Yeah, I’m an idiot but God loves me anyway Purity 907

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 pink, blue, and yellow sunset over the Hudson River from the vantage point of Route 9's overpass on the Rensselaer side of the Dunn Memorial Bridge comes to us from yours truly, as I did my best to capture the glory of the moment from my rearview window— rearview mirror-mounted phone as I drove home yesterday evening. Well, it's Tuesday again, and I for one am happy to leave Monday behind because even though I was able to complete all my work yesterday, I had a serious case of the Mondays as I made a couple of mistakes that will forever mark the 5th day of No— uh, December 2022 as a day that will live in infamy. Okay, I think I should say goodbye to you now because yesterday's debacle may cause you to decide to look elsewhere for any advice or encouragement for the path of Christian discipleship. But if nothing else, my confession this morning will serve as evidence of my intention to live a life of honesty and transparency. Yesterday, while at work, I locked myself out of my van and had to call my foreman to send some help to let me back into it. Hey, that's no big deal. People make mistakes, M.t. Clark. It could happen to anybody. I wasn't finished. Well, at work yesterday, I locked myself out of my van twice. What? Yep, twice. Sure, everybody makes mistakes, but when you do it twice in the same day, people have to wonder about your mental and emotional well-being. So let me assure you, I wasn't depressed or anxious about anything, uh, anything going on in my, uh, any ongoing issues in my life. I wasn't super busy either. And reassessing each instance of stupidity, I now see the common thread that led to my embarrassment. In each case, I put the keys down, once in the ignition and once in the cup holder, uh, in preparations of leaving where I was. But each case, I made a quick decision to do one more thing really quick, uh, more or less, that caused me to leave the vehicle and lock myself out. I wasn't really in a hurry, okay? In fact, it was because I wanted to be thorough in performing my work that I found myself locked out of my van. And in the first instance, uh, even though I had been given the green light to leave my first job, an install for a business, by one of the staff on hand, I decided to wait until the acting manager showed up to ask where exactly their new phone line was supposed to go. So when I saw a man who looked like he might be the person I was looking for go inside, I called the contact number I had and ended up speaking to him. Sometimes with business customers, the staff and even management aren't aware of what is going on with the business's request for service, and that was the case yesterday. So when this manager said, "Why don't you come inside so we can figure this out?" I complied quickly. But left my keys in the ignition. Dope. Uh, after finishing inside, I discovered my mistake. I called for help and ended up slinking back inside the business to get out of the cold. I got, I got in undetected and hid, waited in an unoccupied space until my rescuer called to let me know he was outside. I figured, why bother the staff and embarrass myself with sharing my problem? And as far as the business customer is concerned, this little drama never happened. So, uh, so keep that between us, okay? Uh, anyway, any— anyway, later in the day I had in quote-unquote easy trouble to fix a customer's call forwarding. They needed the calls on a particular line to be forwarded to a new number, but it wasn't working. I had some trouble programming the new number at the central office, so I, I went into my van to call the testing center who can sometimes fix the things over the phone. Um, and I was only on the phone with them for a minute or so, and they told me that they fixed it. Uh, they also pointed out the trouble in the CO I was having was due to the sequence in which I performed the steps. Just something to remember next time, they said. Um, I was ready to close the job and get new work when I started to doubt. Even though the person on the phone told me the trouble was fixed, I wanted to make sure it was fixed. So one minute I am about to close the job and leave, and the next I am going into the central office to set up the call forwarding in the proper sequence to confirm for myself that the problem was indeed fixed. I figure it would only take a minute, so I grabbed my butt set and frame clip and went to get 'er done. But I only took a few steps to the door when I realized that my pockets felt a little light. Oh no. Yep, I left the keys in the cup holder of the van and had locked myself out again. So I called for help and eventually got back into the van and back to the garage at the end of the day. So glad that the day was over. As you might suspect, there was a full-frontal assault of condemnation in each instance, and I credit the Lord for showing me who I am in Christ as the only way I am still not beating myself up this morning. When you make a mistake like this repeatedly, it, it's hard to have any confidence that you are a capable human being. Your failures show you, show your inadequacy, and the enemy is there to accuse and to drive us into fear or depression because of them. But luckily, this isn't my first rodeo with dealing with condemnation. And the Lord has shown me the way to overcome. Not surprisingly, the way to peace is to focus on him rather than us. And if we are being condemned by ourselves or the enemy, it doesn't matter. We can still point to what is true about him to restore us. Yeah, I'm an idiot, but God loves me anyway. Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. While the world can and will rightfully judge my inadequacies and choose to reject me, the Lord accepts me for who I am, warts and all, failures and all. While others may want to distance themselves from me when I mess up, the Lord draws closer to me. And while bad things have happened to me, and mostly because of me, and will continue to happen to me, God is working all things together for my good. He has provided for me and given me good things in this life that I don't deserve, and by God, for reasons I don't quite understand and don't want to question, He will continue to lead me into good things in the future, including His eternal kingdom. During the processing of yesterday's trauma, I went to my go-to Bible verse to silence the voices of condemnation. If you don't know it, you haven't been following me for long. Uh, Romans 8:1 says, 'There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.' And those words reminded me that there was no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus. I am forgiven. I am accepted and loved by God. I'm not judged by my performance or lack thereof. Even though I didn't feel worthy when I spoke it, I knew it was true. In fact, as I received peace and joy over the reminder of who I am in Christ, I laughed and thought, and thought, even though there very well should be condemnation, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. So if you have made the same mistake twice in the same day, I'm right there with you. Brother, and it is my prayer that you know who you are in Christ and that you know that regardless of what you do, if you are in Christ, you are loved, forgiven, accepted, secure, significant, and free. Including, uh, I am including, uh, a link. Oh boy, I am including a link to the free resource page of Freedom in Christ Ministries where you can download, download a copy of the Who I Am in Christ list from FICM today in case you don't know or you have forgotten who you are in Christ. I also wanted to announce that registration for many new courses, including the Freedom in Christ course that I will lead on Tuesday nights in 2023, are now open at FICM. The link for that is on the blog as well. Um, let's see, just find the course that is right for you and click on the More Info and to Sign Up tab to reserve your spot. Space is limited and registration closes on December 17th, so make plans to grow more and to learn more about your faith and yourself in 2023 by signing up today. While we may always make mistakes this side of heaven. When we are walking and talking with God, we can move past them. If we fall down, God is always there to pick us up and to encourage us in the way we should go. But we receive his joy and peace— but we won't receive his joy and peace unless we know who we are in Christ and remember to keep on walking and talking with him. Today's Bible verses, uh, verses come to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are 1 John 3:17-19, and they say, if someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion, how can God's love be in that person? Dear children, let not Let's not merely say that we love each other. Let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Today's verses encourage us to show our love for others by acting. While money can be a sore subject in faith circles, let me apply a little healthy shame. Most of us have enough money to live well. And there are many in need. So let's face it, we should be compassionate and give something. If you are flat broke, I get it, but most of us aren't and can give something. In fact, if you are not giving regularly to your church, to ministries, or to charities, I have to encourage you to do it because verses like today's verse indicate that a Christian should not be just one who says they care but is someone who actually shows it in action and giving. Is the easiest way to act. Don't get it twisted, I would rather you serve your church or the community at large in some manner to put your feet on the street in service to the Lord. But if you can't do that, I would ask you to show your love for others by giving to the less fortunate in some way. I look at my own life and my own wise spending, and I'm literally ashamed at times of how badly I mismanage my life. But the money I give to my church spend on ministry expenses, or donate to charities are the expenses that I can look at and feel good about. It might not be much, but at least I give something to someone rather than to myself. Today's verses tell us to enter into the life of discipleship with action, to do something, to share and to show God's love in us with other people in our lives. So let your harp lead you to, to step out and give, or to do something for someone somewhere for the glory of the Lord. 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 The Cost of Discipleship. With the section on the Church of Jesus Christ and discipleship. We're currently, um, sharing the end of, uh, the section on baptism, uh, so if you want to see that, uh, the conclusion on quote-unquote chapter 9 of, of baptism, uh, go to mt4christ.org and you'll see everything that Bonhoeffer has to say about that. As always, we invite people to check out the discipleship teachings that we have on— have online. And guess what? They're free. They're available at the podcast and our YouTube channel, both with the same name, M.t. for Christ 247, um, on wherever podcasts are listed and on YouTube exclusively. Um, so we encourage that, you know, if you can't sign up for an FICM class, um, our podcasts are always available so you can learn out about who you are in Christ, about the spiritual forces of darkness that are alive in the world, and how you can have your freedom in Christ. So we encourage you to check those out. And as always, we encourage Bible study, you know, to know who you are in Christ, to know what the word of God says, and to apply it to your life, you have to know what's in the book. So we encourage you to read it. And currently, uh, it's December, my wife and I are doing a study on the Gospel of John. We're doing a chapter a day, so today's the 6th day of, of December, and we'll be doing John 6 later this evening. So you can do something like that, a chapter a day in the Bible, to acquaint yourself with the scriptures and to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through it. Um, you know, sometimes you read the text and you see something that wasn't there before. Because that's God trying to direct your path. So open your ears and listen for his direction, and maybe you won't make as many mistakes as I do. Anyway, so today's the day we're going back to work, and so let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you for your forgiveness and your acceptance and your love and for taking care of us. Lord, we, We uh, just pray for you to go before us today. We also pray for the people listening today, Lord, or reading this message. We pray for you to bless them and come alongside them in their prayer requests and to guide them in the way they should go. Lord, as always, all we want to do is represent you and, uh, you and your kingdom here on the earth. So help us to see the things we need to say today and to walk in uh, to the things you would have us do today. Um, or we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.