To Be With Jesus - The Chosen: Season 3 - Purity 893

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 silhouettes of an autumn-stripped tree line against the backdrop of, of an ethereal sunset comes to us from my beloved wife, Tammy Lynn Clark, who captured this heavenly scene back on November 11th when she decided to take her youngest children and our canine pal Harley to Hudson Crossing Park in Schuylerville for an impromptu walk. When we get to see scenes like this, I think we get a small idea of the beauty of heaven, and it makes me yearn for the days when we get to see God's kingdom and Jesus face to face. Well, it is the weekend, and it is my prayer that all who hear or see this message have have a wonderful weekend and will consider my recommendation to go and see The Chosen Season 3, Episodes 1 and 2 in a theater near you. The only thing I was disappointed in at last night's viewing of The Chosen Season 3's premiere was my decision to fall in my pattern behavior of getting the large popcorn and soda. I know, say it isn't so. As I have said in the past, there is grace for our weaknesses, and ours is a walk of progress and not perfection. Paradoxically, part of my failure in the decision to indulge in the popcorn and soda—zero sugar, okay—was the result of a decision to get serious about my health goal. Say what? Yesterday, I was either the victim of clickbait or genuinely resolved to get help by seeking the advice of experts in the field of fitness as I purchased a fitness brand that is bold in its claims to help people transform their bodies. After the bliss of my courtship and wedding to Tammy Lynn, I had my— I, I had— I let my health goals slip in 2022, but recently made steps to right the ship and have made progress. But after Halloween's Harvest Fest candy indulgences and other slips, I've seen my progress stall. Mercifully, I have more or less plateaued with only gaining a pound or two back from my recent progress to reclaim the ground I had lost. So with the knowledge that I had to do something to start heading in the right direction again, I was open to suggestions. So I signed up for VShred. VShred. Yep, uh, the swipe up and take my fitness quiz guy. Vincent, um, that has, uh, that you have most likely seen on YouTube or Instagram plugging his Fat Loss Extreme program. So I intend to change my normal workout routine on Monday and trust this program and my personal trainer's recommendations to get shredded, or at least get headed in the right direction to accomplish my health goal of being in the normal BMI range for my height. So last night, due to the excitement of going out on a Friday night, and like the alcoholic who gets drunk one last time before going to rehab, I gave in to my pattern behavior of getting a large popcorn and soda, and of course had to get the refills and also got cookie dough pieces. So I look forward to my first Feet Shred workouts, uh, Monday morning so I can atone for this latest failure. But hey, speaking of atonement, I have been forgiven, right? Because of Jesus Christ, I have been forgiven of all my sins and have been delivered from condemnation. So I acknowledge my weaknesses, I'm seeking help and accountability, and will not beat myself up about failure number 1,999,999. 643 or whatever number this one was. And instead, we'll repent and we'll press into my health goal with a new resolve on Monday. And that's something I think that we should all remember. Just because we fail in achieving our goals in life doesn't mean we should just abandon them. That is a tough thing to discern, of course, because sometimes our goals can seem unrealistic or they may indeed be impossible. And sometimes we have to give them up. But in this area, our physical health, I believe that the Lord would encourage us to seek to be good stewards of our bodies, the temples of the Holy Spirit, and would prefer that we didn't suffer because of our lack, lack of discipline. Gluttony is not a virtue, and obesity is its bad fruit. Scripture doesn't have good things to say about gluttony, and there are verses to tell us to take care of our bodies. If you don't believe me or need some verses to build a stronghold buster for your health goal, I am including links to openbible.info's 100 Bible verses about gluttony and physical fitness on the blog today. You see, my health goal is not about vanity. I'm not looking to impress other people. I'm looking to be as healthy as I can be as I move into the last years of my life. Because I want to live as— to live as long as I can to continue to encourage other people to see what the Lord can do with your life when you follow him. And in this latest chapter of the battle of the bulge, which has admittedly been a lifelong struggle, I hope to utilize the self-control that the Holy Spirit has brought into my life to accomplish what just about everyone's says is impossible to be a— impossible to be a healthy or normal weight, to be strong in the body as well as in the mind and spirit. Guys like Vince Sant know that with proper diet, exercise, motivation, and discipline, people can transform their bodies to be healthy. So why not me? I have already made great strides in my physical health, so why not keep going until it is finished? I have already renewed my mind about my eating habits and altered my diet to have success, so why not be focused to strengthen my body and further undo the excesses of the past? That is what I hope to do, and I know that the Lord will be with me. And speaking of the Lord being with me, I have to tell you that the first 2 episodes of The Chosen Season 3 were fantastic. I won't give you any spoilers, but I positively loved the interactions of Christ and his apostles and the supporting characters in these first two episodes. Forgiveness, the determination of discipleship, and the acceptance of some hard truths were major themes in last night's drama, and they caused me to appreciate The Chosen with new zeal. Previously, I watched the show with a love-hate mentality born from my love for the Bible and the Lord. The Chosen builds a drama based on scripture, and sometimes I have liked what they have done, and other times I cringed over certain moments where I thought their artistic license went too far, didn't go far enough, or took me in a direction I didn't expect. Admittedly, I still carry a bit of theological baggage from my long road to freedom in Christ. And sometimes my objections are born more from my personal history than what the creators of The Chosen have done. I have issues. But except for a couple of minor moments of critical scrutiny in the beginning moments of last night's premiere, I didn't have any issues with what the creators of The Chosen did with episodes 1 and 2 of season 3. Quite the contrary, I was moved to tears more than once at the unfolding drama I was particularly moved by a realization that I, like the apostles, would one day see Jesus, and just that simple thought set my heart ablaze with love and a yearning to continue to be faithful to follow Him. As I had the absurd but accurate thought that Jesus was a really cool guy. Please don't misunderstand me, I don't mean any disrespect by that statement. I have deep love, awe, and reverence for Jesus and understand that he is fully God and fully man. But The Chosen gives us an opportunity to imagine what it would be like to be with him, to be in his physical presence, to talk with him face to face, and to hear his voice. I think as Christians, we don't think about Jesus as a man that we could hang out with. And the season— Chosen— The Chosen season 3 episodes 1 and 2 made me desire the con— that the contact that the apostles enjoyed. As we keep stumbling along in life, don't give up on your dreams. Don't forget that Jesus walked on this earth and showed his love to others personally. And as strange as it may sound, he knows us, and one day we will see him. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible, Promise Book for Men. Our verses this morning's meditation verses are Romans 6:6-8, and they say, we know that our sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin, and when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. Today's verses reminds us that when we put our faith in him, we died with Christ and we're free from the power of sin and now live with him. When we know that Christ is for us, it doesn't matter who comes against us. In terms of spiritual warfare, when our big brother Jesus is with us, we received all the power— all his power— all of his power and authority to cast out the spiritual forces of darkness. We can utilize his authority to set ourselves and others free from demonic oppression. And in today's verse, Paul reminds us that Christ also gives us the power to say no to our personal demons of temptation and sin. But the key point, um, that Paul makes here is that we live with Christ, that we follow him. If we just continue in our worldly ways, resting on the forgiveness we've received, we may be relieved and find comfort from knowing God won't hold our sins against us, but that doesn't make us free. And even worse, our continued sins will cause disharmony in our relationship with God, as we will persist in living against his word and apart from his wisdom. When we willfully persist in sin, we deny our identity in Christ and reject the truth of what God has done in our lives. Through Christ, we have been That's strange. Anyway, um, through Christ we have been made new creations, but when we choose to sin, we deny that we have been made new, and our decisions reveal that we either don't believe that God's ways are best, or that we have been given— have not been given the Let's see, or we have not been given the power that the word of God tells us that we have. You are always going to sin is a phrase that is true, but the Lord gives us power to decrease the number and to change the quality of our sins if we ask the Lord for the ability to repent and to overcome the sins that beset us. You might need the help of others. You need to renew the your mind with the Word of God, and you might need to try, try, try again. But if we lean on the Lord's strength and power, we can make a change. We may never be sinless, but we can sin less, sin less, and the quality of our sins can change. But first, we need to believe it, believe these verses, have faith in the Word, and show your faith by demonstrating you believe, uh, believe with the way you live. Victory, peace, and joy come from living with Christ, so never leave his side. 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 Cost of Discipleship, and we move on to the section on the Great Separation or the Great Divide as the original— well, one version of the book says. So if you want to see what the Great Separation is about in Matthew 7, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see this today's resource reading at the bottom of today's book blog post. If you, if you, if you don't want to read it, you could tune into the, the latest episode of Bonhoeffer's Discipleship on YouTube, as this section of scripture is actually what we covered in this week's teaching. So it's on the Great Divide and the difference between disciples and unbelievers and the conclusions, all of Matthew 7. Gets highlighted in today— in the teachings from the latest episode of Bonhoeffer's Discipleship, Episode 11, or Lesson 11. So we invite you to check that out, and while you're at it, you can check out our teachings that we have on the, on the blog from our audio podcast for Victory Over the Darkness, the The Bondage Breaker and Freedom in Christ teachings we all did at our local church back in, uh, 2021, and we put out there and seem to be, well, quite popular on, on the YouTube, or at least, you know, those are— they're being clicked at least once. So we're, we're encouraged, uh, and hopeful that people are listening and learning and applying the knowledge that the Lord gives us in His Word. And that's, you know, described by people like Dr. Neil Anderson, who wrote those books and encourages us to actually live according to who we are in Christ. So we encourage that, and of course we encourage Bible study. That's why we provide a Bible study of sorts as Arthurson Sincatis and his wife Susanna join me and my wife for Bible study discussions. Arthur does a topical study and we sit around and talk about it. So if you don't have a Bible study of your own, you can join us with Bible Study with the Sincatis. That's on the YouTube channel and our podcast as well. So I want to thank the people who have recently followed either the podcast or the YouTube channel. It encourages me to see activity and to know that someone out there might be hearing this. So thank you, and it's my deepest prayer that you check— if you haven't checked out The Chosen, check it out. And if you need to be one of those people that watch season 1 and 2 first, go ahead. But the episodes last night from season 3 really were, you know, stood on their own. You didn't, you know, you weren't going to be terribly lost if you hadn't seen them before. At least that's what I say, but I've seen them before. So anyway, but on Amazon Prime, seasons 1 or 2 are available. I know that because I saw that yesterday and considered you know, binging it again, um, and might do that after watching season 3. Um, so I encourage you to check that out. It was— I don't know, check it out, you know, see if you like it. Um, and always we encourage you to keep walking and talking with God. So 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 to show us the truth of who Jesus, Jesus is, and the fact that you invited us into your kingdom when we put our faith in him, uh, Lord, and that you've given us the power over sin, death, and the grave. And then if we just believe, if we just have faith that you've already done that, we can actually live according to it. Um, Lord, thank you so much for the victory that you've given in my life. And we just pray for the people that might be listening today, Lord, that you bless them with your grace and come alongside them and their their prayer requests, to give them the strength and mercy they need to, uh, to keep, keep, keep going. Um, Lord, we thank you so much for what you're doing in our lives, and, um, we just pray, uh, as always, every day we pray for you to go before us, to open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and to lead us in the way we should go. We thank you, we praise you, we love you, Lord. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray, amen.