Relational Joy – 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 7 – Purity 1063

Relational Joy – 28 Day Joy Challenge – Day 7 –  Purity 1063

Purity 1063 06/08/2023 Purity 1063 Podcast

Purity 1063 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo
of a couple’s shadows joined hand in hand on the sandy pathway that runs
through palm trees beath pleasant blue skies comes to us from yours truly as I
capture this photo of me and the Mrs. while on our midwinter recess trip to
Myrtle Beach SC back on February 21^st.    

Well it’s Thursday
and I share this particular photo today for multiple reasons.

1.   
It
features a pathway and, as is my habit, I share photos of pathways on Thursdays
as a visual reminder or encouragement to all who see these messages to get on
or to stay on the “path of Christian Discipleship”. 

2.   
It
relates to today’s Joy Challenge, more on that in a minute. 

3.   
It
features a scene of God’s creation, for which and by which, we can remember to
be thankful for all that the Lord provides us with.  

4.   
It
features the shadow of my dearly beloved wife, and I wanted to highlight her as
today, June 8^th, is TammyLyn’s birthday. 

So Thank You
Lord, for another day in your kingdom! Thank you for this life and thank you
for bringing me TammyLyn to be my faithful Christian wife! 

Happy Birthday
TammyLyn! I love you and can’t wait to see what the Lord does in your life this
year! I thank God for the gift I have received in you and will do all I can to
make you feel loved and appreciated as you are a constant source of joy in my
life!

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 7, which will direct us to remember a relational encounter from
this year that gave us joy.  

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Day 7 – Reflecting on Times of Joy

Welcome to Day 7 of
the 28 Days to Joy Challenge!

Today’s
Encouragement:

You are working
hard to make joy the fuel that runs your life. Today marks one week you have
been practicing joy! Way to go! Whether you have easily completed each exercise
or have had a bumpy start, you are doing a great job. Keep going!

Today’s Practice:
Exercise 7

Today we focus on
remembering a relational encounter that was meaningful in some way.

– How This Exercise
Will Benefit You:

We reflect on times
of joy to train our brain to feel some satisfaction and peace. Thinking about
the special moments of life creates an internal reaction where your brain and
body respond as though you are reliving the joyful moment all over again. This
practice keeps joyful memories alive and changes your brain.

– Exercise Steps:

Identify a favorite
relational encounter from your year and share your thoughts with that person
(or someone else) including why this interaction was meaningful.

Have fun with this
exercise. We pick up tomorrow with more joy practice!

As I sat down to do this morning’s Joy Challenge. I
immediately thought of the relational joy that I have in the regular encounters
I have with my wife. TammyLyn is the love of my life, my best friend, and my
wife because we share the love we have for one another, for the Lord, and for
exploring and enjoying both God’s creation and the creations of men.  We love to go out and experience the wonder
of beauty of God’s creation in nature and we love to appreciate the things of
beauty in the world by going to museums and art galleries.  So I knew that I would have a wealth of
memories from which I could draw upon to remember a “meaningful relational
encounter” with her.  The trouble was “which
one” I would pick! So I decided to look back in time and in the archives of my
phones photo gallery to try to narrow it down.  

TammyLyn and I make a regular habit of going places and
doing things to enjoy our lives together and as I looked back through my photos
I was reminded of several of the little day trips we have made over the last
weeks and months where we enjoyed something worthwhile and one another’s company.
Anyone of these weekend trips would meet today’s joy challenge criteria but I
decided to share today’s photo to represent the “meaningful relational
encounter” that TammyLyn and I enjoyed in February for what was TammyLyn’s
first encounter with Myrtle Beach SC.  

That trip back in February was a family vacation as
TammyLyn and her youngest kiddos and I took to the road and headed south for a
few days to enjoy some non-winterlike weather. But even though we had TammyLyn’s
youngest daughter and son along for the ride with us, when we arrived at Myrtle,
the kids stayed in our suite as TammyLyn, and I scoped out the beachfront
shortly after our arrival.

We were alone as I got to show TammyLyn Myrtle beach,
and I had us pause for this shadow photo to document our first steps on the
beach. After a long drive, it was nice to have a moment to ourselves to enjoy
the scenic beauty of the beach and one another’s company.   There is nothing like getting some rest at
the end of your travels and those first moments together on the beach were a
wonderful way to welcome us Myrtle and to remind us that we were “in this
together” no matter where our travels may take us. The memories of our travels and
our time together are a constant source of joy that I can tap into so let me
encourage you to appreciate the people in your life.  

Whether you spend time together “doing something
worthwhile” on the road or whether you are enjoying the simple pleasures that
are close to home, let the people in your life know how much they mean to you
by spending “quality time” with them where you can express the love you have
for one another.  

In light of the recent losses of loved ones that friends
of mine have suffered, I have been reminded just how finite our relationships
may be as we are never promised tomorrow, so make it a point to love the ones
you are with and make them aware just how much they mean to you.  

And while you are at it, don’t forget to thank God
for them and for the love and joy that you have experienced in this life.   

——————————————————————————————–

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 55:22 (NLT2)
²²  Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take care of you. He
will not permit the godly to slip and fall.

Today’s verse encourages
us to give our burdens to the Lord with the promise that God does care for us
and will help us to stand.  

Last night’s Celebrate
Freedom Growth Group Lesson – based on Celebrate Recovery’s Turn lesson, was
all about turning your life and will over to the Lord’s care and making the
continuous decision to trust the Lord and to change our ways to follow His
ways.    We can give our burdens to the Lord
because He is faithful to help those who decide to follow Him in earnest.  

He will take care of you. 

He will not permit the
godly to slip and fall.  

And the key to not
slipping and falling is to be “godly”. The godly resist the world, the flesh,
and the devil. The godly submit to God. 
The godly pray for God’s strength and guidance to overcome.  So we just have to trust that God will take
care of us and continue to walk in His ways, and we won’t slip and fall.  

I podcast and blog to
assure Christians that God’s word is true when it says we have been set free
from sin.  We don’t have to fall into to
temptation. We have the power over it. We can say no to all of our former ways
of darkness by choosing to trust the Lord and by deciding to follow Him.   So if you don’t want to slip and fall, just
follow the Lord and He will care for you. 
The word of God is true, but you must believe it, and live it, to
receive it.  

———————————————————————-

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

Misguided
Theories

To this we may add another excerpt from G.
Smeaton: “The two natures of our Lord actively
concurred in every mediatorial act. If He assumed human nature in the true
and proper sense of the term into union with His Divine Person, that position
must be maintained. The Socinian objection that there could be no further need
for the Spirit’s agency, and, in fact, no room for it—if the Divine nature was active in the whole range of Christ’s
mediation—is meant to perplex the question, because these men deny the
existence of any Divine nature in Christ’s Person. That style of reasoning is
futile, for the question simply is, What do the Scriptures teach? Do they
affirm that Christ was anointed by the
Spirit (Acts 10:38)? that He was led out into the wilderness by the Spirit?
that He returned in the power of the Spirit to begin His public ministry? that
He performed His miracles by the Spirit? and that, previously to His ascension,
He gave commandments by the Spirit to His disciples whom He had chosen (Acts
1:2)?

“No warrant exists
for anything akin to the Kenotic
theory which denudes Him of the essential attributes of His Godhead, and puts
His humanity on a mere level with that of other men. And as little warrant
exists for denying the Spirit’s work on Christ’s humanity in every mediatorial
act which He performed on earth or performs in Heaven. The unction of the
Spirit must be traced in all His personal and official gifts. In Christ the
Person and office coincide. In His Divine Person He was the substance of all
the offices to which He was appointed, and these He was fitted by the Spirit to
discharge. The offices would be nothing apart from Himself, and could have
neither coherence nor validity without the underlying Person.”

If the above still
appears to derogate from the glory of our Lord’s Person, most probably the
difficulty is created by the objector’s failing to realize the reality of the Son’s humanity. The
mystery is indeed great, and our only safeguard is to adhere strictly unto the
several statements of Scripture thereon. Three things are to be kept steadily
in view. First, in all things (sin excepted) the eternal
Word was “made like unto his brethren” (Heb. 2:17): all His human faculties
developed normally as He passed through infancy, childhood and youth. Second, His Divine nature underwent no
change or modification when He became incarnate, yet it was not merged into His
humanity, but preserved its own distinctness. Third, He was “anointed
with the Spirit” (Acts 10:38), nay, He was the absolute receiver of the Spirit,
poured on Him in such a plentitude, that it was not by measure (John 3:34).^[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 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