1:2-3

Abiding in Him-Life Line {John 15:1-27}

1:00 PM


Friday September 13th
Abiding in Him-Life Line
John 15:1-27

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Commit-to give in trust, to put into the hands or power of another, to entrust.
Commitment-confidence in something present or future, entrusting, confidence.
Jesus is the true vine and the Father is the vine dresser and we are the branches. 
When we come to salvation in Jesus we are connected to Him, just as a branch is connected to the vine, feeding us and we drawing our nourishment from it.

As you have therefore received Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk (regulate your lives and conduct yourselves) in union with and conformity to Him.
Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6-7 [Amp.] (I pray this often in my life.)

So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples.
And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.   John 8:31-32 [Amp]

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He is our source, apart from Him we can do nothing.  We cannot bear fruit of ourselves, we need to abide in Him.  He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it to bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.  He is always at work in our lives, perfecting us.
 
Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.
Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.
But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing. James 1:2-3

But if we are not bearing fruit then we are cut off and thrown away and dry up and then cast into the fire to be burned. 
When we are abiding in Him and bearing much fruit it glorifies the Father and proves that we are His disciples. 
If we keep His commandments  we will abide in His love; just as He has kept His Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 
These things He has spoken to us that His joy may be in us and that our joy may be made full.

In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.  
Psalm 16:11
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There is so much in this chapter but I wanted to focus on abiding in Him.   It truly is a commitment to abide in Him.  He promises us that if we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit and His joy in us will be full.
I want to share this story from Corrie Ten Boom,

Corrie was in solitary confinement in Ravensbruck ,  a work camp…she says for the first time ever, she was really alone, and she knew her life was completely in the hands of the enemy.  They could kill her, or torture her of just forget about her all together.  She could hear the cries of those being tortured, as she says it was a little bit of hell.  
When she lost courage, she tried singing, but the guards pounded on her door and demanded silence.  They threatened to take her to the dark cell where you had to stand in water.  Time became for her a very thick thing that she struggled to wade through.  It lasted 4 months.  
She cried out to the Lord, “Lord I’m not strong enough to endure this.  I don’t have the faith!”

Suddenly, she noticed an ant which she had watched roaming the floor of the cell for days.  She had just mopped the floor with a wet rag and the moment the ant felt the water on the stones, he ran straight to his tiny hole in the wall.  Then it was as if the Lord said to me, What about that ant?  He didn’t stop to look at the wet rag or his weak feet-he went straight to his hiding place.  Corrie, don’t look at your faith; it is weak, like the tiny feet of that ant.

Don’t dwell on the treatment you might receive from these cruel people.  I am your hiding place, and you can come running to Me just like that ant disappeared into that hole in the wall.  That brought real peace into her heart.  

She says,” I was 53 years old, and I had always known about Jesus, but there in solitary confinement I began to really understand and experience for myself that His light is stronger than the deepest darkness.”

Come to Me, all you who have heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Matt. 11:28.  
When you can believe that, you will know Someone is still interested in you.  
Someone still cares about you-not as a number, but as a person.  
Taken from the book He sets the captive free my Corrie Ten Boom.

I share this story because Corrie was a major person in my walk with the Lord when I first became a Christian.  I could not imagine being in a prison with no way out and how she found her strength in the Lord alone.
 
Our God is real and alive,  just as Corrie did, find your strength in Him and in Him alone.   He truly is committed to you and you can be committed to Him. 


Corrie ten Boom

Gratitude- Great Is Your Faithfulness {Lamentations 3}

11:00 PM




“Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it."...AW Tozer

It’s hard for me to read the book of Lamentations without a lump forming in my throat. It’s pages are filled with the pain of the prophet Jeremiah, who grieves deeply over the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. With its buildings reduced to rubble, its streets barren, and its people taken as slaves, the sorrow Jeremiah feels is immeasurable. Yet somehow in the midst of desolation and despair, the prophet still has a heart of gratitude for the goodness of God declaring, “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail, they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion’, says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’ (Lam. 3:22-24) 

Gratitude is a powerful tool in overcoming the feelings that ail us. By remembering the goodness of God; His love, grace, and mercy, our hearts will be so overflowing with thankfulness, we too will be grateful no matter the circumstance. God is faithful; His love never ending, and His mercies always in full supply. I was reading an article by Peg Robarchek, and loved it when she said, “Gratitude is the spiritual practice that keeps me grounded in hope, and reminds me that God is my source for all that is good in my life. The Lord is, indeed, my portion. And my portion is abundant.” So how can we practice gratitude? I wanted to share a couple of things that help me when I find my praise and thanks to the Lord beginning to wane.

Make A List-No matter our circumstances, there is always something to be thankful for. Each day take time out to think of at least one way in which you were blessed by God. Whether it be in a journal, a whiteboard, a folder on your laptop, or a note on your tablet, write down whatever comes to mind. At the end of each week, reread what you’ve written remembering to thank God for His many blessings. 

Read The Psalms-No one knew higher highs and lower lows than David. Yet through it all his love for the Lord never wavered. He wrote song after song of devotion and thanksgiving to God. That kind of gratitude is infectious, and by reading a Psalm a day we too can have hearts filled with gratitude for God's work, and lips of worship that sing, “I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips.” (Ps. 34)

Give To Others-Nothing fills a heart with gratitude faster then helping someone in need. Complaining and unthankfulness can’t help but take a back seat when we see the struggles of those less fortunate. Suddenly blessings once taken for granted, become greatly appreciated. And as a bonus, when we reach out to those less fortunate out of appreciation to the Lord, we bring gratitude into the lives of others; becoming loving ambassadors of God’s grace and mercy.

One more great example of gratitude can be found in Corrie Ten Boom. If you’ve never read her book, “The Hiding Place”, I highly recommend it. Imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Corrie and her sister Betsie were kept in “Barracks 28”. A horrible place where the conditions were beyond inhuman, and death all but a certainty. Yet even in such suffering, Corrie still had a heart of gratitude. She was thankful that she and her sister were together. Thankful they had a Bible in which to study and share God’s Word. And believe it or not, grateful for the fleas in the infested straw bed in which she was forced to sleep. Why? Because as it turned out, the cruel and abusive supervisors who ran the camp were afraid of those fleas. Not wanting to be infested themselves, they left the women alone. “Through those fleas, God protected the women from abuse and harassment.  Dozens of desperate women were free to hear the comforting, hope-giving Word of God.  Through those fleas, God protected the women from much worse things and made sure they had their deepest, truest needs met.”( khouse.org )

Finally, whenever you feel yourself lacking in the gratitude department, remember this. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” (Eph. 1:4) Imagine that! Even before the creation of the earth, God knew and wanted each of us! He formed us, chose us, and because of His love for us, provided reconciliation to Him through the blood of His Son Jesus. And knowing that God calls me His, overflows my heart with such love, praise and gratitude, that I too can cry out, “Great is Your faithfulness!”





2 Kings

Eyes Of Faith {2 Kings 1:1-8:15}

12:00 AM



I was trying a new recipe and had to run to the store to pick up a couple of ingredients I was lacking. After searching through the spices and not finding the elusive white pepper I needed, I asked a young girl stocking shelves for help. Right away she pointed it out and wouldn’t you know, the pepper was right in front of me. It had been staring at me the whole time but I didn’t see it. Sometimes that’s how it is in our spiritual lives. We look at things through our eyes instead of God’s and miss what is staring right at us. That’s what happened to the servant of Elisha. He was surrounded by the Lord’s mighty warriors yet couldn’t see them.

When the king of Aram found out that the prophet Elisha was informing the Israelite army of his every move, he sent a great army of his own to surround the city of Dothan where Elisha and his servant were staying.  Filled with despair the servant asked Elisha, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” Elisha answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” (vs. 6:15-16) Can you imagine what went through the mind of that terrified servant? He must have thought his master was crazy. The two of them certainly didn’t outnumber the great many soldiers they faced. But in fact Elisha wasn’t crazy. He was looking through eyes of faith and saw what God saw. And so he prayed to the Lord that his servant too would see as he did. “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (v. 17) 

How many times are we like the servant of Elisha? Often when we look at the troubles facing us, our first response is worry and despair. We fail to see past our problems to what God sees. And what He sees is victory that comes only from trusting in Him. From trusting in His power, protection, and provision. He will always provide the resources we need to get through any challenge. “Sometimes God's resources will enable us to emerge on top. Or He will enable us to survive the onslaught. And sometimes God will simply give us strength to maintain a Christlike spirit in the midst of abuse and ill-treatment at the hands of others.”(Dennis Bratcher) Elisha prayed for his servant’s eyes to be opened, and we too need to pray for open eyes of faith. Faith allows us to rest in the knowledge that even if we can’t see them, we are surrounded by a mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.

Whose eyes are you looking through? Are they the eyes of a fearful servant, or the eyes of an all powerful God? Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was this, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” (Eph. 1:18)  Paul wanted them, and us, to see things as God does. To have Godly vision. To have unwavering belief that God loves us and is always fighting for us. Psalm 34:7 promises, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.”  We know that God always fulfills His promises, so the next time you feel like crying “Alas!”, remember that those who are with us are greater than those who are with them!

“O Lord, open my eyes that I may see forces that You have assembled on the hillsides of my life. I trust in your strength and provision.”...iworship Bible