt to increase positive outcomes and become fully enlightened. But in all that striving, I never found an abiding sense of peace. But God changed all of that because he came for me. I didn't earn this blessing. I was way off track and was headed for destruction, but God came for me. He opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart to show me how, you know, who he is, and he has given me life and peace. Sometimes I still fall into the old trap of performance, and my moods change as I put expectations on myself and fall short of my lofty goals. I would usually condemn myself for my weaknesses, but that is when God reminds me that he came to me and I am his, and there is no condemnation, for I am in Christ, fully accepted, secure, and significant because of him. And I can rest easy knowing that he will never leave me or forsake me. I can rest. I can have peace because God loves me. God came for me. And he has set me free, so I will walk with him and I will rejoice. 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 humility and pride. And today's verses, while they highlight Philippians 3:3-11, but they share verses 7-9, which says, but what things were gained to me These I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God. By faith. Today's verses are the first of two passages of scripture that fall under the 20th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on humility and pride. Uh, the 20th point is: Like the Apostle Paul, we must humbly reject any idea of being righteous because of our heritage or any work we've done, but trust only in Jesus Christ. Today's Bible verses remind us of what makes us right with God and how we should consider the things that we highly valued before coming to Christ. In today's scripture passage, Paul is commenting on his pre-Christ pedigree and how, although he was proud of who he was as a Hebrew of Hebrews and as someone who had done a lot of study in God's word, uh, after learning the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he counted all those things as worthless in comparison to what he had gained through his faith in Jesus. After knowing Jesus, Paul knew he was made right with God by faith in Christ alone and would no longer concern himself with who he used to be or how he prided himself in keeping the law, but would focus on sharing the message of Christ and Christ crucified as the wisdom that leads to life. 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. That's a 365-day devotional, and we're on day 66, where Adams shares Proverbs 13:15b, which says The way of the transgressor is hard. And J.E. Adams writes, God makes it so. He has so structured life that when we do that which is in accord with his will, things go well spiritually. When we don't, they go poorly. That's why the transgressor's way is hard. You can't violate God's commands, all of which are intended to benefit you. Without bearing the consequences. Drugs taken, so, uh, taken for so-called recreational purposes will in the end have serious detrimental effects upon you, making your way hard. Those who transgress, cross the line into forbidden territory, um, the sign says keep out. Transgressions will be persecuted to the full extent of the law. God's word says much the same thing, except his penalties are much more severe. Your best decision is to not break the law in the first place, but having done so, repent and cast yourself upon the mercy of a forgiving God. He punished Jesus for transgressors. Have you found forgiveness in him? And I hope you have, you know, because, uh, we can't pay back our sin debt. Um, that's why Jesus came. He's the only way to the Lord because he's the only one who paid for our sins, and he did so on the cross. As a man who was fully God and fully man, he was able to do that, live a sinless life, and, you know, basically, you know, pay for the penalty that he didn't have coming to himself. He wasn't paying for his own sins. He was paying for the sins of everyone because he's the eternal man. His deed of atonement is done for anyone who puts their faith in Jesus. And when we put our faith in him, he— his righteousness is imputed to us, and it becomes manifest in us when we walk in the Spirit and when we choose not to break the law, you know, and we choose not to be a transgressor. And we can live according to— things will go well for you spiritually, maybe not materially or situationally, But the Lord will be with you the moment you put your faith in Jesus, and he leads you into everlasting life. So whether it's paradise on, on earth or in heaven, when we go with the Lord, things get a lot better. Um, yeah, and that's why we always ask the question, you know, have you fully surrendered to God? It's one thing to believe, it's another thing to follow. And we believe that when you walk in the Spirit be blessed with the fruit of the Spirit. And that's why you want to change the way you live. That's why you want to repent of your sins instead of having them continually forgiven. And a sin-confessed, sin-confessed cycle that leads to shame and guilt and condemnation— we invite you to break that cycle by walking in the Spirit, by doing what is right and turning from your sins for good. And so we encourage you to do that. When you do that, you discover a new life and a new life of meaning and purpose. And part of my purpose is to lead the Celebrate Freedom support group at Starpoint Church. It's for Christian recovery and discipleship. We teach how to walk in the spirit to get out of those, um, mully grubs, those negative ways of thinking and those poor patterns of behavior, um, with the Lord's help. And, um, We invite anyone in Upstate New York to come out to Clifton Park where Starpoint Church is located and to join our fellowship on Wednesday evenings. You can go to Starpoint Church's event page to register for the group, or you can just show up. But you should be there. We have electronic locks, and, and if, uh, if you don't, if you don't get in, you might be locked out. But if you get in touch with us, we can let you in the door anyway. For those who are far away from our door, there's good news. Um, you won't be locked out because we're, we're doing a series right now called Christian Recovery, and it's, uh, Celebrate Freedom. That's our YouTube series where we're doing all our teachings, um, from Celebrate Freedom and putting them online, um, to be shared with anybody who needs a Christian recovery resource. So we invite you to check that out if you need it. But if you're one of those who don't need Christian Recovery, we have other teachings that you might need. We'd highly recommend you do. We've done studies for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrating Freedom Discipleship, among many other playlists. You can go to our mtforchrist.com, our YouTube playlist page. It gives you all the playlists that we've done, all the different series we've done through, the blog over the years and, um, and these classes. And we, we recommend them because we believe you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of them. So, um, people have, have given me positive feedback about these in the past, so we encourage you to check them out. And, uh, if you, um, appreciate what we do as a community freedom ministry, um, we'd appreciate your support and donations. Um, you can go to mt4christ.com to give on our donations page where you can give via PayPal, or also you take the Cash App and Venmo, and, uh, your, your donation would go towards our efforts at, uh, Freedom Ministry. So we encourage you to help us out, um, and we appreciate you just showing up and, you know, liking, sharing, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. So we'd appreciate that too. Beyond that We always end by asking, are you empty for Christ too? That's just a clever play on words, basically, to ask, are you fully surrendered to God? Um, if not, um, we encourage you to pray. If so, we say keep on walking and talking with God, um, because we know prayer works. We pray every day, like right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do for us today, um, every day, um, to lead us out of, you know, temptation and negative mind states to lead us in the way we should go. And Lord, we're asking for your guidance today to lead us again because we need your help continually. And Lord, we're also asking you to pray, uh, answer the prayers and come alongside anyone who's reading, watching, or listening to this message today. They come alongside them and help them in the way they should go because we all need your help, Lord. And today we're asking for So, um, we hope to receive, and we expect to receive, because you're a good, good Father. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.