Walking Beyond Belief – Practicing What He Teaches - Purity 968

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 pathway stretching out and disappearing into a forest green comes to us from Fred Dimmick, who captured this peaceful scene while hiking in Meeks Park in Briersville, Georgia earlier this week. Well, it's Thursday again, and as is my habit, I share this quiet pathway to not only inspire you to spend some time in nature, but I also use it to represent the pathway of Christian discipleship that I encourage everyone I can to get on and to stay on. Yesterday I returned to my place down by the river after spending 8 business days in Syracuse receiving training for new skills for my job. So today I go back to work where I will discover whether or not I will be called upon to demonstrate my newfound knowledge and training in a real-world situation. Ironically, my experience parallels quite nicely with the material that the Men's Freedom in Christ course was discussing last night as we were talking about the importance of demonstrating our beliefs with actions. In our Christian walk, it is important not only to say we believe what God's word says, but to really show we believe it by applying God's knowledge to our personal experiences. One definition of wisdom is the application of knowledge, and last night our session challenged us all to be wise by applying God's knowledge to our lives. Even though I spent 8 days learning new things for my new job— for my job and demonstrating that I understood how things work, uh, in a controlled lab environment of training, Time will tell whether or not I will get to demonstrate my knowledge and skills in the, in the real world. My employer may call me to use those skills today, or they could, or they may choose to be content with the fact that I received the training and call me to just keep doing what I have been doing before. However, although I suppose there would be some value in me knowing about these different areas of my job, My training really won't be valuable unless I go out and actually use this new knowledge and practice these new skills. Similarly, the participants of the Freedom in Christ Course may receive some benefit from learning the materials of the Freedom in Christ Course, but the true value of the lessons of the Course won't be fully realized unless they apply the teaching to their lives. That's what's being— that's what being a disciple of Jesus Christ is all about. We not only seek to learn from Christ's example and teachings, but we seek to represent him and God's kingdom for, um, from not only applying those teachings to our lives but also teaching others what we've learned. Christ's last words in the Gospel of Matthew specifically instruct us to do this. Matthew 28:19-20 say, the words of Jesus say, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." So the point of being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not only to learn and apply the knowledge we've received, Our ultimate purpose is to learn and live the lessons from Jesus Christ so well that we become living examples of his wisdom and power to the point we are proficient enough in his way of life that we would be able to teach and encourage others to do likewise. While I review the material presented in the Freedom in Christ course each week, a good deal of the time I I spend is, is, um, the time, yeah, the time I spend consists of me presenting examples from my and other Christians' lives that demonstrate us acting out our faith in the way we live. I do this to encourage the participants that they can actually live a Christian lifestyle, that they can actually do it. The Freedom in Christ course is progressive. The first week teaches that the Bible is true and can be trusted. The second week teaches what the Bible has to say about who we are in Christ and about what has taken place when we put our faith in Jesus. And the third week challenges the participants to make the decision to actually believe the truth by acting on the things they have been taught. And last night I heard the men testify about how even the act of believing what they have learned is an action. More than one man testified to how they previously, quote unquote, knew these things about their Christian faith, but now were being deeply impacted by this knowledge because they not only consider that these things about Those who are in Christ are not only true in general, but were true about them individually, personally. These truths of the Christian faith are now being taken to heart because they are making the decision to believe that these things are not just general truths about their faith, but are things that are true about them because they have faith. The fundamentals of Who we are in Christ can be summed up with the words accepted, significant, and secure. In essence, the participants are being changed because they personalize the truth. Before, in theory, although it might not have been clearly spelled out or understood in these terms, they believed Christians are accepted, secure, and significant because of their faith in Jesus Christ. But now they have considered and are being asked to understand that I am accepted, secure, and significant because of my faith in Jesus Christ. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch, does it? But the difference that these men are experiencing is great because they are receiving what they are choosing to believe. And let's not get it twisted, this isn't the Jedi mind trick here. Where we just say something and try to apply it to our lives. This is the application of the truth that comes from God. This has spiritual power to affect our lives because our Creator blesses His creation when we live in accordance with His truth, when we are one with Him in a harmonious relationship with Him and His truth. When we agree that we are accepted by God because of what He has done, We experience his acceptance because when we put our faith in Christ, we already have it. We are not making this up. We are realizing and receiving what God has already given to us, but what we have been kept from because of our ignorance or failure to believe it. Now, just believing can have power. I've seen it, the peace and joy that comes over a Christian when they realize that it really is finished, as Christ has said, is real and awesome. But the strength of our joy and our peace, if we just keep on believing, can weaken when we don't seek to live out who we are in Christ. When we fail to seek the Lord through the practices of our faith, through prayer, Bible study, worship, and acting on it with the way we live, the enemy will come in and accuse us and deceive us that what what may be true about Christians isn't true about us, and our resolve will be shaken because we won't have anything to demonstrate what God says about us is true. Every disciple of Christ will be able to testify of what has changed and be able to show the fruit of their new life in Christ. But quote-unquote believers in Christ may be shaken from the truth of God's word because they haven't acted on it. Actually by, by actually practicing what is preached. So let me encourage you to take the next step just beyond just believing by walking and talking with God every day and seeking to know him more through his word and by applying it to your life. With declaring Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive a new life, but we will fail to experience it unless we make the decision to actually use our new knowledge and skills in the real world. Let's— so let's be real Christians by really believing what the Word of God says about us and by making the daily decision to live according to what it says. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verse is 1 John 4:4, and it says But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. Today's Bible verse encourages us that we, because we have put our faith in Christ, we have already won the victory over the world because we have the Spirit of God living in us. And thus his Spirit confirms in our spirit the truth that we are children of God. We belong to God because we put our faith in Christ. We have been adopted into God's family. We are his children, and because he is the source of all power and authority, we are victorious over anything that would oppose us, because no matter how things play out in our lives, nothing will separate us from our Heavenly Father. We don't have to fear anything because God has given us the victory. So live like a victor, not a victim, and know that you belong in Christ. You are a winner, and his Spirit lives in you to guide and strengthen you through life. 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. Uh, today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Sovereignty of God, and we're continuing to share from chapter 6, uh, on the sovereignty of God in operation, how God works in the world, uh, with the section on God's method of dealing with the wicked. And, uh, today we'll be sharing the third point from A.W. Pink's teaching, uh, that God exerts upon the wicked a directing influence that that good is made to result from their intended evil. So, uh, A.W. Pink apparently is going to be touching on, uh, you know, the idea that God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, taking the evil that men do and, uh, you know, even using that, um, for his purposes. So if you want to check out what A.W. Pink has to say about that, go to M.t. Clark.org and you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. As always, we encourage a life of Christian discipleship. Does that mean you're going to follow some dude? Um, yeah, only if that dude's Jesus Christ. And so, and so, you know, granted, we can learn from our brothers, uh, in Christ who've gone before us and learned and matured in our faith, but ultimately, I always say that the discipler is the Holy Spirit who lives inside us. Who guides us into all truth and who shows us the things that are to come. So we need to walk in the Spirit if we're going to follow the Spirit. And that's about surrendering our will to the Lord's will, not to the will of some guy. So be wise in discerning to receive spiritual instruction from the Bible, from, you know, teachers and whatnot, but to know the Bible for yourself to make sure you're not being led astray. That's the, the wisdom. We have to know what it says and apply it properly and study it, to study the Word of God, to know when somebody's trying to twist it for their own purposes. You know, men, men may mean well, but sometimes, uh, they might not mean well. So we have to be careful, but we have great care. The caregiver in, in God our Heavenly Father, and he will guide us if we, uh, decide to be real and go beyond just believing by trying to apply his truth to our lives. So we encourage that. Um, the way we do that here on the blog is, uh, by sharing our discipleship teachings that we, that we did back in 2021, uh, for the Victory Over the Darkness, the Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, which are all based on the word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson from Freedom in Christ Ministries. So if you want to get free in Christ, know who you are in Christ, we invite you to check out those teachings that are on the podcast and our YouTube channel of the same name, M.t. Clark Christ 247. We name it that because we discovered that the, the value of our faith is in actually practicing it every day. We don't get enough from a weekly worship service. The Lord has wisdom for us every day, and his presence can be understood and enjoyed every day when we, when we pursue him in prayer and to try to, you know, shape our lives to meet his purposes, not our own. So we encourage that. And obviously this is all based on the word of God. So we encourage Bible study, and we provide a Bible study of sorts as a topical study we do each week with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti. This week we'll be taking off, but there's a bunch of teachings in the archive. So if you're interested in that, we invite you to check out Bible Study with the Sincottis on the podcast and YouTube to be encouraged in your faith. We have the Father, we have the Son, we have the Holy Spirit, and And we have the church, the body of believers, one another. Who's a true believer? Who's not? Well, we'll have to be wise and discerning to make sure we're not being led astray. But we're here to encourage you because we get feedback from the participants in our Freedom in Christ course and from people that we've dealt with in the past. And when we encourage someone, we're encouraged in our faith. So we thank everyone for, uh, for listening or clicking on the website, um, or anything to indicate that somebody's out there, um, someone's, someone's checking it out and prayerfully is being encouraged by what we provide here at mtforchrist.org. So we, uh, we thank you for that. And so let's pray for you. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the truth that you've shown to us. And we ask you to help us apply that truth to the ways we live our lives. Help us to surrender to your will, Lord, because we know that your will, uh, for us is best, and, um, that you have a purpose and a plan for us, for us to walk into things that you want us to do. And Lord, because of what we receive from you, we want to do that. We want to represent our family and our and your kingdom, um, because of the love that you've shown us. And, uh, Lord, that's, that's why we do things. We're not afraid of you. We love you, Lord. And we just ask that you help us by showing us the things you want us to see today and by leading us the way we should go. Lord, we, uh, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.