Living
with a New Name – Walking into Repentance - Purity 619
Purity
619 01/04/2022 Purity 619 Podcast
Good
morning,
Well it’s Tuesday and as the old Soul II Soul song
says it’s “Back to life, Back to Reality” as both me and the Mrs. will bid adieu
to what was the period of our lives that was a whirlwind romance, engagement,
and wedding and now have to go back work pretty much like we were before this
weekend but fundamentally changed in very significant ways as we reenter the
working world as married people, one of us with a new name.
Sometimes in life we form relationships that
change who we are forever. In the Bible,
there are several scenes where God’s interactions result in people receiving a
new name. Abram to Abraham, Jakob to Israel, Simon to Peter, and Saul to Paul are
some examples of people who were called by God who got a new name. But would the name fit?
When I developed the blog and tried to think of a
name for it, I thought that “Empty for Christ” would be a good way to express
how we have to “empty” ourselves to be filled with the life that God has for
us. But then I thought of my name, Marc
Thomas, and how my initials M.T. sort of sounded like “Empty”, and because the
blog was going to be about my testimony and my decision to try to live a Christian
life, I decided to make the name MT4Christ because it adequately expressed not
only the idea of the need to surrender to the Lord in general but it also served
as a proclamation of sorts that I, M.T., was indeed for Christ as I sought to
surrender myself to His will for my life for the rest of my days.
But just like the patriarchs of our faith and the
Apostles, it took me sometime to grow into the new name. Even though I started mt4christ.org back in
2015, I personally didn’t really decide to “go by” my initials until 2020 when
I completed my master’s Thesis in Christian Counseling and decided to get
trained for and to begin a Community Freedom Ministry. Although I boldly
started the work in 2015, I didn’t have the boldness to adopt the “new name” until
relatively recently. A lot has changed.
It might surprise some that I never really spoke
in public or shared writings publicly before coming to Christ. All of this, my writings, my serving in the
church, my teaching and ministry work, and now my podcast were all products of
the transformation of Marc – “the fun loving but secretly troubled worldly dude”
to M.T. – “encourager and promoter of the gospel of Jesus Christ”.
And guess what, just like the Apostle Peter would
show his faithfulness one minute and put his foot in his mouth and show more “Simon”
like characteristics the next, I haven’t arrived yet. I am still a work in progress.
Even though I made great strides in 2021 towards
my goal of optimal health, perhaps because of stress or due to the surrounding
seasonal celebrations of Autumn that begin with Halloween and lead to Christmas
and New Year’s, somewhere along the line M.T.’s resolve to stay the course got
engulfed in behaviors that were more like “Marc’s”. And just like a Mr. Hyde induced hangover, Dr.
Jekyll is left feeling the pain, so I M.T. am left to pick up the pieces and
start again.
So with the new year upon us, I am officially
renewing my goal to reach and maintain a body weight and state of health that
distances me from the classification of “obese” and brings me closer to normal,
or healthy, according to the BMI scale and my personal standards.
Also I am in the midst of doing a spiritual check
up as I lead a new Online discipleship class Thursday and want to be able to
encourage others to pursue their freedom in Christ and provide them with an
example of someone who has had a measure of success but who is still human but who
is committed to the path of Christian Discipleship because I know that our
relationship with Christ and living according to God’s word reflects the Lord’s
perfect will for our lives.
So as is my habit, and my local church’s
tradition, I have begun a period of fasting and prayer to both crucify the
flesh and renew the mind as I surrender the time spent in eating and meal
preparation to focus on God and my walk of faith.
With one day fasting under my belt, I already
feel the deep relief that comes from surrendering to the Lord and from giving
my body a break from the season of feasting that I have been in.
When we give ourselves to the Lord, I have
learned that you never regret it. So as
we try to adjust our lives to be less like our old selves and to better fit
into God’s mold and into our “new names”, let’s remember to keep going. Let’s keep
walking and talking to God.
And now that we have 2021 behind us, let’s open
our eyes, open our ears, open our hearts, and open minds and listen to what the
Lord wants us to hear. Let’s pray and ask Him for His love, guidance, and
strength as we seek His repentance to turn from our old ways and seek to
represent Him and give Him glory on the earth.
Today’s Bible verse
comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Romans 6:23
(NLT2)
23 For the wages of sin is
death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Today’s verse puts things
pretty clearly. Sin leads to death.
Christ is the free gift from God that leads to eternal life.
As the Bible and most of
society will gleefully point out: nobody’s perfect, everybody sins. But before we relax and rest in our sinful
lives, and unknowingly just keep on trucking on the Highway to Hell, let’s
remind ourselves and world at large that the wages of sin is death. All sin and all die.
But these statements that
seem so true, “all sin, all die, nobody’s perfect, and nothing lasts forever” are
contradicted by the reality of an everlasting God and the person of Jesus
Christ.
Christ is perfect. Christ
never sinned. And although, Christ did die, He was resurrected and lives forever. And Faith in Him, gives us the answer to
those wages of sin. Faith in Christ results in the forgiveness of all your sins
and in eternal life with Him.
Today’s verse, and Jesus’
said that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.
In John 11:25-26 – Jesus said
....., "I
am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he
shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you
believe this?"
This is THE CRITICAL
QUESTION: Do you believe this?
For those who do and put
their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, they receive a new and eternal life.
For those who don’t, they
receive their wages for sin: death.
So don’t let people make
those statements like “all sin, everybody dies, nobody’s perfect, and “nothing
last forever” without challenging them and letting them know, quite frankly,
that they are wrong.
Christ is exception that
gives us hope. He didn’t sin. He didn’t stay dead. And makes a way for us to
live with Him forever.
Sometimes these “common
knowledge statements” that are so ingrained in our cultures and society are
evidence of the lies of the enemy ruling the world when they are compared to
the Truth of Jesus Christ. So seek the
Truth, seek Christ’s salvation, and Live.
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 to share from Dr. Neil Anderson’s
. “Restored: Experience Life with Jesus”. Today, we continue sharing from
Chapter 3.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase Dr. Neil Anderson’s books for your own private
study and to support his work.
SATAN IS THE
DECEIVER
Jesus described Satan as the father of lies. “Whenever he speaks a
lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.”61
He cannot speak from truth because there is no truth in him. He can distort the
truth, and he will even quote Scripture as he did when he tempted Jesus.
Satan keeps people in bondage by deceiving them and by blinding
the minds of the unbelieving.62 The power of Satan is in the lie,
and the battle is for the mind. If he is able to deceive Christians into
believing a lie, they will be spiritually impotent. He can’t do anything about
our identity and position in Christ, but if he can get us to believe it is not
true, we will live as though it isn’t. When the lies are exposed, Satan’s power
over the believer is broken.
Asking the Lord to reveal the deception and declaring the truth in
the Doctrinal Affirmation at the conclusion of this Step is a powerful
experience for many who have been deceived for years. Some will become
increasingly confident as they verbalize the truth. You may struggle just
trying to read through the Doctrinal Affirmation, but when you have completed
the Steps, come back and read it again, and you will see the difference.
Most Christians honestly desire to live righteous lives but have
distorted concepts of God and are ignorant of their position and identity in
Christ. As you make this 49
public declaration of faith, you are choosing God’s truth about
His nature, character and redemptive plan for your life.
STANDING AGAINST
THE DECEPTION
The battle is for the mind, and Satan will twist Scripture or tell
half-truths in order to deceive us. So we must trust God to expose the deceit,
remembering that the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On
the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. In this Step, we
use truth to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it
obedient to Christ.”63
During this Step a lady suddenly said, “Do you know what I’m
hearing now? It’s just a thought! That’s all it is! I don’t have to believe
that trash anymore.” She understood what the battle was, and it no longer had a
hold over her. Another lady printed up a bunch of cards and was handing them
out to anyone who wanted one. Each card contained the following questions,
“Where did that thought come from? A loving God?”
If the voices, noises or laughter in your mind seems too
overwhelming, stop and pray as you did at the beginning of these Steps on Page
33. You maintain control by exposing the lies and the battle for the mind, and
by ignoring the distractions and continuing on with The Steps. Freedom doesn’t
come from swatting flies (demons), it comes from taking out the garbage (sin).
The way we overcome the father of lies is by choosing the truth. We are not
called to dispel the darkness; we are called to turn on the light. The freedom
progressively comes by resolving the conflicts. The noise in your head is just
an attempt by the enemy to get you off the path that leads to freedom. If you
seemingly can’t go on, then pray out loud: “I renounce this attack on me, and
announce that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and I choose to continue
to seek my freedom.”
Marcy was a sincere Christian who was being mentally “beaten up”
with lies and accusations. She had been deceived into thinking that God was not
a good God, that she couldn’t trust Him, that she would never be free from her
past. This fragile lady was slowly and gently guided through The Steps, renouncing
all the lies as they surfaced. A few days later, she wrote:
God is different from what my concept of Him has been, and I
choose to trust how God has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus. I am His
child, and I choose to believe that He will relate to me as a good Father
would. I am a new person. This day is new, and I eagerly await to experience it
as a new creation, free from my past.
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory
over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” 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,
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Email me
at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be
encouraged.
Encouragement for the Path of Christian
Discipleship
