From “Freeze Mode” to “Freedom Mode”- Purity 1328

From “Freeze Mode” to “Freedom Mode”- Purity 1328

Purity 1328 04/17/2024 Purity 1328 Podcast

Purity 1328 on YouTube: 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of a snow-covered field and a blazing sun-peaked
tree line horizon comes to us from an unknown FB friend who shared this peaceful
scene on social media on or around January 25^th, 2021.  

Well. It’s hump day again and while I usually try to
share a mountain scene on Wednesdays there was something about the way the fencing
framed that snowfield, and the sun capped that tree line that I decided that it
fit the bill for visually representing our arrival at another workweek midpoint
and gave me a sense of peace. Plus, using it allowed me to share what I had “borrowed”
and never used three years ago when I was in the habit of scouring social media
daily looking for photos my friends shared that gave glory to God by
highlighting the beauty of His creation.  

Obviously, I am still in the habit of pointing my
friends toward the Lord by sharing a photo 6 days a week but I don’t scour Facebook
as much as I used to, in part because back in January 2021, I was still on the lookout
for the possibility of finding a Christian wife and used social media to assess
possible candidates to fill that role.  Thankfully,
the Lord knew that it wasn’t good for this man to be alone and was moving all
things together for good as He had put it in my heart to begin a new community
freedom ministry at my local church, and to podcast it, and those steps of
faith would be used by Him in the months ahead to introduce me to the Christian
woman that I had been looking for to be my wife, although admittedly God had to
open my eyes to see it but when He showed me that TammyLyn was “the one” (and There
CAN BE NO OTHER) I didn’t hesitate in making her my “girlfriend”, and then fiancee
two weeks later, and finally my beloved wife on January 1^st of 2022.
 

Amazingly, TammyLyn and my whirlwind romance is only
one story that I could tell of the good things that happened in my life after I
decided to put my faith in Jesus and to earnestly follow Him as His disciple but
its one that will never cease to give me joy and I will share it continually as
evidence and an encouragement for others who are looking for love to “get right
with God” and to trust Him to lead you to where you should go.  

I trusted the Lord and He has led me to freedom over
the darkness of my past and into a new abundant life of hope, joy, and peace,
despite not everything being perfect in my life I blog and podcast continually
to tell others that all these things – freedom, peace, growth, love, and joy –
are possible with God and all you have to do to experience them in your life is
to “pick up your cross and follow Jesus”.  

That phrase – pick up your cross can mean different
things to different people, and that’s okay – we are all individuals with unique
situations,  – but the “following Jesus
thing” is the thing that matters as He will call us to repent and to be
sanctified through Him. And I truly believe that ANYBODY can experience the
life they always wanted but never thought they could have by surrendering to
God and following Him.  

One man that desperately wanted to  experience peace but didn’t think it was possible
is good friend Rafael Guajardo.  Life and
circumstances did a number on Rafe to the point that he paid thousands of
dollars of his own money just to have his brain scanned. His depressive, manic,
anxious, and condemning thoughts and the mental “freezing up” they would cause
had him convinced that there was something physically wrong with him. And when
the results were in, while there were no tumors or lessions present, they
indicated that his moods and mental processes were very much like that – of a “deer
caught in the headlights” in that he seemed to be unnaturally locked in fear –
or freeze response.

Now, Don’t get me going on brain scans – though because
in my research I have discovered that the results of such scans are not only
subjective in terms of how they can be interpreted – they can also be “manipulated”.
For instance brain scans of a supposed “addicted” brain look awfully similar to
a brain scan of someone holding their breath – meaning that we can change our
results with just a little effort and with the insight of biofeedback,. You similarly
can lower your blood pressure by calming yourself down with deep breathing
exercises.  

But anyway, even though Rafe had medical results
that told him “Oh yeah, something isn’t right in your brain”, the Lord put it
on his heart to hope for the possibility of healing or change and he decided to
put His trust in God by enrolling in the Freedom in Christ course this winter.  And through the process of simply learning
the truth about who he is in Christ, having the insights of the mental battle
of the mind revealed to him, and going through the prayerful repentance process
of the Steps to Freedom in Christ, Rafe was able to resolve personal and
spiritual conflicts of the past and to find a new measure of peace, hope, and
joy by experiencing His freedom in Christ.

Now Rafe will tell you that he is still a work in progress,
but he now has a firm foundation from where he can walk through life without “freezing
up”. He sees the thought streams of the past for what they were – lies that
were the result of demonic oppression or just false beliefs that the stress of
past traumas caused him to believe about himself – but now sees himself as God
sees him and he knows that experiencing peace in life lies in choosing to believe
the truth of what God says about him rather than the negative self talk that caused
him to “freeze” and plagued him continually through out his life.  Rafe knows that “walking and talking with God”
through regular spiritual disciplines of Bible study and prayer is part of his
pathway to peace and He has been earnest in trying to be faithful to follow
it. 

Yesterday, I shared Rafe’s prayers and Bible verses for
his children, but he also shared with me a daily prayer that he composed from
the things he learned in the Freedom in Christ course that I want to share
today:  

Rafe’s Prayer (Freedom
in Christ Daily Prayer – by Rafael Guajardo)

 

Dear Gracious Heavenly Father,

 

I worship You and praise You for there is
none like You. 

You are the only all-powerful and wise
God. You are kind, compassionate, full of mercy, and loving in all Your
ways. 

 

I love You and thank You that I am united
with Christ and spiritually alive in Him.

 

Thank You for the gift of Your Son and His
everlasting sacrificial love. To You,

” I am worth the death of Jesus Christ,
that’s how much You love me.”

 Nothing, absolutely nothing can ever
separate me from Your love.

 

Thank You for drawing me and calling me to
follow You. Thank you for choosing me before the foundations of the earth.

 

I choose not to love the world, and I
crucify the flesh and all its passions. I believe and embrace the truth of who You
say I am.

 

I am a new creation in Christ. I was
spiritually dead but now I am alive in Jesus. 

 

I was a sinner saved by grace but now
because of my position in Christ, I am a saint, a holy one, empowered by grace
and truth.

 

I thank You for the life I have in Christ,
and I ask You to fill me to overflowing with Your Holy Spirit, so that I may
live my life free from the power of sin. 

 

I choose to believe the truth and I refuse
to be discouraged. You are the God of all hope, and I am confident that You
will meet my every need according to Your riches and glory. I will seek to live
by Your Word and believe the truth.

 

I express with confidence that I can live
a responsible life through Christ who strengthens me. The same power, which
rose Jesus from the dead dwells in me. I trust You to complete the work that You
started in me.

 

I now take my stand against Satan and
command him and all his evil spirits to depart from me now. I renounce all the
lies of the enemy and false beliefs about myself. 

 

When temptation comes, I will submit to You,
resist the Devil, and he will flee from me. I am a child of God, and the evil
one cannot touch me. 

 

I will ignore his condemnation and
accusations against me because there is no condemnation in Christ.

 

I declare my dependence upon God Almighty.
With Him all things are possible. 

 

I put on the whole armor of God. the shoes
of the gospel, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet
of salvation, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit. 

 

I submit my body as a living sacrifice and
renew my mind by Your living Word of God in order that I may prove that the
will of God is good, acceptable, and perfect. 

 

I remind myself that You are in control
and reign above all things, therefore I put my confidence and complete trust in
You. Thank you Father God that I have a future, and a hope both now, and for
all eternity.

 

Thank You that “in Christ” I am accepted,
significant, safe, and secure in You. 

 

I honor You as my sovereign Lord. I
acknowledge that You are always present with me. 

You promised never to leave me or forsake
me because You live in me. I am one with Christ and Christ is one with me.

 

Use me Lord to bring Your light and love
to someone today.

Lead and guide me by Your Holy Spirit. May
I be Your hands and feet today to touch this hurting world.

 

Praise You God for this brand new day.
Your mercies are new and fresh. 

 

Thank You for Your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Thank
You for the gift of the fruit of the Spirit. May it reign in my heart and mind
and flow through my life to others.

 

I praise You and pray all these things in
the mighty and precious name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

Amen.

As
I said yesterday, when we teach we often learn from our students as much if not
more than we impart to them. Rafe has reminded me that this “following Jesus
thing”  is the thing that matters. It’s
the thing that can take us from “Freeze Mode” to Freedom Mode and no matter what
hurts, habits, or hang-ups we bring with us when we put our faith in Jesus, we
can experience a new and eternal life of peace, hope, and joy and be free of
all the bondages of the past that kept us stuck, when we choose to believe God’s
truth about us and walk in His ways.  

So
pray Rafe’s prayer and believe what it says about who you are in Christ because
the power of God works by your faith in Him and choosing to follow where He
leads.

 

——————————————————————————————–

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 verses come from the section on Death and Eternal Life

John 11:17-26 (NLT2)
¹⁷  When Jesus arrived at
Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days.
¹⁸  Bethany was only a few
miles down the road from Jerusalem,
¹⁹  and many of the people had
come to console Martha and Mary in their loss.
²⁰  When Martha got word that
Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house.
²¹  Martha said to Jesus,
“Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.
²²  But even now I know that
God will give you whatever you ask.”
²³  Jesus told her, “Your
brother will rise again.”
²⁴  “Yes,” Martha said, “he
will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”
²⁵  Jesus told her, “I am the
resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after
dying.
²⁶  Everyone who lives in me
and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

Today’s
verses fall under the tenth point of our counseling reference guide resource’s
section on Death
and Eternal Life.  

10. Jesus comforted Mary and Martha after Lazarus died. He is
the resurrection and the life.

Today’s
verses are a continuing theme in my faith walk – as I was a dead man walking
before Jesus called me out of the grave – and I often point to this very
passage to beg the question “Do You BELIEVE THIS? – about who Jesus is and about
His power to raise others to a new life of freedom, peace, and joy when they
simply believe and agree to walk with Him.  

The
good news is we have eternal life – although we may die we will live with God
forever, but we should also understand that we have the life of Christ – the Holy
Spirit – living in us now and we can experience the joy of our resurrected lives
– like Lazarus did – here in the world of the living. 

———————————————————–

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: JOHN 20

“Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’” – John
20:16

Earlier in this Gospel, the Lord Jesus had given
expression to these words, “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the
sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls
his own sheep by name” (John 10:2, 3).

The Lord Jesus had just opened the door or way to the
Father by His death and resurrection. He now stood before one of His puzzled
and confused sheep. “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’” He called His own sheep by
name and the sheep knew His voice and followed Him.

It is grand to know that He has my name carved on the very
palms of His hands.

May I ever be ready to hear my name
called,
and reply, “Master!”^[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 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)

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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,
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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship