“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18
“Hey! Hey! I’ve got a Duck for you!” We were at our biweekly sign ministry where, a week earlier, I had seen a BMW drive up to the stop light, having about 50 little rubber ducks on the windshield. Asking the driver, “Where’d you get all the ducks, I thought they were for Jeeps?” she handed me one and said, “My other car IS a Jeep!” I was overjoyed to have a duck to give, and began to look.
Jeep Ducking is a thing! Research said that placing a little rubber duck on a Jeep is an act of kindness. It’s like a passing of joy, recognition or greeting to a Jeep owner. It can be a sign that you like their Jeep or that you too are a Jeep owner… though you don’t have to own one to Duck one. Holding my duck, I turned and saw a Jeep with about 10 ducks, coming my way. I waved, holding up the duck!
Efforts to get attention from the driver proved difficult, as the lady in the Jeep didn’t look my way. Having the duck in my right hand, and a sign that read, “’God wants YOU’ 1 Tim. 2:3,” in my left, I ran all the way up to her side window! When she finally turned, she glared at me. Smiling, I made a motion to wind her window down and held up the duck. Her mean, angry stare and nod glared ‘no!’
Now mind you, most people getting ducked don’t see their duck-r-ators. They usually come back to their Jeep to find a duck placed there anonymously. They’ll take that duck and place it on their dash. But that lady saw me WITH the duck AND God sign. I’ve been the recipient of that glare many times in my life. It was the glare of, ‘ I hate what you represent.’ Who I represented to her… was Jesus!
Today’s verse makes it plain. I have experienced the greatest gift a human can receive… the gift of Eternal life, and all that comes with it! Knowing Jesus, I simply can’t imagine ANYONE NOT wanting or loving Him. But most don’t. To them, Jesus is offensive. Why? Because, to get Him, one must give up the rights to themselves. A cost too high to pay. Offering Jesus to someone ‘self-ish,’ isn’t friendly.
So what to do? Well I still have my Savior, AND that silly little a duck. And with those 2 things I am going to continue my search for a Jeep, and pray that Jesus schedules a divine appointment for me to share MORE than just a duck with someone. How about YOU? Are you passing on Good News story? Don’t be discouraged. Even if they don’t want to hear it, Jesus will love watching you as you do!
“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
The three of us on the roof of the Church were actually having fun! The shingle roof, being old, had sprung a leak long ago, but didn’t really make that big a splash until one Sunday during a downpour. The spot on the ceiling had moved us to ask someone to repair it. But the REAL problem was not really addressed. Now, something more than a bucket was necessary.
Several of us counseled together and it was decided that, for now, a tarp would be necessary to give us time to get quotes for a new roof. Rob, Rick and I were soon on top of the Church roof laying the tarp. Grabbing a screw from the box, I held it in place with 1 hand while controlling a drill with the other. As I felt the prick of a splinter being driven into my thumb, I cried, “OUCH!”
Everyone gets a splinter in their life. Some are way worse than others. This one was very tiny. It was one of those that can’t really be dug out. It needed time to fester, blister and pop to get it gone. That healing process takes time, and hurts every time I grab something with that thumb. So I’m babying it as much as I can. The thorn that Paul received from Jesus is very similar.
We all hate pain. Consequently, it seems a common thought among Jesus’ people is that, since pain doesn’t feel good, God shouldn’t allow or give it. Paul, it seems, had every reason to brag and become conceited. What he had seen and discovered with Jesus as his master gave him every reason to be a snob. So here it says, Paul was given a messenger from satan… a thorn in the flesh.
My splinter pain reminds me that I need to be careful and not depend so much on that thumb until it heals. The MAJOR hurts and pains we all face at one time or another, like death of a loved one, sickness, separation or loss, can actually remind us that we can’t face that kind of pain ALONE. I OFTEN am reminded, by my weakness, that I can ONLY get through difficulty, with Jesus in charge.
It’s tough, sad, painful and often overwhelming to face the difficulties of this life. I tend to expect that, with Jesus as my Savior, everything should go smoothly. The reality is, like the song says, “HIS strength is perfect… when my strength is gone. He’ll carry us, when we can’t carry on.” But ONLY if we give it to Him and trust Him THROUGH the pain. What splinters, or beams, are YOU carrying? Are you giving them to Jesus?
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” 2 Peter 3:18
“WOW!” Was all I could say! Looking out the window, my eyes fell upon the Staghorn Fern that’s been hanging there for years. It hangs there everyday, but I don’t really pay close attention to it. Today it caught my eye and WOW! It’s looking GOOD! Someone gave it to us a long time ago. I’d heard it helps if you put banana peels in them, but thought, “that sounds ridiculous!” Until I did!
Recently I began eating bananas. One day I looked out and saw nothing really worth owning. Then I remembered about adding the peels to the fern. Since I had both time and the banana peels, I slipped several into the plant. Now, NEW growth is happening and it’s looking like it’s supposed to! Then my gaze fell upon the chain holding it up… “THAT may need to be replaced,” I thought.
I did a little looking and found that Stagfern plants aren’t like other plants. They don’t have flowers or seeds, but release microscopic spores into the air (a bit like mushrooms and mosses), which eventually become new plants. They hang in the air and mostly absorb stuff from the humid air. While they can’t tolerate direct sun, indirect sunshine is the only way they grow. Hmmmm!
It’s funny that I hadn’t really cared about that plant until one day, I did! It’s kind of like my relationship with Jesus. I grew up with Him all around me, but hadn’t really cared. Until one day, at 12, He touched me! And then I did! I know from ‘The Revelation’ that I could never stand in his direct presence in my flesh. He’s WAY too bright and pure. But I daily and indirectly get close though His Word.
The spore thing caught my attention too. As a Jesus Guy, I don’t automatically reproduce either. But read and absorb His Word, then send it out into the world around me. There, with the Son, and with the watering of the Holy Spirit, it too can produce another believer in Him. So I guess I have an attraction to the stagfern. You should see it, as it beams with the sun!
Are YOU growing in Grace? I pray that the Son shines on YOU today, TOO.
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46
“Let me tell you how you could save $100 off your car insurance.” My interest was piqued, as I was playing the car insurance game again. A couple of years ago, I took the ‘15 minutes’ to find cheaper car insurance. Now, THAT insurance company was raising their rates. Having been around long enough, I recognized the game and knew it was time to shift loyalties… again. Which is never fun.
I was in the process of comparing rates when the agent presented an offer I seemingly could not refuse. If we’d ‘allow’ them to put an ‘app’ on our phones to monitor our driving, we ‘could’ save up to $100 over 6 months. Knowing what a $100 bill looks like, I was tempted. That is until I began asking questions. “It’s just an APP,” the agent said. Or WAS it? Talking with Katie, it was more!
Our driving records are clean, which is what USED to be the way insurance companies determined how much to charge. But if I would allow them control of my cell phone (and everything in it), saving some money ‘could’ be a reward. In my head, I saw my insurance agent sprouting horns! Because that is EXACTLY the deal satan tries to deal me… every second of my life! “Just say yes.” is all he asks.
Underlining ‘YOU’ in the first sentence SEEMINGLY puts focus on the most important person in the world. But having had an encounter with the Risen Savior, way back in 1966, I painstakingly learned… this life is NOT about ‘me!’ So what does the perfect God of the Universe want with a dirty sinner like me anyway? Remembering the contract I signed, I know the answer… ‘Loyalty in Faith and Action!’
‘APP’ is short for the word ‘Application’. And there is NO ‘App’ for growing closer to Jesus Christ, other than ‘app’lying myself to read His Word, focus, talk with and yield to Him. I am asked to put Him FIRST in EVERYTHING. There are NO shortcuts or deals. There should not be! Jesus asks for, and demands, that OUR relationship requires ME, to give MY control of ME… to HIM. Always!
DOING what Jesus says is usually costly. Giving up what ‘I’ want for what HE wants is the toughest decision any human can make. That is why the Lake of Fire will be MUCH more full than Heaven. But I have learned, what I GET from Jesus FAR EXCEEDS ANYTHING I could EVER acquire or earn… HERE. Have YOU found that out? Do YOU give yourself completely to Him and seek to obey Him? You might want to take another look at today’s Bible verse!
“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” Exodus 19:5
“Pinkie Swear!??” she asked. “I do!” was my reply. I don’t know where we originally heard about the idea of interlocking pinkie fingers as a sign of a true, no exception or deception, promise. Once committed though, for Katie and I, it became more solemn than a ‘swear on your mother’s grave’ contract. There was never an INTENTION of messing with, or trying to get out of, a pinkie swear.
The Pinkie swear was an agreement that, though it sounded silly or child like, was a call to honor. It was just that simple! We even passed the concept on to our kids, though we rarely required it, knowing kids can be kids. If there was an area where immaturity might get in the way of keeping the solemn oath, I wouldn’t ask for it. Simply put, failure was never an option in a pinkie swear.
As a young teen, my father learned and taught me the concepts of God’s Covenants. Sometimes His promise was given in return for obedience from the one the Covenant was made. “But SOMETIMES,” my dad said, “God made promises that do not require ANYTHING from the receiver… an agreement between unequals.’ Meaning EVERYTHING in the promise, was 100% ALL on GOD!
The Covenant found in today’s verse, was given with conditions… kinda! IF Israel FULLY OBEYED and KEPT their end of the bargain, THEN they would become God’s treasured possession. Unfortunately for the Israelites, they really didn’t quite understand the full depth of ‘The Law’ that they agreed to. Later in the ‘New Covenant,’ we find that ‘The Law’ was IMPOSSIBLE to keep! Hence Jesus Death!
I have found that people are often willing to agree to conditions without fully realizing the implications of what they are agreeing to! The greater the reward for themselves, the greater the chance of them skipping the reading of, and agreeing to, the ‘Fine Print!’ It happens! Thankfully God is not without Love, Mercy and Grace. He gets us. Then gave His Son’s death as the ultimate contract addendum!
These days, I like to say that “Heaven is like a good government job. It’s not what you DO… it’s who you KNOW!” God really only has 1 condition for MY salvation. That is to KNOW and Love His Son!” Do THAT… and He STILL promises I WILL become His Greatest Treasured possession. Do I? ‘I do!’ Pinkie Swear! But… Do YOU?
This article was recommended to me by Randy, our Moderator. It’s too good to miss.
Are You Sailing or Sinking? – A Tool for Diagnosing Spiritual Health
Article by Marshall Segal – Staff writer, desiringGod.org
I have one, and only one, experience with sailing.
In my senior year of college, one of my friends invited a number of us to his family’s lake house near the coast of North Carolina for one last weekend together before graduation. The house sat on a cove tucked just off the ocean shore. Down by the water sat the family’s beautiful (and expensive) two-person sailboat, tied firmly to a post.
The more experienced went out first. Several of my classmates had grown up close to the ocean, and knew how to handle a sail. They raced up and down the cove, making it look easy. When they were done, another first-timer and I stepped up to take the ropes. Once we pushed ourselves away from shore, we swung and tugged, leaned and lunged, stood and sat — and barely moved. The others, of course, took even more joy in our floundering than they had in their sailing. After a while, our titanic struggle left us tired and hungry, so we pulled the boat ashore and went in for dinner.
Early the next morning, a couple of aspiring sailors woke us, asking where we left the boat. “Down by the shore, of course. Where else would we leave it?” “Did you pull it into the grass?” “Umm, no.” “Did you tie it up?” “Umm, no.” “Well, the boat is gone.” Any experienced sailor (or just a man of common sense) knows what I learned that day: the tide rises at night, so you have to anchor your boat or it will drift away. I immediately started counting every dollar I owned. (It didn’t take long.)
A couple of us went out in the motorboat, driving up and down the shore, desperately looking for any sign of the sailboat. Surely it had been damaged, maybe even destroyed, after all these hours. After another hour or two, we’d come up empty. We saw nothing. And no one we saw had seen anything. I still remember the long ride back. I was sick to my stomach.
That boat came to mind again recently when I read Tim Keller describe a tool he used over the years to help him discern the health of a soul (and particularly the health of a person’s prayer life).
Which Boat Describes You?
Keller paints the nautical picture this way: “Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail” (Prayer, 258). Into that scene, he asks four pointed questions: Are you sailing? Are you rowing? Are you drifting? Or are you sinking? In terms of my story, does your spiritual life resemble my master-sailor friends gliding up and down the cove, or the two first-timers working hard and going nowhere, or the empty sailboat drifting aimlessly away?
The tool’s helpful in two directions. First, it helps us assess and maintain our own boats. How often have we assumed that we’re rowing when we’re actually drifting, or that we’re drifting when we’re actually sinking? Second, the tool gives us a window into the boats of others. It’s a simple, vivid question that cuts through shallow places (where we often prefer to swim in our relationships) to the heart of a person, to how he is really doing.
Keller doesn’t attach particular texts to the four different boats, but the Psalms came to mind as potential examples because they model, with unusual vulnerability and emotion, the highs and lows of the human soul. So I’ve attempted to identify at least a few lines that give voice to each of these four spiritual conditions.
1. Are You Sailing?
When you think about your spiritual life right now, do you feel the wind at your back? Does prayer feel easier and more enjoyable than normal? Does daily Bible reading sparkle like a treasure in the field? Do you find yourself on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday actually looking forward to Sunday morning and the opportunity to sing and serve with your local church? Do you find spiritual conversation natural and gratifying?
If you’re currently in the sweet thrill of sailing, you might pray like King David does in Psalm 16:6–9:
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.
As we’ll see, David didn’t always feel this kind of spiritual high. He often struggled and had to fight hard for faith. At times, he fell into valleys of despair. In these verses, however, we can almost feel the wind lifting and driving his sails. Anyone who’s riding a spiritual breeze can identify with what he’s describing, and anyone who isn’t would want what he’s experiencing.
2. Are You Rowing?
If you’re rowing, you’re still making progress, but it’s a slower, hard-fought progress. You’re moving forward, but you’re really earning each passing wave. “Rowing,” Keller writes, “means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight” (259). They’re chores you keep doing, but they honestly feel like chores. You keep attending worship, and discipline yourself to listen, engage, and even sing, but you often walk out distracted and tired. You want your heart to be in a different place, and you put effort into feeling differently, but you haven’t felt a strong wind in a while.
If you’re currently in the wearying work of rowing, you might pray like David does in Psalm 63:1:
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
In these verses, he’s not praying from the pleasant places of Psalm 16. Now he’s kneeling in the wilderness — “in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” But as the spiritual winds died down and the ground under him dried up, he didn’t give up and lie down in the boat. No, he kept his eyes on God and started rowing: “Earnestly I seek you.”
3. Are You Drifting?
From a distance, drifting may look and feel like rowing, but swim up closer to the two boats and you’ll notice one massive difference: effort. The drifter stops trying. You stop praying earnestly. You stop reading the Bible regularly. You stop paying attention during church gatherings (or stop attending altogether). Tired and discouraged and maybe even disillusioned, you set your oar aside and passively wait for some gust of wind to come along to save you.
This condition is probably the hardest to pair with a psalm, mostly because the psalms themselves are prayers. So even at their darkest, they model what it looks like to row in the dark — to keep praying, keep gathering, keep seeking. But in Psalm 42, dangerous circumstances have prevented the psalmist from attending the temple (“When shall I come and appear before God?” verse 2), so though he’s still able to pray, he’s cut off from other vital means of grace.
When shall I come and appear before God? . . . These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? (Psalm 42:2, 4–5)
The drifter has desires for more, and he can remember times when he experienced spiritual health and community, but he’s lost the will to keep fighting. His soul is cast down, and so his boat wanders aimlessly, from app to app, from show to show, from task to task, from meal to meal, from week to week. He wakes up farther and farther from where he wants to be spiritually, and yet with less and less resolve to change course.
4. Are You Sinking?
Is the boat within you quietly taking on water? You drifted for a time, but then you hit something hard — a job loss, a breakup, an illness, a death — and water started trickling in. Now, weeks or months later, your faith is gasping for air. You’re not longing for former days of stronger, more satisfying faith. You’re questioning whether it was ever real. You’re not thinking about restarting your prayer life, or looking for a Bible-reading plan, or joining a small group. You’re looking elsewhere for answers (or you’re avoiding the questions altogether).
Again, even psalmists dealt with sinking moments in the soul. Listen to the heartache and despair in Asaph’s voice when he thinks back on a dark night in his own soul:
All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. . . . But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. . . . When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. (Psalm 73:13, 16, 21–22)
He remembers a time when he was living in spiritual peril. Do you feel your heart slowly growing embittered to God? Has your pain crystallized into self-pity? Has confusion mutated into bitterness and resentment? Have your doubts ripened into apathy? Is your boat filling with water?
Obviously, any boat that’s sinking needs some serious attention. One of the blessings of a tool like this is simply putting a sinking boat on someone else’s radar. How many souls sink without anyone ever knowing, at least until it’s too late?
Drifting and Sinking Alone
Later that long day, when we had nearly given up hope finding my friend’s sailboat, a neighbor from down the cove phoned. It had landed on their shore. Amazingly, no damage. The boat had drifted more than a mile.
For all our failures aboard that extraordinarily expensive piece of fiberglass, my first-timer friend and I did one thing right that day: we went out together. When it comes to our spiritual health and joy, the vast majority of drifters and sinkers drift and sink alone. And the vast majority of rowers and sailors row and sail with others.
Keller ends his book on this note:
Those who enjoy sailing might find these nautical images helpful. However, a metaphor used more often in the Bible to describe fellowship with God is that of a feast. . . . Eating together is one of the most common metaphors for friendship and fellowship in the Bible, and so this vision is a powerful prediction of unimaginably close and intimate fellowship with the living God. It evokes the sensory joys of exquisite food in the presence of loving friends. The “wine” of full communion with God and our loved ones will be endless and infinite delight. (260–61)
The image of the feast gets at the satisfying fullness of sailing. It also gets at the togetherness, though. Somebody might eat alone, but nobody ever feasts alone. And, spiritually speaking, nobody sails alone either. Richer communion with God requires richer communion with other souls, in the church.
So, if we feel ourselves drifting or worse in our walk with God, our first step to righting the ship will be to steer our boat into more crowded waters, where the sailors and rowers live.
‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ Matthew 22:8-9
“WhadayaMEAN I can’t come in?” was the question I asked of the doorman. “I’m sorry sir, but your name is not on the list… and you are not wearing proper attire!” I was disappointed and a little hurt. But peering into the large room, I had to admit, I didn’t match the occupants of that room. I hadn’t bothered to RSVP when I got the invite, because I didn’t take it seriously.
It looked like it was a fun soiree… from the outside. In fact, I hadn’t really figured my workmate to be that fancy of a guy, as I’d never really seen him all that serious before. His jokes and stories made me feel comfortable, like family. I didn’t really bother with the RSVP, and the Black tie thing… I thought that was a joke! But hey, we weren’t all that close anyway.
It wasn’t until I was rejected that I seriously thought about how enjoyable the evening MIGHT have been, had I taken the time to prepare. I COULD have asked more questions to clarify, but I’d never really seen David as a ‘stick to the rules’ kind of guy. I also had to admit that I didn’t really know him THAT well. Heck, I didn’t even know he could AFFORD such a party!
O.K., I’m embellishing. That event didn’t take place. But it combined 2 events that actually did. Once I took my bride to a restaurant that required coats and ties. Not knowing, I was dressed nice, but not nice enough. Luckily, the Maitre D offered me a jacket and tie, which surprisingly was acceptable to the establishment, even though it didn’t match my clothes!
The other time I was expecting to get into a private party. I knew the people well. When I showed up as the invited officiant of the wedding, I hadn’t realized that attending ‘The Reception’ was not a part of the deal! I felt silly. But all these occasions prove the point that there are places I cannot go because I have not met a particular criteria for the event.
Jesus has invited EVERYONE to His Personal Wedding party. In fact, it is not really a party as much as it is an ENGAGEMENT! He wants ME to be part of the main event! The invitation to HIS party though, requires a LOT of preplanning! I must agree to HIS terms and conditions if I want to be a part of the greatest event of all time… “The Marriage Supper of the Lamb!”
Are YOU part of the wedding AND the reception? Are you SURE? Are you prepared?
“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:12-13
“Brrrrrrr!” I said. Then added, “Baby it’s cold outside!” to my bride. I really didn’t have to tell her. She was wrapped in a blanket and saying the same thing! Curious, I looked outside the window where my thermometer hung. It laughed back at me… ‘it’s 46 degrees, ya big baby!” The same thing YOU might be thinking now! But hey! Cold is RELATIVE! Right?
When we were first married and living in Cleveland, Katie used to sneak her feet up to the back of my my legs, while under the covers, to get warm. “AAAAAGH!” was ALWAYS my response. Back then, I was warm and she was cold. Now it seems reversed. While driving in the car, she adjusts her side to ice… I adjust mine to ‘balmy!’ Today, we’re BOTH cold!
How I ‘feel’ is conditioned upon more than 1 thing. I notice that 46 in the Florida humidity is WAY worse than 46 in the dry mountains. Wetness added to cool, makes cold! Humidity added to warm, makes hot! It’s the condition of the air that can make the difference. Like wickedness, added to societal contentment, leads to evil! Yup! It’s getting colder outside!
The last Church in Revelation is the one that makes Jesus most want to throw up! The Church at Laodicea finds its parishioners neither fired up for Jesus, nor frozen against Him. Jesus finds them ‘lukewarm.’ His statement makes me think he would prefer complete evil more acceptable than apathetic care-less-ness! A title not fit for describing a Church!
As the world grows more evil, men’s hearts are growing colder. I can find myself shivering beneath a heart that can easily become frozen to the good actions. ‘Eh.. what’s the use? They’re never gonna get it anyway!” mixes with “no sense kicking that snowman, he can’t feel anyway,” leads me toward a ‘do-nothing’ kind of attitude. Shivering wakes me up!
I am reminded by The Spirit that the temperature of my heart can be deeply affected by evil that surrounds it. If I let evil set in without resistance, love can easily escape to a warmer climate. Sometimes the best way to get warm, is to become active in some action for doing good! Jesus said, “Go into the world and spread the Good News!” In other words… DO IT!
In what condition and temperature do you find YOUR heart? What can YOU do today to make your world better for Him? Cuz He’s watching!
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
It was a JOY-FILLED church service. One that I had ever been to, or done before. But this one was special! Having looked over the kids in our church a week before, and having learned from a man who had spoken God’s Word over his children, I felt led to pray for and speak over OUR Church’s special group of kids that attend every week. And OH how special they are!
Having asked the parents for a word or 2 describing each of their individual children, an amazing truth popped out that should have come naturally. Parents had 2, 3 and even 4 children between them. But of all the children standing on that altar area… ALL of them were DIFFERENT! Even if they had the same parents and were the same gender and God!
The thought hit me, remembering my own children as they grew. We found that what worked for our oldest, didn’t necessarily work for the other 3! Each reacted and responded to learning and growing differently! That thought alone, in my own mind, proved that God exists and that HE is the one who creates personality. It is HE who gifts each of us with ability.
Looking at the picture today, I noted that almost every grape looks the same as the other. They all come from the same vine, and probably taste exactly the same. But when it comes to people, that vine formula doesn’t work! I have the opportunity to stay connected to the vine, which is Christ, or go it alone. But what Jesus grows within me is HIS choice. All are special!
The talent, fruit and flavor of each of us is different. Even among those within the same family. Some are extroverts while others introverts. Some go on to be teachers, while others become givers and helpers. But ALL of us can be connected to the same vine and used by the same Savior. The key to Fruiting is REMAINING in Him. NOTHING fruits otherwise!
Today I am going to rest in my Savior and ask Him to show me how I can be the sweetest and loveliest fruit ‘He’ wants me to be. I don’t need to look around and compare myself with, or judge other fruits. That is the Master’s job. I just want to remain connected to The Vine to fruit with Him. How about YOU? Are YOU discovering and bearing the kind of fruit He wants?
