Fruit, fruit, and more fruit

Today's blog post is contributed by David Trotta:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. (John 15:2)

Are you going through some difficulties or hardships in your life?  Are you going through something painful at the moment?

Maybe God is asking you to give up an area of your life that you don’t want to let go of, but deep down you know its holding you back from being all that God wants you to be.

Or, instead of asking, maybe God is tearing something away from you, even painfully.

Maybe you are in a season of your life where you are bearing much fruit for the Kingdom of God and you are questioning why God is not protecting you from these difficulties.  After all, if God is moving in your life, shouldn’t you be exempt from them?

Whatever the situation, hang in there because you might be exactly where God wants you, in the grip of His pruning shears.  And when God gets out the pruning shears, He has one goal in mind – to make you more fruitful.

The reason trees or bushes are pruned is to remove those branches that are not bearing fruit so the nutrients can flow to those areas of the tree that are fruitful.

God may be strategically changing or removing areas of your life that are not fruitful so that other areas of your life will flourish.

Like any wise gardener, God wants you to continually bear more fruit and He won’t be satisfied until all your branches are full.  His goal is for you to be full of His fruit - love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

No Fear

“There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

I John 4:18

What made Mother Teresa willing and able to go into the darkest and most desperate ghettos of India to minister?

What made David Wilkerson willing to risk his life to bring a message of hope to the gangs of New York City in the 1950’s?

What made the Vicar of Baghdad stay in a place where Christians were hated and persecuted in order to proclaim the Gospel of Christ?

The love of God!

God’s love gives you freedom from fear.

It is what made the difference in these three examples and countless others.

It is what made the difference in the life – and death – of Stephen.

He didn’t run and he didn’t hide from those who stoned him to death.

He stood firm in the love of God.

It is what will make the difference in our lives too.

 You may not be called to lay down your physical life for the cause of Christ.

But you can be sure you will face those things you fear.

The love of God is greater than all those fears.

His love can free us to love when our flesh cries “Fear!”

That is the power of the supernatural love of God.

“...and beyond all these things put on love...”

Confident Conquerors

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:37-39

God’s love gives you personal confidence.

Listen to what author Bob Hazlett writes in his book Think Like Heaven:

“Many psychologists say that firstborn children are more assertive than their siblings because they get the most nurturing. In God’s Kingdom, every child is a “firstborn child”, with equal access to the Father’s nurturing love. All of us can be bold because all of us are in Christ from the foundation of the world. In Him, none of us went un-nurtured or unloved...God says, “Come. I will enable you to do and to be. In me you are fearless.””

We are a people confident in our God and in His love for us.

Whether you are a ‘first born’ or, like me, a ‘sixth-born’ in a family of nine children there is no famine or shortage of God’s love for you.

That love gives us a confidence and emboldens us in Him.

“With God we shall do valiantly;

    it is he who will tread down our foes.”

Psalm 108:13

We need not be intimidated by the enemy.

We need not be intimidated by our past or by our current circumstances.

We can be confident of His love for us.

We can confidently share that love with others.

We are called to be confident conquerors!

Think About That!

“Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.

The one who loves me will be loved by my Father,

and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

John 14:21

Someone once humorously wrote:

“Love is blind but marriage is an eye opener.”

While there may be some kernel of truth in those words the words of Jesus written above tell us that God’s love is anything but blind.

As a matter of fact Jesus linked together love and revelation.

As we love Him, He reveals Himself to us.

Going back to the subject of marriage, perhaps that is a good context in which to understand the connection.

The deeper I am in love with my spouse the greater my desire to please them.

In order to do that I must know what pleases them.

That is where revelation comes in.

As God reveals Himself to us we grow in our understanding of those things that please Him.

We can then respond and relate to God in ways of genuine love that were not possible apart from His revelation to us.

The more He reveals the greater our opportunities to respond to Him in love.

It is important to note that we are the ones who grow in our love for God.

God’s love is perfect and mature and whatever other terms you may want to use to explain the truth that He cannot be more in love with you tomorrow than He already is today!

Think about that!

Are Your Thoughts Taking Action?

“For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is fulfilled in one precept, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, you shall have an unselfish concern for others and do things for their benefit].”

Galatians 5:14 Amplified

It is not always easy to take something very complicated and reduce it down to its’ simplest form.

Jesus did it with the Law and here Paul does the same.

The whole Law in one precept!

It is as if Paul is saying –

‘Listen up, I am about to tell you everything you need to know about the law concerning human relationships in 7 words –

“You shall love you neighbor as yourself.”’

That’s it?

That’s it!

If we love our neighbor as we love ourselves we have fulfilled the entire law.

Imagine that!

No wonder it is important to know how to love ourselves biblically.

Without that, we cannot love others as we should.

A question to ask ourselves is: “Am I a ‘pro-active lover’?

Do I look for ways to love others?

Do I go out of my way to bless them?

We cannot just sit back in our easy chairs of life and wait for some ‘great personal revelation’ to lead us to do what is right and good for others.

We already have that through the Gospels and all of the New Testament.  

Are you an ‘active lover’?

Are you actively blessing and loving others today?

Love that is a mere kind thought from the comfort of your own life directed to someone who is struggling is not the love that God demonstrated for us.

His thoughts took action.

Ours need to also!

Authentic Love

Today’s blog post is contributed by David Trotta:

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides continually in him. (1 John 4:16)

All love emanates from God.  He is the author and source of authentic love.  He IS love.

When we allow God’s love to emanate through us, we become a living expression of that love, which allows us to fully love ourselves and others.

But apart from Him, the best we can muster up is a counterfeit love.

Sure, it may look like love on the outside, but the motive of our heart is a true give away to our love’s authenticity.

Authentic loves says “I want to.”  Counterfeit loves says “I have to.” 

Which is often the motive of your heart when serving God and others?

If the latter, run to God and stay there.  Cause your heart to sit at His feet throughout the day.  Allow your thoughts and affections to remain on Him.

The more you abide (remain) in Him throughout the day, the greater measure of His love will flow from you.

Acts of love will come naturally because it will be His love emanating from you. Authentic love that comes from God will always compel us to “do.”

Counterfeit love is all too common in the world today, but God’s wants to change that by causing His church (you and me) to become an expression of His authentic love on the earth.

Are you ready?

Everything!

“Be on guard; stand firm in your faith [in God, respecting His precepts and keeping your doctrine sound]. Act like [mature] men and be courageous;

be strong. Let everything you do be done in love

[motivated and inspired by God’s love for us].”

I Corinthians 16:13-14

 

Boy, talk about difficult commands, here’s one:

Let everything you do be done in love.

Everything means every thing.

Can you correct in love or is the “I told you so!” attitude more prevalent?

Do you always communicate in love or is it easier to spit bullets?

Is your counsel offered in love or is it to puff up your own ego?

What a challenging command.

But if it were easy we wouldn’t need God.

We would walk around with a cocky attitude in smug self-satisfaction.

I know I am repeating myself but it bears repeating – we cannot love as we ought apart from Gods’ love working in us.

No matter how hard we try!

So if I want everything I do to be done in love I must surrender it all up to Him allowing Him to love through me.

You and I are not the origin of love – God is!

Divine love – the kind that I Corinthians 13 speaks of – only comes from God.

As we abide in Him, His love flows out of us to ourselves and to others.

Precisely What God Intended

Love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant. It is not rude; it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]; it does not take into account a wrong endured. It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]. Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening].

I Corinthains 13:4-7

You are amazing just as you are, more beautiful than you can see,

stronger than you feel, and of greater worth than you’ll ever know.

I love You

Love, Father God

If the verses from I Corinthians 13:4-7 are nothing more to you than a syrupy Hallmark card sentiment or an oft repeated passage in a wedding ceremony then they have sadly missed their mark in your life.

They are meant to show us what Godly or Agape love is.

If you read those verses and are the least bit challenged it is a good thing.

You see, apart from Christ, we simply cannot love in that way.

His love in us enables us to love in that way.

And yes, it is something we are all growing in.

To paraphrase some words from Paul used in another part of scripture:

It is not as though I had already attained...

In one sense we have already attained but in another sense we haven’t.

He is in us so His love abides in us, but...getting from the inside to the outside (so to speak) where it flows out to us and others is the growing part.

His love is in me.

Will I release it or will it hide there never to be known by others?

I believe we are at the beginning of a season where the earth will see and know the love of God through each of us in ways we (and they) never imagined.

And yet, it is precisely what God intended!

In the Meantime

You are amazing just as you are, more beautiful than you can see,

stronger than you feel, and of greater worth than you’ll ever know.

I love You

Love, Father God

 “Then God said, “Let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness [not physical, but a spiritual personality and moral likeness]; and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, and over the entire earth, and over everything that creeps and crawls on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26

Love is a life giving action that is living through a person.

God created man to be a vessel through which His love could flow.

His creation of man itself was an act of love.

He looked upon that creation and declared it to be very good.

His intention was that His love would flow through us to one another.

That was His intention then and that is His intention now.

You see, when we are born again He lives in us.

God’s love cannot be separated from who He is.

When He comes in, His love comes in.

We share that love in simple ways and in supernatural ways.

We are not called to share condemnation.

We are not called to point fingers.

We are called to love.

Some fear that if they love a person with God’s love they are endorsing all that is in that person’s life.

Let me ask you this?

When God’s love came into your life, through His Son Jesus Christ, was that the beginning or end of the journey for you?

Just the start, right?

God is big enough to transform their life just as He is big enough to transform yours.

In the meantime love them with His love!

God is Love

You are amazing just as you are, more beautiful than you can see,

stronger than you feel, and of greater worth than you’ll ever know.

I love You

Love, Father God

 “...God is love.”

I John 4:8

If you were to ask a hundred people the question “What is love?” what answers do you suppose you would get?

Some might frame it in a sexual context.

Others, brotherly love or service and still others might mention something they ‘love’ like pizza or poker!

A far better question to ask than what is love would be who is love?

You see the Bible tells us that God is love.

He is love.

God sent His Son to demonstrate His love for us.

Jesus became a ‘God photograph’ of love or as we were told today – a word picture of the love of God.

We saw love in action when Jesus came to walk on the earth as flesh.

We should still be seeing love in action through the church.

We are told that God lives in us – that is to say His love living through us and being made available to others.

If we do not believe that or have not accepted the truth of it we will not fully demonstrate, reveal or share His love with others.

Will you allow God to reveal His love to others through you?

Do you believe He wants to do that?

How valuable are you?

Today’s blog post is contributed by David Trotta:

Experts say our feelings of self-worth is directly shaped by the love and acceptance we received from our parents (or those who raised us) and the worth they instilled in us at a young age.  But even the best of parents can only love imperfectly.

However, God loves us perfectly.  And understanding how much God values you and I will cause us to soar.

It takes about 2500 cubic feet of helium to lift the average person off the ground.  The bigger your balloon and the more helium it contains, the higher you will soar. 

The more you are filled with an understanding of how much God loves you and how valuable you are in His eyes, the farther you will soar in fulfilling God’s purpose for your life.

So, how much does God value you?

He numbered every hair on your head.  Luke 12:7 says “The very hairs on your head are all numbered.”  God can point out hair number 1001 on your head.  For God to know that level of detail about you demonstrates how valuable you are to Him.

He knows you by name.  Isaiah 43:1 says “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” With 6 billion people on the earth, God still knows you by name and calls you His own.

You are His masterpiece.  Psalm 139:14 says “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” You are God’s workmanship and He only creates masterpieces. Nothing about you is an accident.

He thinks about you all the time.  Psalm 139:17 says “How precious it is, Lord, to realize that You are thinking about me constantly.”  What we think about most is what we love most.

He tattooed your name on His hand. Isaiah 49:16 says “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”

God establishes your worth, and based on the above verses, I would say you’re pretty valuable, so start soaring today.

The Kindness of God

You are amazing just as you are, more beautiful than you can see,

stronger than you feel, and of greater worth than you’ll ever know.

I love You

Love, Father God

 

 “Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness,

forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's

kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”

Romans 2:4

Imagine joining a club where everyone was angry.

Never any joy and always rules, rules, rules!

Love one another? Forget about it!

That is how some people picture the church and the Kingdom of God.

A bunch of people who preach only ‘turn or burn’ messages and seem to hate anyone who is not like them – angry and exclusive.

A preacher I knew used to say that many Christians looked like they were baptized in pickle juice!

What drew me to the Lord was not what I had to give up but what I saw in other believers that I so wanted in my own life.

I witnessed a genuine love for one another and peace in the lives of the believers in spite of being in the midst of a chaotic world.

The Holy Spirit drew me to the Father through God’s kindness and love.

It is that same love and kindness that we are to freely share with others.

But, if we struggle to love ourselves as God loves us we will also struggle to share that love with others.

Today, ask God to take you back to your first love.

Remember His love for you so that you might fall in love all over again with Him, with yourself and with others.

The Truth About You!

You are amazing just as you are, more beautiful than you can see,

stronger than you feel, and of greater worth than you’ll ever know.

I love You

Love, Father God

 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:30-31

Today let’s look a bit more closely at biblical self-love.

What is it and how do we love ourselves without becoming self-centered?

Look at who we are FIRST commanded to love – the Lord your God!

And when we do that with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength there is no issue with loving our neighbor or loving ourselves.

When you truly understand how much God loves you there is a value to your life and your worth that cannot be known apart from knowing His love.

To declare you are worthless and have no value is to declare a lie.

It is contrary to what the Creator say’s about you.

You are not an accident, regardless of what you think or have been told.

Every life, yours included, has purpose and destiny.

Excuse my grammar as I quote a truism I heard many years ago:

God don’t make no junk!

Often we struggle to love ourselves because we have believed someone else’s opinion or words concerning us.

Any words spoken to you or about you that are contrary to the Word of God hold only the power you give them.

“...Let God be truth and every human being a liar.”

Romans 3:4

A Sacred Calling

 “But understand this, that in the last days dangerous times [of great stress and trouble] will come [difficult days that will be hard to bear].

For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused]...

...Avoid such people and keep far away from them.”

II Timothy 3:1-5 Amplified

Loving yourself is healthy and biblical.

After all, we are to love those things that God loves and He loves you beyond measure.

What is not healthy is to love yourself for all the wrong reasons.

What are the wrong reasons?

The Apostle Paul speaks of a worldly self-love that is self-centered.

 I love myself now that I have had a nose job or I love myself because I am the best salesman in the world and no one can touch my performance.

The “it’s all about me, myself and I” mindset.

You know the superficial ways in which we try to value ourselves – our weight, our appearance (compared to others), our income, our family heritage – you name it.

Think for a moment what it would be like if that was how God was.

No plan to redeem His creation, no sending His Son to die in our place, no eternal fellowship with Him in heaven.

Nope, none of that because who cares about man anyway!

Imagine how John 3:16 would have to be rewritten...

For God so loved Himself that He turned His back on everyone else!

Aren’t you glad God created us to love and be loved?

And He demonstrated that love in a way that cost Him dearly.

We each are called to love someone God sent His Son to die for...

...you!

That’s right, learning to love yourself is a sacred calling.

The Depth of God’s Love

 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:6-8

Who’s willing to die for you?

Probably not a question you would ask many people.

But my guess is, the list is likely shorter than we think.

I’m not talking about those who say they would.

As they say – talk is cheap.

But a life isn’t!

Who would actually surrender their own life so that you could have yours?

Maybe when we truly take the time to consider that question on a very personal level do the verses above take on a greater weight?

We realize that God is not all talk.

His words “I love you!” took action through His one and only Son.

Maybe, just maybe, it will make you stop and think about how much God loves and values you.

Have you had thoughts of worthlessness?

God never has toward you.

Your life and His Sons’ life mean far too much to Him.

Have you been entertaining thoughts that are clearly not Gods’ concerning you?

Know that God came to us in the flesh and laid down His life for you.

Not for someone else – for you.

The next time you are tempted to think of yourself less than God does remember just exactly the price that was paid to give you life.

God loves you beyond any words I can put to paper!

One Sent

Today’s blog post was contributed by David Trotta:

Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." (John 20:21)

Jesus sent the disciples into the world to change it.  But Jesus’ words in the above verse weren’t exclusive to his disciples.  They also apply to you and me.

As the disciples where sent into the world, so also we are sent.

With that truth in hand, begin to look at your life a little differently.  Instead of life happening to you, begin to live your life on purpose as one sent with a specific mission, a mission to influence your world for Jesus and advance the Kingdom of God on the earth.

Now you may not be sent to the mission field in a foreign county, but you have been strategically placed where you live, work, and play.

The neighborhood you live in, the job you work at, the family you were born into - none of them are a mistake.  As a child of God, you were tactically placed in each of those areas for just a time as this to influence those around you and demonstrate what life in the Kingdom of God is like.

Make a list of the places you have influence and begin to look at them through a different lens.  Look at them through the lens of “one sent” by Jesus.

When you wake up tomorrow morning, instead of thinking “I have to go to work,” think “I am being sent to work.”

The next time you grab your grocery list and head out the door, don’t think “I have to run to the store.”  Instead think “I am being sent to the store.”

Everywhere you go, think of yourself as an ambassador for the Kingdom of God.  Then, look for opportunities to exert you God-given influence as one sent by the King.

Wineskin Shrapnel

 “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.

No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”

Mark 2:22

Do you have a ‘pet’ doctrine?

Most would answer an emphatic ‘No!’ to that question and yet most of us do.

We hold a ‘doctrine’ we are willing to die for.

Saul of Tarsus did.

Only, he wasn’t the one dying!

Saul was so convinced those that others called Christians were spreading heresy that it took God knocking him off his high horse and blinding him for him to see (pun intended) the error of what he held so dearly.

Does that mean truth is relative?

Absolutely not! (pun intended)

But our understanding of the truth may change as we grow in Christ.

Jesus spoke of not putting new wine in old wineskins or they would burst.

The old wineskins lacked the ability to ‘grow’ with the new wine.

The New Testament is filled with new wine experiences, whether it was a Messiah who suffered died and rose again or (heaven forbid!) a Gentile being saved and on and on...

There must have been old wineskin fragments littering the countryside!

How about you?

Can God pour new wine into you?

Are you teachable or do you have all the answers you need?

The ‘Hard’ Teachings

 “On hearing it, many of his disciples said,

“This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

John 6:60, 66

Have you ever heard a ‘hard’ teaching?

Perhaps it was the way it was presented, or it was a new way of looking at things that you had never understood before or it was just so opposite of the traditions you had learned.

In our walk with God we are all presented with ‘hard’ teachings.

A passage seems to hit us right between the eyes with a truth we are not able to understand or it seems so outlandish that we feel there must be some other explanation.

Those who were listening to Jesus clearly heard him say:

“For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.” John 6:55

Many decided that day that they would not stick around to understand what Jesus was saying.

Those who did stick around were undoubtedly scratching their heads thinking they would corner Jesus sometime later and ask Him to explain what He said.

Maybe you’ve watched a friend who held dearly to a particular doctrine and watched as that belief unraveled before them.

It wasn’t that Truth had changed, but the understanding of it certainly had.

Let me offer two simple things to do if you are confronted with a similar situation.

First, remain teachable.

Remember that none of us is Truth. Only God is so don’t hold so dearly to something that what you end up rejecting is God.

Second, even when you do not understand – stay close to the Lord.

It is not a time to push away.

Many do in those moments.

That really is a form of pride.

It declares: “If I cannot understand all that God is and says then I do not want to walk with Him.”

We are then trying to reduce God to who we are.

God delights to bring us revelation but the secrets are given to those who draw near and not to those who pull away.

Stay teachable and stay close!

Chuck the Rear View Mirror

 “For I am about to do something new.

See, I have already begun!

Do you not see it?

I will make a pathway through the wilderness.

I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.”

Isaiah 43:19 NLT

Perhaps you all have heard the illustration of the person who tries to drive forward by only looking in their rear view mirror.

It cannot be done!

Neither can you advance in life if all you do is attempt to relive the past.

God is doing a new thing in our day.

That does not mean God is moving outside of His character and His attributes.

Consider Acts 19:11 –

“God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,”

Now we all read the next verse and somehow tend to limit the word ‘extraordinary’ to the method through which God healed people at that moment in time through Paul’s ministry.

Handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched Paul were taken to the sick and God healed them.

God wants to do extraordinary miracles through each and every one of His children, but the method He uses may not be recorded in the book of Acts (or anywhere else in scripture).

How many times previously did we read of that method used to heal?

How many times after is it spoken of in the bible?

Don’t be afraid of the ‘new and extraordinary’ God wants to do.

Remember, He will never act contrary to His nature or His attributes.

But He will move powerfully through anyone willing to surrender their rear view living to the wide angle view of heaven coming to earth!

https://youtu.be/d9zoq3k-3K0