This Land is Our Land 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 3 – Purity 1059

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo comes to us from Celestial Blue Photography's Rocco Saya, who shared this scene on social media on May 24th, describing it as, "A man stands at the edge of Fort Ontario's field peering out over our shore, and off in the distance is our lighthouse for tonight's sunset. I love the way Rocco captured the sunset over this field featuring a plethora of pollinated dandelions ready to spread their seeds, but I also love the way he not only owns this scene but shares it by referring to Lake Ontario's coastline as "our shore" and Oswego's lighthouse as "our lighthouse." It reminds me of the Woody Guthrie song "This Land Is Your Land.", where even someone who held what some would say were conflicting political, social, and religious views proclaimed that all around him a voice was sounding, "This land was made for you and me." Guthrie reportedly placed little faith in organized religion, but believed in Jesus Christ and the millennial return of the working-class carpenter who would bring peace, equality, and justice to the world. Well, I don't think Guthrie and I would agree on everything politically—he was associated with socialist, if not communist leanings—I think the small amount of research I did this morning indicates we both believed in God as the Creator and Christ as the Savior, and that even though we wouldn't agree on everything, if we both put our faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives, we might just be standing next to one another. Someday singing the Lord's praises in God's eternal kingdom. Uh, the world was made for you and me, so let's enjoy it and share it with others. But if we really want to express our love for others and the God who gave us this wonderful world, we should also share the good news of Jesus. Because even though this land was made for you and me and countless others, uh, one day Jesus will return to reclaim it. And reign over it. And in order to remain in his kingdom, we need to not only know who Jesus is, we need to make him, uh, our master and choose to follow where he leads. Well, it's Saturday, and I'm not quite sure where the Lord will lead me, um, for most of the day, but I do have plans to go to the Man Up event at Starpoint Church tonight, where New York baseball legend Daryl Strawberry will be speaking on the goodness of God and will undoubtedly share how his relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ pulled him out of the darkness of addiction and brokenness to transform his life from a cautionary tale of the dangers of fame, wealth, and substance abuse into a stirring testimony of how the Lord can redeem our lives and change our hearts to give us meaning, hope, and a future of purpose. I have heard Strawberry speak his testimony before, and I look forward to hearing it again, because although we come from different backgrounds and may not agree on everything, we have a mutual friend, Lord and Savior in Jesus. Our faith—this faith was made for you, Daryl, and me—gives us new life. But to realize and experience the full potential of our new life in Christ, we have to be real. And we have to, uh, really follow Christ with the way we live. When we repent and surrender to God's will for our lives, we can look forward to good things like God's continual presence in our lives, the growth of the fruit of the Spirit, and the consequences of living a simple Christian life of righteous thoughts and deeds. A life in Christ gives us something to look forward to. It gives us the ability to anticipate good things in our lives. And that brings us to our current series where I am walking through the 28-Day Joy Challenge, which is based on Dr. Neal— Dr. Marcus Warner and Chris Coursey's latest book, The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People. You can sign up for the 28-Day Joy Challenge by— for free and purchase a variety of books from Warner and Coursey on the topic of joy by going to morehabits.org. The link's on the blog if you want to check that out. So let's jump into day 3, which just, just happens to deal with looking ahead toward good things on our horizon. And so now I'm reading from the, the today's challenge, um, the day 3 planning for joy. Welcome to day 3 of the 28 Days to Joy challenge. Today's encouragement: Don't worry if these exercises do not come naturally to you and even, uh, feel a little clunky. We are building new habits in our brains, and this takes time. Every day, practicing joy will come more naturally until you can do it even without the exercise prompt. Today's practice, Exercise 3. Today we will focus on training our brains to expect good things in life. How this exercise will benefit you: Anticipation of good experiences can help us build joy. It also trains us to scan the environment for what is good. This practice creates hope and energy, and our perspective on life becomes more positive. Exercise steps: As you think about the week ahead, what are you looking forward to? Is there a person or group of people you hope to see? What do you expect to do? How do you expect to feel? Share your thoughts about, about the what and why with a friend. Have fun with this exercise. We pick up tomorrow with more joy practice. And that's all from the good people at 4habits.org. And well, when I sat down to think about what I am looking forward to this week, I am blessed to I have to confess that my local church community at Star Point, uh, my local church community at Star Point Church provides me with more than one thing to look forward to. Tonight's Man Up event provides me with the opportunity to have some fun with the men of my church as we will be gathering at 6 PM to enjoy food, games, and fellowship before we worship and hear Darryl Strawberry speak. And then we have the option of ending the evening with campfire and s'mores. Tomorrow, being Sunday, I can look forward to a worship and a message from Pastor Jack Graham. Graham leads, uh, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and has supported our church financially and spiritually by being a mentor and friend to our senior pastor, Roscoe Lilly. And he'll be speaking tomorrow, so I get to enjoy that. And as much as these two events may be enough to look forward to When I looked at today's joy practice and was prompted to think of something that I was looking forward to, I immediately thought of the next meeting of Celebrate Freedom, the recovery/discipleship growth group that I facilitate on Wednesday nights. I especially look forward to Celebrate Freedom because this week the lesson is teaching us Principle 3 of the Celebrate Recovery's 8 Principles, which directs us to consciously choose to commit all of my life and will to Christ's care and control. I am looking forward to seeing my Celebrate Freedom friends again as we will meet to encourage one another in our walks of faith, give thanks, give thanks and worship to the Lord, and honestly share from our experiences since last week. So, because of my faith and decision to follow the Lord, I have a lot to look forward to this week, and I don't mind sharing my thoughts with you about the what and whys of what I I am anticipating to be good things. Today's joy challenge is prompting us to look ahead to good things in our immediate future. And the great news is that even if you don't have anything planned, it is never too late to make plans and to experience the continuous joy available to Christians by making the decision to consciously commit all your life and will to the care of Christ. Today's Bible verse comes to us from my morning Bible study as I have left the Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men at my place down by the river. But in honor of that missing resource, I am sharing today's chosen verse from the NLT even though I'm currently walking through the NASB. This morning's meditation verse is Zechariah— Zechariah 2:11, and the Word of God says, "Many nations will join themselves to the Lord on that day, and they too will be my people. I will live among you, and you will know that the Lord of Heaven's Armies sent me to you." Today's verse gives us something to look forward to as the Old Testament prophet was speaking of the future fulfillment of the Millennial Kingdom, where many nations will join themselves to the Lord. And Jesus Christ comes back to rule and reign. Talk about a future and a hope. When I think about how the Bible not only reveals the truth of Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry in the past, but how it reports that this isn't over yet, and that scripture indicates that Jesus will rule on the earth for 1,000 years before there is a new heaven and a new earth, my imagination is pushed to its limits. Over what will that be like. I mean, that idea, that prophecy, that thing to come— Jesus ruling the earth for a thousand years— should rightfully fill us with hope. But when I try to imagine it, I get one of those 'this is too much, Lord' moments and have to let it go and just trust that whatever happens, or however that comes to pass, or whatever that means, I can relax and rejoice that it will that it will mean that Jesus will physically be with us. Our Emmanuel will literally be with us on the earth, ruling and reigning. That's good news, but surprisingly, that will only be another beginning, as there will be another end times, as, as, as the rest of the Revelation promises indicate, that there will be no more death, sorrow, tears, or pain, as Christ will one day make all things new, as in a new heaven and new earth. So rejoice if you have faith in Jesus. God is with you now. As the Lord's plans come into fulfillment, his presence will only increase in our lives and for all eternity. That is something to look forward to. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org, dot, uh, dot org, where I share insights, always share insights from Christian, uh theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit as we begin sharing from chapter 7, which is the Holy— based on the topic is the Holy Spirit and Christ, and The Deeper Things of God is the short excerpt that we'll, um, we'll be sharing today. So if you want to check out that resource, go to the mt4christ.org and check out, you know, it'll be at the end of today's blog post. Also at the end of today's blog post is always a bunch of links encouraging you to listen to the podcast and to listen to our discipleship classes that we offer on the M.t. for Christ 247 podcast for Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. They're all based on the Word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson, and and they're all about teaching you who you are in Christ, teaches you about the spiritual realities of this world and demons, and they teach you about how to experience your freedom in Christ where you can overcome the flesh, the world, and the enemy and stand solidly in your, in your faith to overcome your personal and spiritual conflicts by going through the steps to freedom in Christ. And we highly recommend that prayerful repentance process where you, where you just confess to the Lord, put your allegiance into him and your faith in him, and, um, and renounce the enemy and any, uh, anything that would defile us or, you know, interfere with our relationship with God. We also are delighted to report, uh, that we will, you know, prayerfully— we don't know what know what tomorrow brings. And I've been taught that more than late— more than anything lately, as some unexpected things have happened to some people in my life that are close to me suddenly. We don't know what tomorrow brings, but prayerfully it'll bring Bible study with the Sincatis again, as Arthur reached out to me last week after I returned from my cabin in the woods to ask if I was back— if I was back to the world and I was, and I told him I was looking forward to him bringing the word this weekend for our Bible study. So I look forward to that prayerfully, hoping that we'll get the Bible study from Arthur tonight and we'll be presenting it tomorrow and discussing it. So if you want to take a look at our previous studies, we have a whole archive of them on our our podcast and our YouTube channel. That includes video, um, you know, basically of our Sundays. I think we started the video in, I don't know, sometime in 2022 maybe. I don't know. Anyway, um, but yeah, we started the podcast back in 2021, and eventually we moved to Zoom to record our Bible studies because, uh, I moved, you know, my weekends moved north, to my countryside home with my wife, and, uh, we wanted to maintain the study. So even though we're separated by distance, Zoom keeps us together and keeps the Bible study going and gives us an opportunity to share it on YouTube. So we invite you to take part in our study. If you don't have a Bible study of your own, you can listen to ours. It's just a topical study where we discuss different things of God and look at what scripture has to say about them. So you want to check those out, we invite you to do that. And if you're in a local area, we invite you to check out Celebrate Freedom. Um, you know, it's good for any hurts, habits, and hangups, any, anything at all. Um, but that's in the Clifton Park area of New York, so you'd have to be in driving distance like me. Um, anyway, uh, we look forward to today. I don't know what my wife and I will do before I have to go man up, um, but I'll be, I'll be glad, uh, to be in her presence as, uh, you know, the fullness of joy is there, um, as, as I'm very contented and happy with my wife. Anyway, very happy with this, this podcast, this opportunity to give you hope and, and, uh, encouragement, and, uh, I deeply appreciate anyone listening or, um, reading, reading our message. And so, uh, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for all that you've done in our lives. We thank you for calling us out of the darkness and leading us into this amazing adventure of a life of faith, of following you and anticipating the good things that come, because they keep coming. Um, when I walk with you daily, there's something good, something to be grateful for. Something to be reminded of and good things to look forward to. So, Lord, we just pray for you to bless anyone listening or reading this message, that you would come alongside them and their prayer request and, and show them that they have good things right now and they have good things coming. And if they don't have, you know, concrete ideas, that, uh, you know, they should listen to your voice to make plans to enjoy their lives and to to grow in the Spirit. Um, Lord, we just pray for you to go before us today. It looks a little overcast this morning, so I'm not sure what, what the weather will bring, but, um, I know before I go to Man Up, I'll be doing a Bible study with my wife, and, uh, that's enough to answer, you know, and just being with her and reading the word is, is enough to have to anticipate good things happening today. So we thank you for that. But beyond that, Lord, we We pray for you to guide us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and lead our steps in the things you want us to do. Because, Lord, all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom here on the earth before you come back, or before you call us to you. Um, but, um, whatever comes, Lord, we trust in you, and we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.