About / Preface

Welcome to the "God's Clay God's Way" blog and podcast. I'm Brother Mark, and I'm glad you're here. These messages look at what's in God's heart for us. Here's a secret: we're really looking at what's in God's heart for Himself. 

Real Victory: A Self Examination

I've been thinking and writing quite a bit lately about one of Jesus' key topics: the radical importance of dying to self. That focus has had me prayerfully re-examining my own life. I've been asking the Lord to reveal hidden motives in my own heart. 

Frankly, I've been stunned at the deep levels of self-focus and self-interest He's pointed out. Maybe the worst part is that I've been justifying it, making it seem so reasonable.

Where Real Victory Lives Part 1

Popular culture emphasizes self-fulfillment and seeking your own happiness. But that is the opposite of Heaven's way. Jesus is clear: those who give primacy to their own desires, comfort and security will lose what they so mistakenly value.

The people who are willing to lay down their own desires, comfort and preferences for God's higher purposes are the ones who will find true fulfillment and happiness in His extravagant love.

Where Real Victory Lives Part 2

I'm assuming you've already read Where Real Victory Lives Part 1. That's important. It lays the foundation for what's being covered here in Part 2.

Years ago, my wife and I saw a silly card that made us laugh.

An older couple was sharing their marriage secret with a newly married couple. The older gentleman said they'd decided early on that he would make the big decisions and she would make the small ones. It worked so well that in all these years they hadn't had a single big decision.

My wife and I definitely saw the humour in that. Today, it brings me to a big part of this overall message: the marriage relationship. Some folks will disagree with me, but this is how I see it reflected in the Bible.

Where Real Victory Lives Part 3

I was thinking I'd pretty much finished with this topic, but i keep getting hit with the thought that I wasn't direct enough in Part 1 and Part 2. May Part 3 be blunt and clear. If the Lord wants to step on your toes, tell Him to go ahead and do it.

In fact, stop right now and pray. Ask the Lord to show you how any of this may apply to you.

But Do You Trust Him? Part 1

Do you ever feel like you're wrestling with God?

It's possible to have faith in the payment He made for your sin-debt but still feel like it's not quite safe to fully trust Him. After all, His agenda is pretty radical. 

If fully trusting God scares you, your heart might pull back from Him in a short-sighted attempt at what feels like self-protection. 

But Do You Trust Him? Part 2

This is where Trusting God rounds out your Faith in God. This is where I circle back around to the core of this message: "But do you trust Him?"

If things seem too hard and you feel like you've already given all you can give, yet He's asking for more...will you trust Him?

Almost everyone suffers loss and heartbreak at some point in their life, some far worse than others. Here's my personal insight into this issue. 

One More Time at Bat

Ephesians 2:8-9

"Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works, so no one can boast."

I've recently visited this topic from several different directions. But the Holy Spirit keeps putting it on my heart, so here's another swing at it. May this one hit it out of the park.

Repentance: More Than A Definition

True repentance is something you choose to do. It becomes a habit of deep and endless surrender. When it's coupled with trust in Jesus' payment and Sovereignty, true repentance is life-changing.

Don't be like people whose religious, pious-sounding words of repentance are near Him while their hearts are far away.

In Matthew 15:8-9 (NKJV), Jesus quotes from Isaiah:

‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

You'll need a new heart to pull this off. He's more than happy to give you one.

What Repentance Is and Isn't

 God's plan for your eternity kicks in when you

• Confess and repent,

• Accept Jesus' payment of your sin debt, and

• Surrender to His Lordship in and over your life.

That makes it important to know what repentance is and what it isn't. 

Prayers I Adapt from Scripture

There's an almost unlimited number of prayers you can adapt and personalize from Scripture. It's a great way to pray.  

Here's some of my favorites followed by the Bible verses that helped inspire them. There's nothing official about these prayers. It's okay -- maybe even better -- to use your own words.

Again, as always, heart attitude is more important than the words. I hope these will inspire you. 

Heaven's Open Door

When Jesus took it upon Himself to pay off humanity's sin debt, He opened the door to Heaven. Without His payment, that door would have stayed closed.

Here's what I mean. Before Jesus died on the Cross, the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem's Temple was closed off by a heavy veil. That symbolized that the door to God's full presence in Heaven was closed. 

Repentance: What and Why

God created people to give Himself more to love in Heaven. But the fall of man put up a roadblock to God's unlimited love.

To better understand this, we must consider two immutable things about God: His love and His holiness.

• God's love is an integral part of His very essence. He IS love. He can't turn it off. He wouldn't turn it off even if He could (1 John 4:8).

• Holiness is also a part of His very essence. He IS holiness. He IS perfect purity that cannot be compromised (1 Peter 1:16; Revelation 4:8). 

I look at it like this: His holiness puts a barrier around His love. It's a fence line that can't be crossed. The barrier of holiness reinforces His love by keeping impurity out. 

Here's what I mean.

The Gospel's Two Anchors

There are many layers to the Gospel story. Today, I'm going to focus on two of them. At first glance, they’ll seem to be things you’re already familiar with. But many Christians…maybe most Christians…get these at least partially wrong.

The more we get them wrong, the more we limit Jesus’ work in and through us. If we get them too wrong, we’re in danger of not even being Saved. I can’t tell you where God draws that line, but wherever He draws that line, I want to be very far away from it.

If we get these Gospel truths right, any person can live in a restored relationship with God...a real, vibrant, personal, living relationship, like what Adam first had in the Garden of Eden. That's what Jesus died to give each of us.

I call these "The Gospel's Two Anchors". Without BOTH of them, no one will pass Judgement Day.

Without our input or help, Jesus took care of the First Anchor. But we are responsible for the Second Anchor. 

A Debt You Can’t Pay

Sin is anything that's incompatible with God's holy essence and commands. Sin doesn’t come in to be nice. It is a ruthless taskmaster that separates us from God.

Collaborate or Die

God’s unlimited love clearly wants to take as many people into heaven’s eternity as He can. But the reality is that His unlimited love is limited by the physics of heaven’s holiness. Nothing unclean or out of synch with God’s essence can be there.

God’s plan to take hopelessly fallen people to Himself has to account for two inescapable issues:  

1. Mankind can’t pay its own sin debt.  
2. We have free will to accept or reject His Lordship.

Choices

God chose to give you free will to use as you see fit. But that doesn't mean He's okay with the choices you make.

What God Won’t Do

There are some things God won't ever do. Here's just a few of them. You can probably think of more.