Following God and All Things for Good - Happy Anniversary, My Love - Purity 1236

Following  God and All Things for Good  - Happy Anniversary, My Love - Purity 1236

Purity 1236 01/01/2024 Purity 1236 Podcast

Purity 1236 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of people waiting online for a New Year’s Eve Improv Comedy performance comes to us from yours truly as I decided to capture a quick self of the Mrs. and myself on the last night before our anniversary or and the beginning of a new year.  Happy New Year everyone, and Happy Anniversary, my love! Happy Anniversary TammyLyn. 

Well, It’s Monday and even though I begin the new year in a place I would have never suspected I would be, in a quaint B&B on the shores of the Franklin Falls Flow Pond outside of Bloomingdale in the Adirondacks, I am not surprised by the company I am in as TammyLyn and I made a vow to be together for the rest of our lives as man and wife, even if we decided to do so in an unorthodox way at the beginning.  Due to the circumstances of our former lives, TammyLyn and I decided to be “married, two households, but I can say that we are closer now to realizing the dream of being together in one place, permanently, than we have ever been before, and I am more in love with TammyLyn than I was yesterday. 

I know that may sound cliché, that “ I love you more today as yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow” but I suppose that’s why that song by Spiral Staircase was a hit in 1969, the more we spend time with someone and the more our love for them has the potential to grow, and with TammyLyn, perhaps because I thoroughly believe that she is the answer to my prayers and a gift from God to me, the potential for the growth of my love for her seems to be infinite. There seems to be no end in sight of how much I love to TammyLyn and  even know I don’t completely know the specifics of God’s plan for my life, I am convinced that part of my purpose in life is to love her as my beloved wife from here to eternity, and if I’m allowed to, beyond.  

Our story has the makings of a Hallmark Romance movie and even though it may seem over the top and hard to believe because of how we met and the things we have seen and done together,  it’s a true story. It is a testament to our faith in God and demonstrates the truth of Romans 8:28 as both TammyLyn and I have experienced how God works things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.   Our purpose to follow Jesus and to try to live as God would want us to live and even though we didn’t even know each other at the beginning of 2021, our mutual love of the Lord and intention to be faithful Christians was the catalyst that put us on the collision course where our lives would meet and we would never be the same, in a good way, again. 

In 2021, I decide to launch a Community Freedom Ministry at my local church and TammyLyn decided to grow in her faith. If neither one of us is faithful to those decisions, we never meet, we never fall in love, and we never marry.  But God called us and drew us to follow those calls on our lives and join our purposes to help each of us to grow and receive the love we so desperately needed. While the only one who completes us is Christ and God stands at the center of our marriage, TammyLyn and I would agree that we compliment one another well and even though we are both far from perfect, God knew how perfectly His love could draw us together and make us one.  

So I am not only celebrating the new year today, but I am also rejoicing over my marriage to TammyLyn and thanking God for giving us the opportunity to move through another year as man and wife.  Thank you Lord for the life and love you have given us and thank you TammyLyn, my love, for faithfully following the Lord’s call on your life, for loving me, and for deciding to walk with me as my wife for another trip around the sun.  

If anyone is looking for dating advice or looking for advice on finding your soul mate all I can do is to encourage you to do what TammyLyn and I did, follow the Lord faithfully, seek to know Him more, don’t compromise by giving into your fleshly desires, and stay committed to loving God first and allowing Him to guide your path.  It may lead to marriage, it may not, but the love that God has for you is more than enough to see you through the rest of your life here on earth, and just may lead your path to join with someone else that God specifically made for you.  

It is my prayer that all who read or hear this message have the happiest of years in 2024, and that you stay faithful to following the Lord through the next 365 days to see how God can move all things together for your good when you answer the call and pursue the purpose that He has for your life.  

TammyLyn and I are simple people who did that and now our lives have come together into an amazing journey of faith, hope, and love.  Keep walking and talking with God and come and see what the Lod has for you.

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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .

Today’s Bible verses come to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.

( While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Comfort.

Romans 8:28 (NASB)
²⁸  And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

 Today’s verse fall under the eighth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Comfort.

8. God works all things together for our good.

Today’s verse proves God has a tremendous sense of humor and destiny. I did not look ahead and plan out my message for the first of the year and arrange just the right verse for the circumstances I am going through, I didn’t know that I would paraphrase Romans 8:28 in my comments but God did.  God knows everything and God’s word is true. He sees the end from the beginning and is moving the events forward in space and time to fulfill His purposes and today’s verse tells us that God’s plan is for good – for those who love Him.   That’s the key here, guys.  

Our relationship with God isn’t some game or something we can skillfully manipulate for personal benefit. Life isn’t as simple as – if you want good do good, while that works to some degree there is a major problem with that idea – us! Without God we wouldn’t know what good is!  And if we think we know what is best, we are wrong and we will eventually suffer from doing things according to our ideas of what’s best. 

God’s ways are higher than our ways and destiny is crafted by Him.  While we can manipulate circumstances to some degree to have happiness, God is playing the long game – the big game – the eternity game – and the only way we have a good outcome in eternity is to have God on our side and the nature of God doesn’t afford us to just form an alliance with Him for our benefit. To know God is to love Him for He is love.  All good things flow from Him and thus our experiencing the truth of Romans 8:28 is based on our love and God’s call and purpose on our lives.  Without God calling us out of the darkness, we are headed for destruction.  Without our love for Him, we would question, doubt, and resist everything that God is working together for our good.  

So thank God that you know Him and His goodness and be faithful to follow all those things that he is putting together for your good. His plan is best, and it leads to the good of all who love Him, so follow Him and watch His good plan play out all the days of your life.

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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 are sharing from “God is in the Manger- Reflections on Advent and Christmas” – By Dietrich Bonhoeffer.   

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available online for less than $10 at many sites.

God is in the Manger – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS AND EPIPHANY

JANUARY 1

At the Beginning of a New Year

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” This saying, which is found in a broad variety of lands, does not arise from the brash worldly wisdom of an incorrigible. It instead reveals deep Christian insight. At the beginning of a new year, many people have nothing better to do than to make a list of bad deeds and resolve from now on—how many such “from-now-ons” have there already been!—to begin with better intentions, but they are still stuck in the middle of their paganism. They believe that a good intention already means a new beginning; they believe that on their own they can make a new start whenever they want. But that is an evil illusion: only God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God. Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past. Only where God is can there be a new beginning. We cannot command God to grant it; we can only pray to God for it. And we can pray only when we realize that we cannot do anything, that we have reached our limit, that someone else must make that new beginning.

New Year’s Text:

If we survive during the coming weeks or months, we shall be able to see quite clearly that all has turned out for the best. The idea that we could have avoided many of life’s difficulties if we had taken things more cautiously is too foolish to be entertained for a moment. As I look back on your past I am so convinced that what has happened hitherto has been right, that I feel that what is happening now is right too. To renounce a full life and its real joys in order to avoid pain is neither Christian nor human.

Bonhoeffer to Renate and Eberhard Bethge,

written from Tegel, January 23, 1944

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

2 Corinthians 5:16–17^[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

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247

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)

“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

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^[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas, ed. Jana Riess, trans. O. C. Dean Jr., First edition. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 80–81.

Destruction or Abundance – A Mindful of Christ Encouragement - Purity 1201

Destruction or Abundance – A Mindful of Christ Encouragement - Purity 1201

Purity 1201 11/17/2023 Purity 1201 Podcast

Purity 1201 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the silhouettes or trees and a rustic barn in the foreground of a sky painted by the fading light of sunset comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene at the “end of the Road” last weekend in the farmlands just off of Waite Rd in Easton NY.  

Well, It’s Saturday and I am back at my countryside home with my wife TammyLyn for the weekend and yes – we are reunited and it does feel so good – as we will spend the day today on another hike somewhere in the Saratoga or Adirondack areas of the “real upstate NY”– or as I call it “ The Great White North” and possibly go to see the new Nativity inspired – Christmas Story Musical, “Journey to Bethlehem later today.  I’m not sure exactly where the day will take us, but I hope to we hope to continue to experience the fullness of joy that we continually find in our God-centered marriage.

However, as happy as I am in my marriage to TammyLyn and look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving this week, I recognize that for many November of 2023 has brought some real challenges in the form of disappointments, failures, broken relationships, and death.  I also recognize that this transitioning time from autumn to winter, and the movement into the holiday season can bring with it memories of previous losses or the ways things used to be but will be no more.  Quite a few of my friends are suffering this year, and some are experiencing the anniversaries of losses and painful changes, that are over or not quite a year old.    

For those of us who are content or happy right now, we should be grateful but also be aware and sensitive to those who are suffering by offering our presence, prayers, help, or understanding to those whose problems, pain, or losses make it difficult to be thankful.  

We have to walk the fine line listening and be present with those whose pain is great and knowing when to offer an encouraging word that could help them to rise out of the depths of despair.  We have to try to be aware of the “time of the season” and respond appropriately.    

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NKJV) tells us
¹  To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:
²  A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
³  A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up;
⁴  A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance;
⁵  A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶  A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away;
⁷  A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;
⁸  A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace.

So, we have to try to be wise and discerning in terms of the help we give because any one of these situations could be playing out in the lives of the people we encounter this week.  

While silence may be the appropriate response to much of what you run into this week, I both exercise that option and not practice it by sharing an encouraging word from Lauren Roskilly of Mindful of Christ.net who shared this “Word for Wednesday” that teaches us that the spiritual forces of darkness may play a part in your suffering and that we are not helpless against our negative thoughts or emotions and that we can choose by faith to respond rather than react to the enemy’s attacks or the negative circumstances of our lives to experience the life of peace that God wants us to live, regardless of the “times of the season.”  Lauren shares:

“John 10:10 (NLT2)
¹⁰  The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

Destruction or abundance?

Whenever you come across any thought, situation, person, or experience that takes away, ruins, or eliminates your faith, peace and joy and takes you away from Christ and His plans for your life then know that that thought, situation, person, or experience is from the devil & his minions. He is the one that wants to ruin you and your relationship with the Triune God.

God intends and promises you abundance, in mind, spirit and soul. You CAN know His peace.

Note that God doesn’t promise we won’t have to deal with the devil’s schemes, we will, but He does promise us His comfort and strength to deal with them. And that abundance includes the fruit of the Spirit; peace, love, joy, patience, kindness gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Notice how you respond and react to each thought, situation, person, or experience. You can choose destruction and lack, or you can choose to stand against the devil and choose the peaceful and abundant life that God has for you.

When a thought, situation, person, or experience occurs, ask yourself, “Is this from God or will it steal, kill, or destroy my faith or growth with Christ?”

What will you choose?

-Lauren Roskilly, Mindful of Christ (https://mindfulofchrist.net/) – Word for Wednesday 11/15/23 ”

Thank You, Lauren.  Her words expose the enemy’s strategies to drive us into despair and destruction and unfortunately, he doesn’t take it easy on those who are already suffering loss, pain, or heartbreak.  So whether you are just feeling low in general or have some very real and present problems and heartaches, remember to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ – just because you feel down doesn’t mean we stop doing what is right – and choose to remember that the Lord is with you and choose to spend time in His presence to receive the comfort, wisdom, or strength you need to help you to endure or to change your perspective by focusing on the good that is present in your life right now and the God who will never leave you or forsake you in any time or season.

When we keep walking and talking with God, we can overcome anything and we remember to submit to God, and resist the devil, we can experience the peace that goes beyond all understanding and beyond our current circumstances.

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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.

( While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This morning’s meditation verses come from the section on Church, Communion of the Saints.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11 (ESV)
¹  Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.
²  You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.
³  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
⁴  Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
⁵  and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;
⁶  and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
⁷  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
⁸  For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
⁹  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
¹⁰  to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.
¹¹  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

Today’s verses are the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the fifth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Church, Communion of the Saints.

 5. Gifts of the Spirit differ. Each member must use his or her gifts to serve others.

Today’s verses encourage us that we don’t all have to be the same. There are different gifts that the Lord has for us that can be used for God’s glory and for good of the body of Christ.   So you be you and I’ll be me and let’s both consider the gifts that the Lord has given us and rejoice in the fact that He knows us and loves us for who we are and allows us to ‘be ourselves” in the way that we follow and serve His kingdom.    

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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 are sharing from A. W. Pink’s – The Arthur Pink Anthology  - a collection of A.W. Pink’s tracts brought together in one book and dispersed here on the blog for your encouragement.

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 free as a PDF at many sites, but printed copies of collections of A.W. Pink’s books are available for purchase wherever Christian books are sold. 

The Arthur Pink Anthology – 6

Christian Fools – Part 5 of 8

And listen again! If God’s truth is to be presented proportionately and effectively then each truth of God’s Word must be presented separately. If I am speaking upon the humanity of Christ, if I am seeking to emphasize the reality of His manhood, how that He was made like unto His brethren in all things, how that He was tempted in all points as they were—sin excepted—I would not bring into my sermon a reference to His Godhood; and if you were to hear me preach the next twelve Sunday nights on the manhood of Christ and never refer to His Deity in those sermons, I hope none of you brethren would be so foolish as to draw the conclusion, Oh dear me, Brother Pink no longer believes in the Godhood of our Savior.

Again, if I am preaching on the wrath of God, the holy hatred of God for sin and His vengeance upon it, I would be weakening my sermon to bring in at the close a reference to His tenderness, mercy and love, for in my judgment that would be to blunt the point of the special truth I was seeking to press on the unconverted. And, in the same way, if I am pressing on the unconverted their need, their duty and importance of seeking the Lord, calling upon, coming to and believing on Him for themselves, I would not bring in or explain the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion.

Each truth needs to be presented separately that it may have its clear outline presented to the heart and to the mind. And after all, my friends, we are not saved by believing in the Spirit, we are saved by believing in Christ. We are not saved by believing in the work of the Spirit within us (no man was ever saved by believing that); we are saved by trusting in the work of Christ outside of us. O may God help us to maintain the balance of truth. There is something more in this Book, brethren and sisters, beside election, particular redemption and the new birth. They are there, and I would not say one word to weaken or to repudiate them, but that is not all that is in this Book. There is a human side. There is man’s responsibility. There is the sinner’s repentance. There is the sinner’s believing in Christ. There is the pressing of the gospel upon the unsaved; and I want to tell you frankly that is a church does not evangelize it will fossilize: and, if I am not much mistaken, that is what happened to some of the Strict Baptist Churches in Australia. Numbers of them that once had a healthy existence are now no more; and some others are already dead but they are not yet buried; and I believe one of the main reasons for that is this—they failed at the vital point of evangelism. If a church does not evangelize it will fossilize. That is God’s method of perpetuating His work and of maintaining His churches. God uses means, and the means that the Holy Spirit uses in His work is the preaching of the gospel to the unconverted, to every creature. True, the preaching will avail nothing without the Spirit’s blessing and application. True, no sinner will or can believe until God has quickened him. Yet he ought to, and is commanded to.

Now I meant, if time had allowed me, to come back again to the text and give you a few striking examples of where many have failed in holding the balance of God’s truth. Take for example the Unitarians. I have met numbers of Unitarians who believe this Book is God’s word, and believe that they can prove their creed from this Book. They appeal to such Scriptures as Deuteronomy 6:4—“The Lord our God is one Lord.” Their creed is the unity of God and they argue that if there be three divine persons there must be three Gods; they cannot harmonize them, they cannot reconcile three persons with one God; so what do they do? Well, they hold fast to the one and they let go the other. They say the two won’t mix—either God is one or else He is three; He cannot be both. When they come to the Person of Christ they emphasize such passages as—“He grew in wisdom.” Well, they say, if He was a divine person, how could He grow in wisdom? They emphasize such passages as “He prayed,” and they say it is an absurdity to think of God praying to God. They say, He died—how could God die? No, He cannot be divine: He is a good man; He is a holy man; He is a perfect man; and because they cannot reconcile the two classes of Scriptures they believe the one and reject the other. And Christ says to them, Ye are fools because ye are slow of heart to believe all.^[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

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247

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)    

“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

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^[1] Arthur Walkington Pink, The Arthur Pink Anthology (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005).

Bad Company - Forsaking Friends in Low Places- Self-Deception Series 10 – Purity 1099

Bad Company - Forsaking Friends in Low Places- Self-Deception Series 10 – Purity 1099

Purity 1099 07/20/2023 Purity 1099 Podcast

Purity 1099 on YouTube:

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the majestic blue heavens with angelic like cloud formations over Waite Rd comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene while taking a weary afternoon walk last Saturday after a forced six day work week.  

Well, It’s Thursday and as is my habit I share this photo of an asphalt pathway as a visual encouragement to get on or to keep walking on the path of Christian Discipleship. I also share it because of that magnificent blue sky which has been a rarity this “white sky summer” as we have been inundated with nearly record setting rainfall and periodic poor air quality due to the perpetual wildfires of “O’ Canada”.  You wouldn’t think you could take something as simple as blue skies in summertime for granted but apparently we have as Summer 2023 makes me appreciate it each time I look up and see blue.    

And that’s one thing about our human experience, that is lamented about in that power ballad from 1988, the hard rock -hair band - Cinderella’s “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone), that the love we have, that the positive circumstances we have, may not last forever and that what we take for granted today may be gone tomorrow.  

One of the things that Christians can take for granted and shockingly stop appreciating is the fact that they know the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that they have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into God’s kingdom.  If we are not careful, we can take our salvation and freedom for granted to the point that it will feel like it is gone.  Instead of celebrating and rejoicing in what the Lord has done in our lives continually, we can become jaded and depressed over the negative circumstances in our lives, become weary, and seek comfort and meaning from the world again!  If we fail to practice gratitude and appreciation and choose to stop seeking the Lord’s presence, strength, and guidance in regular Bible study, prayer, and through “walking in the Spirit”,  we can start believing lies that will lead us into sin or take us to the depths of depression.   

So as disciples of Jesus Christ, we have to remind ourselves of what our Teacher has taught us, what He has done in our lives, and rejoice over our salvation and that we have been chosen to know and share the Truth.   We have to walk the fine line of contentment and seeking to be further sanctified on this path and we must be diligent in the battle for our minds when the world, the flesh, or the devil seek to deceive us.   

And that brings us to our current series on Self- Deception, where we have decided to investigate some of the ways we deceive ourselves by walking through Step 2, Deception Vs. Truth, of the Steps to Freedom in Christ to see what ways we may have been deceived by “the world” and ourselves and in what ways we have wrongly defended ourselves. 

So we present the ninth “Way You Can Be Deceived By the World”:

9. Believing that I can associate with bad company and not become corrupted.

The scripture reference for this point is:

1 Corinthians 15:33-34 (NLT2)
³³  Don’t be fooled by those who say such things, for “bad company corrupts good character.”
³⁴  Think carefully about what is right, and stop sinning. For to your shame I say that some of you don’t know God at all.

Okay, this one hit close to home because I have many friends that I have left behind on the path of Christian Discipleship who are going the way of the world and unless the Lord is gracious are headed for destruction.  But the thing is that they are kind, amusing, and seemingly “good people”, although that “good” label may slip off if one were to consider some of their life choices or how they have treated others during various times and seasons of their life.  

When we choose to surrender to Jesus and follow Him, we make the choice to separate ourselves from our worldly ways and many of our old friends, some in “low places”, will not appreciate our newfound faith and no longer be our friends.  While some will flat out reject us as a “Bible thumper” of “born again weirdo”, others will tolerate our faith as long as it doesn’t interfere with their lives but will also secretly hope for us to come back to our “old selves” again.  Some will seek to challenge our faith and others will seek to lead us into temptation periodically to see if our “faith” is for real.   

While I love my old worldly friends and have seen quite a few of them come to faith in Jesus, praise the Lord, if they are not “walking and talking with God”, we don’t really hang out anymore.  I have accepted our limited friendships, which are usually limited to a disengaged status on social media or have accepted that we are no longer friends anymore.  Some people can’t even tolerate being connected to me on Facebook because of my vocal faith.  While I wish them well, I don’t regret the disillusionment of these friendships and acquaintanceships because I know the truth and don’t want anything or anyone to lead me into temptation or to disrupt my relationship with the Lord. 

God comes first and everyone else comes next.   

However, this lie, that it is okay to hang out with bad company with no fear of corruption, really hits close to home because I have friends who have suffered greatly because they couldn’t cut ties to toxic people and in one case, bad company contributed to their death.    

“Jake” was a Christian man with the demons of addiction and although He was known for his knowledge of scripture, sense of humor, and kind heart, he had a continual need to be accepted by his “friends in the street”.  And because of Jake’s associations, Jake would continually return to addictive life of crime, and it was in one of these episodes with bad company that he overdosed and died, leaving behind a devastated wife and several children and grandchildren.  

So don’t believe the lie that bad company won’t corrupt you. They may cause you to compromise your faith or lead you to be less than you are meant to be in Christ, but they could also be used by the enemy to steal, kill, and destroy.    

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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/ .

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.

( While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (https://www.amazon.com/Quick-Scripture-Reference-Counseling-Kruis-ebook/dp/B00CIUJZT2?ref_=ast_author_dp )

This morning’s meditation verse come from the section on Adultery:

Romans 7:2-3 (ESV)
²  For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
³  Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Today’s verse falls under the 18^th point of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on adultery, 18. “Anyone who divorces his or her spouse for any reason other than adultery and marries another commits adultery.”

Today is actually the second verse under point 18, as I discovered when I turned the page in our resource this morning, and it reiterates the fact that marriage is supposed to be “until death” and acknowledges the insolvability of the marriage covenant and the subsequent sin that results when marriage vows are broken for less than biblical reasons.    But if the spouse dies, the covenant is broken by God and allows you to marry again without the sin of adultery.  

I was reading Mark 10 this morning and John Macarthur’s commentary on Mark 10:1-12 which addresses divorce.  

Macarthur’s commentary regarding remarriage states: 

Remarriage after a divorce—except for legitimate biblical grounds—proliferates adultery. The innocent party—one whose spouse has committed prolonged, hard-hearted, unrepentant adultery—may remarry without being guilty of adultery, as may a believer whose unbelieving spouse has chosen to leave the marriage (see note on 1Co 7:15).^[1]

So unless there was sexual immorality or the “unbelieving spouse” chooses to leave, your new relationships would be adulterous.   But God forgives us when we repent and blesses new marriages when we follow Him.  So know the hard truth and try to obey and follow the Lord from this point forward.

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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

14 - The Spirit Comforting

No Place for a “Decision” to Be Saved

One would naturally suppose that the good news of a free Savior and a full salvation would readily be embraced by a convicted sinner. One would think that, as soon as he heard the glad tidings, he could not forbear exclaiming, in a transport of joy, “This is the Savior I want! His salvation is every way suited to my wretchedness. What can I desire more? Here will I rest.” But as a matter of fact this is not always the case, yea, it is rarely so. Instead, the stricken sinner, like the Hebrews in Egypt after Moses had been made manifest before them, is left to groan under the lash of his merciless taskmasters. Yet this arises from no defect in God’s gracious provision, nor because of any inadequacy in the salvation which the Gospel presents, nor because of any distress in the sinner which the Gospel is incapable of relieving; but because the workings of self-righteousness hinder the sinner from seeing the fullness and glory of Divine grace.

Strange as it may sound to those who have but a superficial and non-experimental acquaintance with God’s Truth, awakened souls are exceedingly backward from receiving comfort in the glorious Gospel of Christ. They think they are utterly unworthy and unfit to come to Christ just as they are, in all their vileness and filthiness. They imagine some meetness must be wrought in them before they are qualified to believe the Gospel, that there must be certain holy dispositions in their hearts before they are entitled to conclude that Christ will receive them. They fear that they are not sufficiently humbled under a sense of sin, that they have not a suitable abhorrence of it, that their repentance is not deep enough; that they must have fervent breathings after Christ and pantings after holiness before they can be warranted to seek salvation with a well-grounded hope of success. All of which is the same thing as hugging the miseries of unbelief in order to obtain permission to believe.

Burdened with guilt and filled with terrifying apprehensions of eternal destruction, the convicted sinner yet experimentally ignorant of the perfect righteousness which the Gospel reveals for the justification of the ungodly, strives to obtain acceptance with God by his own labors, tears, and prayers. But as he becomes better acquainted with the high demands of the Law, the holiness of God, and the corruptions of his own heart, he reaches the point where he utterly despairs of being justified by his own strivings. “What must I do to be saved?” is now his agonized cry. Diligently searching God’s Word for light and help, he discovers that “faith” is the all-important thing needed, but exactly what faith is, and how it is to be obtained, he is completely at a loss to ascertain. Well-meaning people, with more zeal than knowledge, urge him to “believe,” which is the one thing above all others he desires to do, but finds himself utterly unable to perform.

If saving faith were nothing more than a mere mental assent to the contents of John 3:16, then any man could make himself a true believer whenever he pleased—the supernatural enablement of the Holy Spirit would be quite unnecessary. But saving faith is very much more than a mental assenting to the contents of any verse of Scripture; and when a soul has been Divinely quickened and awakened to its awful state by nature, it is made to realize that no creature-act of faith, no resting on the bare letter of a text by a “decision” of his own will, can bring pardon and peace. He is now made to realize that “faith” is a Divine gift (Eph. 2:8, 9), and not a creature work; that it is wrought by “the operation of God” (Col. 2:12), and not by the sinner himself. He is now made conscious of the fact that if ever he is to be saved, the same God who invites him to believe (Isa. 45:22), yea, who commands him to believe (1 John 3:23), must also impart faith to him (Eph. 6:23).

Cannot you see, dear reader, that if a saving belief in Christ were the easy matter which the vast majority of preachers and evangelists of today say it is, that the work of the Spirit would be quite unnecessary? Ah, is there any wonder that the mighty power of the Spirit of God is now so rarely witnessed in Christendom?—He has been grieved, insulted, quenched, not only by the skepticism and worldliness of “Modernists,” but equally so by the creature-exalting free-willism and self-ability of man to “receive Christ as his personal Savior” of the “Fundamentalists!”! Oh, how very few today really believe those clear and emphatic words of Christ, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me (by His Spirit) draw him” (John 6:44).

Ah, my reader, when GOD truly takes a soul in hand, He brings him to the end of himself He not only convicts him of the worthlessness of his own works, but He convinces him of the impotence of his will. He not Only strips him of the filthy rags of his own self-righteousness, but He empties him of all self-sufficiency. He not only enables him to perceive that there is “no good thing” in him (Rom. 7:18), but he also makes him feel he is “without strength” (Rom. 5:6). Instead of concluding that he is the man whom God will save, he now fears that he is the man who must be lost forever. He is now brought down into the very dust and made to feel that he is no more able to savingly believe in Christ than he can climb up to Heaven.

We are well aware that what has been said above differs radically from the current preaching of this decadent age; but we will appeal to the experience of the Christian reader. Suppose you had just suffered a heavy financial reverse and were at your wits’ end to know how to make ends meet: bills are owing, your bank has closed, you look in vain for employment, and are filled with fears over future prospects. A preacher calls and rebukes your unbelief, bidding you lay hold of the promises of God. That is the very thing which you desire to do, but can you by an act of your own will? Or, a loved one is suddenly snatched from you: your heart is crushed, grief overwhelms you. A friend kindly bids you to, “sorrow not even as others who have no hope.” Are you able by a “personal decision” to throw off your anguish and rejoice in the Lord? Ah, my reader, if a mature Christian can only “cast all his care” upon the Lord by the Holy Spirit‘s gracious enablement, do you suppose that a poor sinner who is yet “in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” can lay hold of Christ by a mere act of his own will?

Just as to trust in the Lord with all his heart, to be anxious for nothing, to let the morrow take care of its own concerns, is the desire of every Christian, but “how to perform that which is good” he “finds not” (Rom. 7:18), until the Holy Spirit is pleased to graciously grant the needed enablement. The one supreme yearning of the awakened and convicted sinner is to lay hold of Christ, but until the Spirit draws him to Christ, he finds he has no power to go out of himself, no ability to embrace what is proffered him in the Gospel. The fact is, my reader, that the heart of a sinner is as naturally indisposed for loving and appropriating the things of God, as the wood which Elijah laid on the altar was to ignite, when he had poured so much water upon it, as not only to saturate the wood, but also to fill the trench round about it (1 Kings 18:33)—a miracle is required for the one as much as it was for the other.

The fact is that if souls were left to themselves—to their own “free will”—after they had been truly convicted of sin, none would ever savingly come to Christ! A further and distinct operation of the Spirit is still needed to actually “draw” the heart to close with Christ Himself. Were the sinner left to himself, he would sink in abject despair; he would fall victim to the malice of Satan. The Devil is far more powerful than we are, and never is his rage more stirred than when he fears he is about to lose one of his captives: see Mark 9:20. But blessed be His name, the Spirit does not desert the soul when His work is only half done: He who is “the Spirit of life” (Rom. 8:2) to quicken the dead, He who is “the Spirit of truth” (John 16:13) to instruct the ignorant, is also “the Spirit of faith” (2 Cor. 4:13) to enable us to savingly believe.^[2]

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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 MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MT4Christ247

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

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^[1] John F. MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006), Mk 10:11.

^[2] Arthur Walkington Pink, The Holy Spirit (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, n.d.).