Repentance and the Lord Blessing Your Efforts – Purity 1262

Purity 1262 01/31/2024 Purity 1262 Podcast

Purity 1262 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a buffalo in front of a large mound
of rock reaching for a blue sky comes to us from Chris Oswald as he shared this
scene on social media this past weekend from his trip to Devil’s Tower.

Well, it’s Wednesday and I figured Chris’s photo of
Devil’s Tower was more than adequate to visually represent our arrival at
another hump day. Today is the last day of January 2024 and my spirit is alive
with the possibilities for the new year.

I don’t know if it’s the upcoming arrival of the lunar
new year on February 9th or just the realization that we made it through the
first month of the year and winter didn’t kill us, but I feel good. Perhaps it’s
due to my recent experiences in the Immanuel prayer ministry or the fact that I
was convicted to be true to my stronghold buster and now am four days free from
zero-sugar sodas but, despite issues in other people’s lives around me, I feel
great.

And I have to testify that the people who are
walking in the direction I’m going all have the same thing in common: hope, and
beyond hope there seems to be progress in their increasing their senses of
well-being, freedom, and peace.

Tonight I’ll attend the Celebrate Freedom growth
group at Starpoint church where I’ll be reminded of what a difference faith in
Jesus can make.

Admittedly there have been some ups and downs in the
various participants’ lives since we began the group back in May of last year. Honestly,
there have been some real, and I mean capital R E A L, real disasters as some
of the people have come in and received a measure of freedom and victory for a
time, but then were deceived, lured away, or just plain quit, as I say,  walking and talking with God.

While we have the freedom to make our own choices
and craft our own recoveries, Christian discipleship or Christian recovery
really isn’t something you’re supposed to take a break from. Our relationship
with God is continuous and our decision to follow Him into repentance is
supposed to be continuous as well. So participants who come to every other meeting,
drop by once a month, or take several weeks off should not be surprised if they
don’t have the freedom and victory that they want.  To receive freedom and victory, you not only
have to believe, but you also have to do your part as you walk into a new and
abundant life.  

But don’t get me wrong our faith in God, our relationship
with Him, and asking for His help and guidance and strength is a huge part of
the freedom equation – long-lasting freedom and victory aren’t possible without
a heart to surrender to and rely on the Lord.

Christ didn’t say abide in me on the weekends.

So yes you have to connect with God through prayer
and Bible study and talking with Him but if you enter into “walking in the Spirit”
– God isn’t just going to supernaturally bless you with everything you ask for
immediately – He is not your genie in a bottle to grant your wishes – and if
you are walking and talking to Him, He is going to “speak to you” – by raising
your awareness, illuminating truth, and showing the things that you need to do
by convicting your heart and mind.   

When Pastor Bob Costello started a Christian
Recovery ministry at my old church, I was attending Bible College and serving
actively in the church, but although I had the heart to know God more and to
serve Him, I was still living in the shadows with drunkenness and lust. So when
Pastor Bob announced the new recovery ministry, the Holy Spirit “spoke” to me –
not in an audible voice but it was just as compelling- saying “This is for you.”
 And considering how answering that call
to recovery and repentance has led to my sobriety and subsequent service in
recovery or freedom ministries ever since 2015, I would have to say the Holy
Spirit it meant that – this is for you – in more ways than one!  

I shared last week, and all the time, about how in
those early days of my recovery from alcohol how, like Paul with his thorn in
the flesh, I pleaded to the Lord in prayer to the point of tears, begging Him
to take my addiction away and to instantly heal me of the cravings of the flesh
and the temptations in my mind – and how I wasn’t instantly cured – how I had
to lean on the Lord for strength and to make the daily decision to not go back
to my drinking and to follow the Lord into the land of sobriety one day at a
time.  The Lord blessed my efforts, but I
had to make that decision every day and as the days between me and my last
relapse lengthened, I began to realize that God had already given me the power
to overcome – heck He actually gave me a new life of purity – but I had to believe
it and live in accordance with it to realize it. 

Your chains are gone when you put your faith in
Jesus but the world, the flesh, your past experience, your acquaintances,
family, friends, and the devil may cause you to believe the lie that you are
the same lost and sorry person you always were.

“Once an addict, always an addict.”

“You will always struggle with this.”

“It runs in our family.”

“I was born this way.”  

and “It works for some people, but not for me.” 

Are all lies that don’t apply to the born-again
follower of Jesus Christ, but you have to know those statements aren’t true and
you have to live according to who you are in Christ to make your new life of
freedom and victory a reality. 

So we pray. We read the Bible. We ask God for
strength, wisdom, and healing (Are you not doing these things?)

But we also decide to believe what the word of God
tells us about ourselves and life, and we make the commitment to follow the
Lord with the way we live and we actually think about the things we think about,
examine the things we say and do, pay attention to the things we put our time
in, and we listen to the Holy Spirit when He tells us “This is for you” or “This
is not for you, anymore”.  

When we seek the Lord we will find Him and when we
follow the Lord, He will lead us to a life in the Spirit where there is righteousness,
goodness, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, love, patience, self-control,
peace and joy.

Yesterday, I had workmen coming to the house to do
repairs and I was convicted by the mess my adult children had made of my simple
home.  Instead of getting mad at the fact
that the place was sloppy looking, I was convicted over how the mess wasn’t “right”
and instead of praying for the Lord to take it away, or rousing my kids out of
bed in the early morning hours to give them what for and to command them to
pick up the place – I got busy “making all things new”.  I threw out trash, put things in the recycling,
swept the floor, washed and put away dishes, cleaned the kitchen sink and
countertops and finished by cleaning the bathroom. It was a whirlwind of
activity in the early morning hours yesterday but now my house is clean. I had
to do the work to get it there and if I enjoy having the place clean, I will
have to be proactive in cleaning up on a continuous basis. If you like the joy
of a neat space, you need to keep it neat, right?   I had
let things go when I never should have. I compromised my principles because I
decided that it wasn’t my mess – but it is my house, and the Lord says we are
to be good stewards of the things He gives us. 
So I am rejoicing over the new beginning of another month tomorrow knowing
that when we focus on the problems that face us we can overcome them and with
the Lord’s help we can do it with peace.  

So it’s the last day of January, let’s make a new month’s
resolution to not let things go, to not just pray and hope the Lord takes
things away, let’s ask for His help AND DO SOMETHING – to make a change to
bring us closer to where we want to be. The Lord will bless your efforts, so
let’s make them in spirit, in hope, and in truth.

——————————————————————————————–

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.

Proverbs 18:13 (NKJV)
¹³  He who answers a matter
before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.

Today’s
verse is the first of two passages of scripture that fall under the sixth point
of our counseling reference guide resource’s section on Communication, Gossip, and
Lying.

6.     Listen before you
speak.

Today’s
verse is encouraging us to not assume we know what people are going to say
before they say it.  Let’s not think
about what we are going to say next without first listening to what is being
said.  Answering a matter before you hear
it is a folly and a shame because it dishonors the other people involved –
because they are not being heard- and it leaves us vulnerable to looking like a
fool by answering questions that are not being asked.  

So be
wise and listen before you speak, and Then answer the matters brought before
you with patience, wisdom, and love.

———————————————————–

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.

EVENING READING: MATTHEW 22

“Jesus answered and spoke to them …
by parables.”
– Matthew 22:1

Someone has said, “A parable is an earthly story with a
heavenly meaning.”

In any case, the Lord Jesus in His preaching and teaching
made great use of parables. Their purpose was to illuminate the truth to those
who were ready to receive it, and to conceal the truth to those who were
unbelieving.

The Lord Jesus used everyday life and common scenes to
build His stories. He adapted Himself to His audiences and circumstances.

His three great study books were God’s Book, the Book of
Creation, and the Book of Human Life.

Teach me, Lord, how to use these
three
books skillfully in my ministry for You. Amen.^[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)

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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