This Land is Our Land - 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 3 –
Purity 1059
Purity 1059 06/03/2023 Purity 1059 Podcast
Purity 1059 on YouTube: Coming Soon!
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
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” ( https://g.co/kgs/CaZZw6) . 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.” (https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/13445#:~:text=Guthrie%20placed%20little%20faith%20in,and%20justice%20to%20the%20world.)
While 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 some day singing the Lord’s praises in God’s
eternal kingdom.
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, 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 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 today but I do have
plans to go to the “Man Up” Event at Starpoint Church tonight where NY 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 a 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 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, (https://4habits.org/) which is based on Dr. Marcus Warner
& Chris Coursey’s latest book, The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People.
You can sign
up for the 28 Day Joy Challenge for free and purchase a variety of books from
Warner and Coursey on topic of Joy, by going to https://4habits.org/.
So let’s
jump into Day 3, which just happens to deal with looking ahead towards good
things on our horizon.
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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 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 the what and why with
a friend.
Have fun
with this exercise. We pick up tomorrow with more joy practice!
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Well, when I
sat down to think about what I am looking forward to this week, I am blessed to confess that my local church
community at Starpoint 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 6pm to enjoy food, games, and fellowship before
we worship and hear Daryl Strawberry speak, and then have the option of ending
the evening with campfires and S’mores!
Tomorrow,
being Sunday, I can look forward to worship and a message from Pastor Jack
Graham. Graham leads 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
Lily.
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 and worship to the
Lord, and honestly share from our experience 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 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”.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity
than my simple apologetic will provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s
website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
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Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from my morning Bible Study as I left “The NLT 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
am currently walking through the NASB.
This
morning’s meditation verse is:
Zechariah
2:11 (NLT2)
11 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 millennium 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 a thousand 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 1,000 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, and whatever that means, I can relax and rejoice that it will mean the Jesus – will physically be with us. Our Immanuel 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 rest of the Revelation promises indicate 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 earth!
So rejoice, if you have
faith in Jesus – God is with you now and 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!
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.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 The Holy Spirit By A.W. Pink.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for $0.99 (https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Arthur-Pink-Collection-ebook/dp/B008CM5292/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AHKAQOM39CTN&keywords=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit&qid=1684376225&sprefix=a.w.+pink+the+holy+spirit+%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-3)
A.W. Pink’s The Holy Spirit
7 - The Holy Spirit and Christ
We are afraid that our treatment of the particular aspect
of this many-sided theme which is now before us is rather too abstruse for some
of our readers to follow, yet we trust they will kindly bear with us as we
endeavor to write for those who are anxious for help on the deeper things of
God.
The Deeper Things of God
As stated before, we are seeking to minister
unto widely different classes, unto those with differing capacities, and
therefore we wish to provide a varied spiritual menu. He who is hungry will not
leave the table in disgust because one dish thereon appeals not to him. We ask
their forbearance while we seek to give something like completeness to our
exposition of the subject as a whole.
“As the humanity of
Christ was assumed into the Hypostatic union, we may fitly say, on the one
hand, that the Person of Christ was
anointed, so far as the call to office
was concerned; while we bear in mind, on the other hand, that it is the humanity that is anointed in as far
as we contemplate the actual supplies of God’s gifts and graces, aids and
endowments, necessary to the execution of His office. But that we may not be
engulfed in onesidedness, it must be also added that the Holy Spirit, according
to the order of the Trinity, interposes His power only to execute the will of
the Son
as to the unction of
the Lord Jesus by the Spirit, it was different according to the three grades successively imparted. The
first grade was at the incarnation; the second coincided with His baptism, the
third and highest grade was at the ascension, when He sat down on His
mediatorial throne, and received from the Father the gift of the Spirit to
bestow upon His Church in abundant measure” (G. Smeaton).[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts
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These teachings are also available on the
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Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and
to be encouraged.
My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian
encouragement via her Ask Seek Knock blog (https://tammylynask.blogspot.com/ ), her
Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on
Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
For those who require the assistance of a Deeper
Walk International Prayer Minister to experience healing or your freedom in Christ,
I highly recommend Christy Edge’s Life on the Edge Freedom Prayer Ministry. You
can schedule a session by going to : https://cedge216.wixsite.com/life-on-the-edge
“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication,
and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the
author may represent.”
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Arthur Walkington Pink, The Holy Spirit
(Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, n.d.).
