Remembering Joy in the Last Week – 28 Day Joy Challenge
– Day 6 – Purity 1062
Purity 1062 06/07/2023
Purity 1062 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo
of a smoky sunset over what I presume to be the grounds of Fort Ontario in
Oswego NY comes to us from Celestial Blue Photography as Rocco Saya shared a
pair of photos yesterday on social media to document the strange phenomenon we
in upstate New York experienced as Canadian wildfires literally have changed
our atmosphere. The Canadian wildfires are so bad that their effects gave us a
hazy day and air quality that has been deemed unhealthy explaining why I felt especially
burdened while working outdoors yesterday.
I believe the hazy polluted air made me literally sick as I experienced
headaches and a sense of heaviness throughout the day yesterday.
Phoro credit: Celestial Blue Photography
At days end,
I was tired and felt that I would be turning early when I got home but when I
got in my car at the end of the workday, my phone picked up where it had left
off in worship – playing Maverick City Music’s radio version of “Fear is Not my
Future” and when the chorus kicked in – the Holy Spirit changed the atmosphere
and my disposition to one of joy as I sang at the top of my labored lungs:
“Hello peace, hello joy, hello love
Hello strength, hello hope, it’s a new horizon!”
The lethargy
from being subtly poisoned by a noxious atmosphere was expelled as I refreshed
my lungs with the conditioned air of my car’s interior and with the joy of
proclaiming and receiving what God has for us when we trust in Him. I worshipped the Lord all the way home as
that song was on repeat and I received the energy I needed to complete my
preparations for tonight’s Celebrate Freedom Growth Group Meeting.
So today’s Wednesday
and even though the air quality report – this is the world we live in now – is still
unhealthy – I will take precautions to limit my exposure outside today because I
want to be fit and ready to encourage those who come to tonight’s meeting which
is all about making the “TURN” to God’s ways instead of our own as tonight’s
lesson is all about making the decision to commit our lives and wills over to
God – in essence to decide to live the surrendered life of a Christian disciple,
who trusts the Lord to renew our minds and transform our lives – to overcome
our “hurts, habits, or hang ups” and to live the new abundant life of peace and
joy that the Lord has for us.
Of course,
that decision is one we must make continually as each new day will test our
resolve and tempt us to slink back into the darkness of a “regular” life of
secrets, compromise, sin, and silence where we “go with the flow” of the world
system and follow our own path of selfish indulgence by ignoring the truth of
the word of God that tells us that the way we choose to live our lives really
does matter and that our salvation through faith in Jesus Christ was never
intended to keep us content in a lifestyle of brokenness and sin, that when we
chose Christ as our Savior, we were also supposed to make Him the Lord of our
lives and follow His example by repenting and living life in power of the Holy
Spirit, rather than the same old ways of the flesh.
So we pray,
we read the word of God and we practice what we preach by trying to live the
life God would have us live by applying His wisdom to our lives. We apply the teaching and reap the benefits
of walking in the Spirit of peace, love, goodness, faithfulness, kindness,
gentleness, patience and self -control…. And of course: JOY!
And that brings us to our current series
where I am walking through the 28 Day Joy Challenge, (https://4habits.org/) because we are encouraging
ourselves and others, you, to “find peace” in our lives by increasing our
capacity for joy and by building our emotional resilience through simple
practices of quieting and appreciation.
The 28 Day
Joy challenge is based on Dr. Marcus Warner & Chris Coursey’s latest book,
The Four Habits of Joy-Filled People, and you can sign up to take it 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 6, which will direct us to remember joyful experiences we have
had over the past week.
———————————————————————————————————
Day 6 – Your Joy-Filled Week
“Welcome to Day 6
of the 28 Days to Joy Challenge!
Today’s
Encouragement:
Has your week felt
lighter and more balanced? Or has the newness of practicing an unfamiliar
exercise everyday felt awkward? Either way, you’re doing a great job starting
new habits to build healthy rhythms of joy and peace into your life. Hang in
there. It will get easier.
Today’s Practice:
Exercise 6
Today we practice
remembering joy in the present and recent experiences.
– How This Exercise
Will Benefit You:
Remembering times
of joy from the past activates a joy response in our mind and body. This primes
us for more joy in the present.
– Exercise Steps:
Take several
minutes to reflect on special moments of joy from the past week. Share your joy
with another person in the form of a conversational story, text, picture, or
phone call.
Have fun with this
exercise. We pick up tomorrow with more joy practice!”
When I
looked at today’s joy challenge, I was a little worried that I wouldn’t have
anything to report on from the past week.
After all my weekend back packing trip to a cabin in the Vermont woods
was beyond that time frame, and I was initially worried that I would be hard
pressed to remember anything joyful that happened since then. So, I got out a sheet of paper and looked at
the calendar to see just what exactly happened since last week to see if there
was any joy there.
Well,
today’s Wednesday and so last week, even though I had to work during the day, I
spent the evening at Starpoint Church leading the Celebrate Freedom Growth group
– so I remembered the joy of coming together with the other members of the
group and encouraging one another and singing “First Things First” in worship
and having a great night! So there was
some joy!
Thursday,
of last week – I had the day off from work and spent the day at River House
where I had the joy of listening to some Christian teachings and getting some
much needed rest, taking a nap in the afternoon, and then enjoying my regular
Bible study with my wife before going to bed.
So I experienced peace and some low grade joy of not having to work, being
somewhat productive in receiving Christian teaching, and getting rest!
Friday,
I took care of business – being ultra productive by getting my car’s oil
changed, mowing my lawn, and then I ran off to watch a movie (a bad one – to my
friend that enjoy the macabre- avoid “The Boogeyman” like the plague as the movie
was terrible – the humanoid, spider monster in the shadows, who doesn’t speak,
didn’t produce any thrills or chills and actually bored me to sleep) before
going to my countryside home where I enjoyed a good meal and an evening with my
wife. So I experienced the joy of “getting
‘er done”, a free movie theater bucket of popcorn for my June birthday, and from
being reunited with the one I love.
Saturday,
I spent the day with my wife, where we visited with her father for a time as he
was volunteering for Operate Adopt a Soldier, before I headed over to Starpoint
Church for the “Man Up event” where I got to enjoy the company of my
brothers-in-law and awesome messages from Pastor Jack Graham and NY Baseball
Legend, Daryl Strawberry! So great relational joy was experienced with my wife
and in-laws and from receiving encouragement for the path from two great
Christian witnesses!
Sunday,
I enjoyed producing another “Bible Study with Cincotti’s” – relational joy
again and joy of Bible study in one – before going to church to hear another
awesome message from Pastor Jack Graham before going back to River House to
rest up for the upcoming work week.
Monday,
I worked but that went okay – all’s well that ends well anyway – the joy of
overcoming challenges and learning from my mistakes – and then I was given the joy of encouraging a
brother in Christ as a former student from an online Freedom in Christ course
and I reconnected for discipleship and encouragement via Zoom. Relational joy and purpose!
And
Yesterday, the joy of praising the Lord in song at the end of a rough day and
the joy of completing my preparations for tonight’s meeting.
So
after I looked at all this, I realized that my decision to follow the Lord with
the way I live gives me SO MANY opportunities for joy that it isn’t even funny.
I may have a busy life, but it is filled with meaning, purpose, and joy. And while I am far from perfect, food choices
were compromised a few times during the tail end of my vacation, I didn’t fall into
any the sins or negative mind states that plagued my life in my pre-Christ existence.
And
this is why I podcast and blog, to encourage others, you, that a life of
continuous freedom, victory, peace, and joy is possible when you decide to
follow the Lord with the way you live. So
if you are hard pressed to remember any instances of joy in the last week, change
your focus and start following the Lord in earnest. His pathway is a way of purity
and peace and is paved with joy.
——————————————————————————————–
For those who want more evidence for Christianity
than my simple apologetic will provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s
website, https://crossexamined.org/ .
—————————————————————————–
Today’s
Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.
This
morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm 51:10 (NLT2)
10 Create in me a clean
heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Today’s verse encourages
us to repent by asking the Lord to change us from the inside out.
Psalm 51 is David’s repentance
psalm, and it encourages us to turn from our sin and to turn to the Lord and to
do it at a heart level. When we decide
to surrender completely to the Lord, He gives us a heart to do His will – but we
have to be real, and we ask Him to help us, and to follow where He leads,
without question.
When we step out in faith
and do what God directs us to do, He rewards us with growth in the spirit and
changes or stone cold heart of stone into a heart of flesh that beats with His
love and compels us to share and show that love to the world around us. So pray that prayer and let the Lord change
your heart and give you a renewed spirit that is loyal to fulfill His purposes
for your life.
———————————————————————-
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
A Joint
Mission
From the varied quotations which have been
made from Scripture in reference to Christ’s unction for all His offices, it
sometimes appears as if He were in the subordinate position of needing
direction, aid, and miraculous power for the purposes of His mission (Isa.
11:1–3; 61:1, 2, etc.); at other times He is said to have the Spirit (Rev. 3:1), to give
the Spirit (Acts 2:33), to send the
Spirit (John 15:26) as if the Spirit’s operations were subordinated to the Son.
But all difficulty is removed when we perceive, from the whole tenor of
Scripture, that there was a conjoined
mission in which the Son and the Spirit act together for the salvation of God’s
elect. The Son effected redemption—the Spirit reveals and applies it to all for
whom it was purchased.
In writing on the
Holy Spirit and Christ, it is to be understood that we are not now
contemplating our Lord as the Second Person of the Trinity, but rather as the
God-man Mediator, and the Holy Spirit
not in His Godhead abstractly considered, but in His official discharge of the work assigned Him in the Everlasting
Covenant. This is undoubtedly the most difficult aspect of our subject, yet it
is very important that we should prayerfully strive after clear scriptural
views thereof. To apprehend aright, even according to our present limited
capacity, the relation between the Holy Spirit and the Redeemer, throws much
light on some difficult problems, supplies the key to a number of perplexing
passages in Holy Writ, and better enables us to understand the work of the
Spirit in the saint.
“Come ye near unto
Me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning: from the time
that it was, there am I: and now the Lord God and his Spirit hath sent Me”
(Isa. 48:16). This remarkable verse presents to us the Lord Jesus speaking of
old by the spirit of prophecy. He declares that He had always addressed the
Nation in the most open manner, from the time when He appeared unto Moses at
the burning bush and called Himself, “I am that I am” (Ex. 3); and He was
constantly present with Israel as their Lord and Deliverer. And now the Father
and the Spirit had sent Him to effect the promised spiritual deliverance of His
people; sent Him in the likeness of sin’s flesh, to preach the Gospel, fulfill
the Law, and make a perfect satisfaction unto Divine justice for His church.
Here, then, is a glorious testimony unto a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead:
the Son of God is sent in human nature and as Mediator; Jehovah the Father and the Spirit are the Senders, and so
is a proof of Christ’s mission, commission, and authority, who came not of
Himself, but was sent of God (John 8:42).
“The Lord hath
created a new thing in the earth: A woman shall compass a man” (Jer. 31:22).
Here we have one of the prophetic announcements of the wonder of the Divine
incarnation, the eternal Word becoming flesh, a human body and soul being
prepared for Him by the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit. Here the
Prophet intimates that the creating power of God was to be put forth under
which a woman was to compass a Man. The virgin Mary, under the overshadowing
power of the Highest (Luke 1:35) was to conceive and bring forth a Child,
without the help or cooperation of man. This transcendent wonder Isaiah calls a
“sign” (7:14); Jeremiah “a new thing in the earth;” the New Testament record of
which is, “When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came
together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).
“And the Child grew,
and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon
Him. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man”
(Luke 2:40, 52). Not only was the humanity of Christ supernaturally begotten by
the Holy Spirit, but it was “anointed” by Him (cf. Lev. 2:1 for the type),
endued with all spiritual races. All the progress in the Holy Child’s mental
and spiritual development, all His advancement in knowledge and holiness must
be ascribed unto the Spirit. “Progress,” in the human nature which He deigned
to assume, side by side with His own Divine perfection, is quite compatible, as
Hebrews 2:14, 17 plainly intimate. As George Smeaton has so helpfully pointed
out in his book, the Spirit’s operations “formed the link between Christ’s
deity and humanity, perpetually imparting the full consciousness of
personality, and making Him inwardly aware of His Divine Sonship at all times.”
Thus the Spirit, at
the incarnation, became the great guiding principle of all Christ’s earthly
history, and that, according to the order of operation that ever belongs to the
Holy Trinity: all proceeds from the
Father, through the Son, and is by the Holy Spirit. It was the
Spirit who formed Christ’s human nature, and directed the whole tenor of His
earthly life. Nothing was undertaken but by the Spirit’s directing, nothing was
spoken but by His guidance, nothing executed but by His power. Unless this be
steadfastly maintained, we are in grave danger of confounding the two natures of
Christ, absorbing the one in the other instead of keeping them separate and
distinct in our thoughts. Had His Deity been absorbed by His humanity, then
grief, fear, and compassion had been impossible. The right use of the faculties
of His soul owed their exercise to the Holy Spirit who fully controlled Him.
“From birth to
baptism the Spirit directed His mental and moral development, and strengthened
and kept Him through all the years of preparation and toil. He was in the
Carpenter as truly as in the Messiah, and the work at the bench was as perfect
as the sacrifice on the Cross” (S. Chadwick). At first sight, such a statement
may seem to derogate from the personal
honor of the Lord Jesus, but if we perceive that, according to the order of the Trinity, the Spirit
exercises His power only to execute the will of the Father and the Son, then
the seeming difficulty disappears. So far is the interposition of the Spirit’s
operations from interfering with the glory of the Son, it rather reveals Him
the more conspicuously: that in the work of redemption the activities of the
Spirit are next in order to those of the Son.[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
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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
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