Propelling One Another in Our Faith - Purity 1265
Purity 1265 02/03/2024 Purity 1265 Podcast
Purity 1265 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of waves crashing on a rocky shoreline
while the setting sun blazes on the horizon of Lake Ontario comes to us from Celestial
Blue Photography, as Rocco Saya shared this scene on social media back on
January 15th, commenting that the “sun actually made an appearance
today!” Rocco’s comment reveals the overcast reality of upstate New York winters
and how the “gray days” can make us appreciate it all the more when the sun
comes shining in.
Well, It’s Saturday and regardless of the weather
the light of the weekend is shining joy into my heart because I am at my countryside
home with my wife for the weekend, and because I walk in the Spirit there are
seemingly endless sources for peace and joy when I focus on the Lord and all He
is and all He has done for me which includes bringing more people than I can
shake a stick into my life to encourage and to be encouraged by.
Before coming to Christ, I spent a lot of time in a
basement entertaining myself and seeking to satisfy my own selfish and fleshly
desires but since answering the Lord’s call to faith in Jesus, I’m not alone
anymore. I have not only found the love of my life, in my wife TammyLyn, but I
have made all kinds of friends and acquaintances along the path of Christian
Discipleship as I have sought to grow and to encourage others in their faith.
Yesterday, I received a text message from a phone
number I didn’t know asking the question “Is this Marc?” and because of the
spammers and scammers out there in the world, my defenses immediately went up
because for every genuine brother and sister in Christ that I encounter in the social
media universe who are simply looking to encourage or be encouraged in their
faith there are just as many – whether the requests are genuine or not is hard
to discern – people looking for money, my money and sometimes these simple
inquiries – “Is this Marc?” are even more sinister as they seek to lead me into
sexual temptation with invitations to private chats or wish to share explicit
photos of videos to fulfill the secret desires of the flesh. Those requests are usually followed by “This
is _________” – a woman’s name that you may or may not know but that has the
unspoken promise for intimacy and lurid companionship.
As someone who has overcome sexual immorality and is
walking in purity – all my intimate times are reserved for my wife and her
alone, I have learned to not even
respond when I suspect that these inquires might be a financial scheme or a
trap of the flesh. But yesterday,
instead of exchanging texts to go through the process of trying to figure out
this texter’s intentions, I decided to be bold and actually call the person who
sent me the text to cut to the chase – fulling expecting the person to either
not answer the call or to be someone I obviously didn’t know and whose
intentions would be revealed to be malicious.
But much to my surprise and delight, the person on
the other end of the text was not only not trying to scam or seduce me, but it
was also someone I knew, and they were a Christian too!
It turned out to be Brian Dugan (forgive the
spelling if incorrect Brian) who was someone I met back in 2020, I believe, in
passing when I was working nights in the hardware department at Walmart where I
occasionally provided customers with Christian encouragements as well as
customer service. I’m not sure how our
conversation turned to the spiritual but in our exchange way back when I
discovered that Brian, like me had been a man of the world, but who had found also
found peace through His faith in Jesus Christ and was doing his best to live as
a Christian despite the world’s attempts to call him back into the dark. Back
in those days, I was sending out daily text messages of my “Purity series” to encourage
my brothers in Christ, before I decided to put them on the blog, and was
surprised when Brian gave me his number and invited me to add him to my list to
receive the texts daily. Eventually, I started
sharing the “Purity” message on my blog and stopped sending out the text and Brian
got lost in the transition, and for whatever reason he thought about that
yesterday and decided to see “Whatever happened to those texts?” and reached
out to ask.
I excitedly told Brian how the texts moved to the
blog in 2020 and how I started the mt4Christ247 podcast in 2021 to share my Freedom
Ministry Classes, and how that led to my meeting TammyLyn, and getting married on
New Year's Day of 2022, and starting the mt4Christ247 YouTube channel in 2022
and how I have continued to follow the Lord and to encourage people to keep “walking
and talking with God ever since. I thanked
Brian for reaching out and invited him to check the blog and subscribe to the
YouTube channel to receive daily encouragement as I intend to do so for the
foreseeable future – sharing something to point people to Jesus every day.
After our conversation, I texted Brian the links to
the blog, podcast, and YouTube Channel and told him that our exchange would
probably be the topic for today’s message – and it is! I also wanted to thank him again for
reaching out because it encourages me to know that there are others – brothers and
sisters in Christ – out there trying to live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit
– one day at a time – by living a simple and righteous life.
Brian texted “I honestly can say that meeting you
propelled my faith and assisted me in staying the course. There have been a ton
of miracles in my life since deciding to let go and let God. The path is so
much easier now. I always believed but I look back now and see that I was
forcing a lot of things that I wanted instead of just being patient and
accepting better things that He had planned for me. His path has way less
picker bushes. Lol.”
Amen to that Brian, God’s path and plan for our
lives is better than ours could ever be and when we learn to follow Him we
suffer a lot less.
Ironically, I have been exchanging texts with one of
the guys from the Freedom in Christ course that I am leading currently and am
encouraging him to change the way he thinks. Like Brian used to do, I think
this man is trying to force things into the way he wants when he just needs to “let
go and let God” and rest in His presence and be patient as God renews his mind
and turns his heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
But there is hope – after admitting to struggling
and not knowing whether his distressing thoughts were coming from his fleshly
lusts or from the enemy himself, this man I am discipling realized that he had
peace when he sat down to study and prepare for a Bible Study class he is going
to teach today at his church. I pointed
out that we find peace in the Lord’s presence and that when we seek to win the
battle for the mind the way we overcome is not in just trying to “not think
about bad things” but to fill our minds with the good things of God. I shared:
Philippians
4:6-7 (NKJV)
6 Be anxious for nothing, but
in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known to God;
7 and the peace of God, which
surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus.
I
pointed out that these verses indicate when we pray and give thanks, we won’t be
anxious, and that the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds. We can’t think
of two things at once and when we are busy thinking about God and giving Him
thanks – we won’t be anxious or be afflicted by the things we don’t want to be
thinking about.
And
encouraged, again, by trying to encourage others as this man seemed to “get it”
and responded that he realized that his focus was on “what not to do” and he
was going to be patient and focus on the truths from God’s word that give him
peace.
I
know the Lord guides us and helps us, but we can “propel” one another in our
faith by encouraging one another and teaching one another about how we can be
set free and live a life that is defined by peace and joy through our faith in
God.
So keep walking and talking with God, I’ll encourage you and when you tell me that you are seeking and following the Lord’s will for your life, believe me when I say, you will encourage me.
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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 verse come from the section on Communication, Gossip, and
Lying.
Ephesians 4:25 (NASB)
25 Therefore, laying aside
falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of
you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we
are members of one another.
Today’s
verse is the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the seventh point
of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Communication, Gossip, and
Lying.
7. God forbids us to
lie; he wants us to speak the truth.
Today’s
verse instructs us to lay aside our lying ways and to speak truth to our
neighbors – for we in the body of Christ are members of one another. As my testimony of speaking to Brian Dugan
should convey, even though I don’t know Brian well, at all and have only had a
few exchanges, and hadn’t heard from him in years – I immediately rejoiced when
I realized who it was that was reaching out to me and that he had a simple and
faithful testimony of his continuing to follow the Lord to share. We in the body of Christ are members to one
another and so we shouldn’t lie to one another or to put on a false front to
appear more holy than we are. We are not
only supposed to speak the truth because God commands us to speak the truth, but
it is also the basis for every good relationship that we can have. We have to
be real with one another to really help one another and that means telling the
truth.
I
shared yesterday that Telling the Truth is the first rule of Christian
Discipleship because we not only want to be authentic with our relationship
with God, and in our representation of the kingdom of God as disciples, but we
also want to enjoy the peace of open and honest relationships in the body of Christ. So put away all falsehood and tell the truth
because we belong to one another.
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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 “According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament” By Stephen F. Olford – A
Collection of Devotional Journals: 1940-1941.
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage you all to purchase Olford’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available online
for less than $10 at many sites.
MORNING READING: MATTHEW 25
“To each according to his own
ability.”
– Matthew 25:15
What an encouraging fact this is! Yet, it is one which
carries with it a real responsibility. For “according to his own ability,” the
Lord requires His portion. There is no genuine servant of the Lord who has not
been given his talent or talents. To suggest that there is would be to refute
the Word of God and to cast a doubt on the grace of God.
The Word declares, concerning gifts, the “Spirit …
[distributes] to each one individually as He wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). Moreover,
as is emphasized in this parable, God never expects interest from what He has
not given. It is true the slothful servant tried to cast a doubt on the love
and justice of God by calling Him “hard” (Matt. 25:24), but his own injustice
condemned him in the end. The Lord Jesus says, “My yoke is easy” (Matt. 11:30).
May I be abundantly faithful with the
precious gifts God
has entrusted to me, for His Name's sake. Amen.[1]
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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
[1]
Stephen Olford and Heather Olford, According to Your
Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament, A Collection of Devotional
Journals 1940-1941 (Nashville, TN: B&H Books, 2008).