Victory through Surrender and Trust – Finding Contentment - Purity 1461

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I'm 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 watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of my canine pal Harley standing in the middle of Waite Road as the sun blazes its light to begin a new day. Comes to us from yours truly as I captured the scene on the last day of summer, September 21st, 2024. Well, it's Thursday, and I share today's pathway photo as a visual encouragement to get on or stay on the path of Christian discipleship, because I know that the way of surrendering and following God's will for your life may not always be easy, but it is always good and leads to peace, joy, and contentment. Last night at Celebrate Freedom, our team was delighted to welcome a couple of new participants to our discipleship/recovery community, and we responded with a full-court press of encouragement and hope. I explained how our support group emphasized a deep reliance on God's help and how we encourage living according to what God says is true in His Word. By the night's end, I shared most of my incredible testimony of recovery and how the Lord led me out of the darkness of my addiction into an abundant life of meaning, purpose, and peace. In delivering my testimony, I was reminded of my early days of recovery and how I proved I understood the concept of my own powerlessness by relapsing. After the first 2 weeks on my road to recovery. I talked about how angry and ashamed I was at myself for having thrown away my sobriety so easily and how I dreaded having to go and confess my failure at the next Celebrate Freedom meeting, only to be met by compassion by the other guys in the group. I expected to be shamed or ridiculed, and instead I was given acceptance and encouragement. That's— that group acceptance made a big difference in my walk. When I realized that there was grace for my failures, I was able to surrender to the Lord more completely and walked out of that meeting with a new commitment to not stray from the road to recovery that the Lord had led me to. I haven't relapsed since. As I remember that post-relapse meeting, um, I recall that there was a big group of guys there, at least 10, maybe up to 15 in attendance. So I really felt the love, you know, a group that big and no one smirked, you know. Um, but now that I think about it, that group quickly decreased in size as the program progressed. By the time we started up for, for round 2 in the fall of 2015, most of those men were gone, with the exception of Bill Hamm, who remained a faithful follower of Jesus until his, his death last year. No one walked away from that meeting the way I did. While I don't know anyone else's story or where they are today in terms of their faith or recovery, I can tell you that the, the people at that meeting weren't attending services when I was released to go, um, You know, released from my church to go to Starpoint Church in 2021. I don't know their stories, but they, they had come for recovery, but they didn't follow the Lord into the pathway of surrender, uh, like I did. Instead of his way to freedom, peace, and contentment, they seemingly went their own way and possibly still remain in bondage today. In thinking about the significant number of people in the group, I'm humbled. And thankful that the Lord called me the way he did, and how it led to an entirely new life where I try to show others that freedom and victory is possible through Christ alone, and only requires that you surrender and trust the Lord to help you find your way out of the darkness. As it turns out, today's In Touch, uh, with Dr. Charles Stanley devotional addresses surrender and trusting the Lord to, to help us to accept and adapt to the circumstances of our lives. And I'm sharing it on— sharing it today because it echoes my sentiments that we can find freedom, peace, and contentment with God's help. Stanley writes, finding contentment when we yield what we want and accept what God wills, we move beyond living by feelings, living by feelings to living by faith. Too often we let our circumstances determine our attitude. If life is going smoothly, then we feel good, but when it gets hard, our mood drops. However, we don't have to live this way. Like the Apostle Paul, we can learn and practice contentment. The word contentment describes being at peace no matter how things are. In other words, not wanting anything to be different. It means learning to allow God's power to come into our weakness so we can accept and adapt to changing circumstances. When we respond to life with that kind of thinking, we move beyond living by feelings to living by faith. Submission and trust are needed for such a lifestyle. First, we must surrender to God. In every situation, we are to yield what we want and accept whatever he allows. The second step is to trust God to oversee our specific situation. If we believe he is working out his perfect plan for us, then we'll experience the joy that comes from fully relying on him. Contentment will be ours. Paul submitted his life to God and trusted him. He faced insults, rejection, and many difficult trials, but was still content. When we surrender control to the Lord and believe he has our best interest at heart, we will experience contentment too. That was all from Dr. Charles Stanley. Um, you know, when we place our trust in the Lord, he blesses us with the ability to accept and adapt to whatever circumstances we face, and we can receive his strength and comfort There are only two steps to contentment: surrendering to God and trusting him. So put first things first. Yield your desires and your old ways of doing things and surrender to God's ways and his plan. Let Jesus take the wheel and ride with him into a new life with the power of surrender and the decision to trust that leads to contentment. Today's Bible verses come from, uh, come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on the forgiveness of sins, and today's verses are from Micah 7, and the verses are 18 and 19, where the word of God says, who is a God like you who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us. You will tread, tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. Today's verses fall under the 34th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sins. And that 34th point is: when people repent and in faith seek the Lord, he graciously forgives their sin hurls their iniquities, as it were, into the depths of the sea and remembers them no more. Today's Bible verses dismantle the false belief that God is mad at us and just itching to punish us if we should step out of line. Here, the Old Testament prophet Micah is in awe because he has discovered God's grace and received his forgiveness. While Micah has a true fear of the Lord that leads to the knowledge that God hates sin, he He can rejoice because he has realized that the wrath of God comes off of us the moment we repent and seek his love and forgiveness. Micah has discovered that not only can God's anger be avoided, but he has also discovered that God is love, that he is delighted to show us mercy and compassion and willing to not hold our sins against us when we put our faith in him. These are rare insights for Old Testament times, but it was made, you know, but these things were made clear through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Although the gospel is available throughout most of the world, this knowledge is still unknown or rejected by many. So we, like Micah, should rejoice that we know Jesus and stand in awe and wonder over God's amazing grace mercy, compassion, and love. 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. And we also offer our Christian life coaching, uh, services there. And, um, but today we are sharing, uh, continuing to share from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford,. And in Alford's devotional, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture. Today's chapter is James 3, and from that book or chapter, he, uh, shares a portion of verse 2, which says, if anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man. And Stephen Alford writes, the verses that follow describe with great eloquence something of the power and effect of an uncontrolled tongue. James goes on to say that while animals, birds, creeping things, and things in the sea can be tamed, no man can tame the tongue. Praise God, Christ can tame the tongue. Moreover, he can control it after it is tamed. The Lord spoke as no man had spoken. Wonderful words proceeded out of his mouth. People wondered at his gracious words. He is just the same today, and he indwells me. Oh, to be controlled by him. And Stephen Alford ends by praying, Lord, I submit my tongue to be tamed and controlled by you. Amen. Amen. And, you know, um, Alford's, Alford's devotional today points to another form of surrender. You know, we, we— what do we surrender to the Lord? Do we just surrender, you know, the big bad sins that we want to avoid and just go about our business with the rest of our lives? No, we're, we're surrender all of us. You know, Christ died for all our sins. He's accepted us completely. And so we're to surrender completely. And when we do that, we grow in grace and, and the ability to do things that we never thought were possible. Like, get, you know, free ourselves. We don't free ourselves from addiction, walk away from addiction. The Lord helps us, and he can help us even tame our tongues, which seems, you know, the Bible says that no man can do it, but with God, the seemingly impossible is possible. And, you know, through prayerful repentance and surrender to the Lord, we can even tame the tongue. I myself am trying to surrender my tongue, uh, to the Lord. And I'm, you know, I've come a long way in that, in that area. So, um, we might have to focus on that one. Um, you know, there's just, you know, when you're on the pathway to, uh, Christian discipleship, you really have to, um, make a commitment to live, live honestly and purely, uh, with the Lord. And, um, you He blesses that when you do so. So we ask the question, you know, every day, have you fully surrendered to God? You know, I'm still working on it. There's different areas, but I can tell you, I'm not the man I used to be because I decided to surrender and trust him. And God was faithful to help me and so many different struggles and problems throughout my life. And I now stand in awe and wonder, like Micah did, of God's amazing grace and love and compassion and power. That comes into your life when you surrender him, uh, surrender to following his will. Uh, when you do that, you, you discover the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life, and the Lord moves you into new things. One of the things that he's moved me into and blessed me by is the Celebrate Freedom support group that we lead, that I lead, um, Wednesdays, but there is a team effort, so it is a week. Wednesday at 6:30 PM. People found us online, you know, they, they discover the program and they come in. The Lord uses it to help people. And so we're inviting anybody in the upstate of New York who can get to Clinton Park on a Wednesday night to join our fellowship of Christian Discipleship and Recovery to learn how to walk in the Spirit and the surrender to the Lord, um, and the good things he has for your life, life that's, uh, you know, that leads to peace. So we encourage you to do that. For anyone who's not in Upstate New York, who can't make it to Clifton Park on a Wednesday night, there's hope for you too. Um, when we, you know, when we submit to the Lord, he blesses us, and when we seek him, he, you know, we'll find him. And we believe that you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of our um, our podcast classes on YouTube. So you can go to the MT for Christ 247 YouTube channel and look for our playlist. Um, you'll find a bunch of different playlists, but, uh, the ones I'm referring to specifically are the ones for the Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom discipleship course. Um, it's— they're loaded with truth, uh, about the freedom message and about who you are in Christ and how you can you know, change your life by resolving the spiritual, you know, your spiritual problems of the past, um, through a prayerful repentance process called the Steps to Freedom in Christ, and coming into good teaching, um, that, um, that shows you the way, uh, to God, like who you really are, that you're a saint, not a sinner. Anyway, um, we always ask the question, are you empty for Christ too? If so, Great. Keep on walking and talking with God. You found the pathway to peace. All you have to do is be— remain faithful to follow it all the days of your life, and you'll understand and experience contentment. Um, yeah, so we do that. And if not, it's just a matter of making, uh, saying a prayer, making a decision to follow the Lord and surrender to him. So, um, we pray every day, and, uh, we'll do that again right now. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the victory you've given us, uh, that, um, you've led us out of the darkness and we get to represent you and tell people our story about the amazing things you've done and you've done and are doing in our lives as we continue to follow you. Lord, we just pray for, uh, anyone who's listening today, that they'd be encouraged and, uh, that you come alongside, their walk of faith and, um, their prayer requests, Lord. We pray for you to help them. And Lord, we pray as always, always, uh, for your help and guidance in our lives today. Um, we just pray for you to go before us, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and, uh, lead us in the way we should go. That's all, all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord, and we need a lot of help with that. So we're asking, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.