Bearing Fruit…'Tis the Season

I love the spring season as the earth begins to re-bud and refurbish itself. The trees are once again full of leaves and blossoms… and that means delicious fruit can’t be far behind.

In Dr. Wilkerson’s book, he teaches that for us to abide in Christ and to know that we are doing so; all one must do is look at the fruit we are producing. John 15: 5, 8 say the following; “I am the Vine and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.”

In these simple, yet profound words that came out of the mouth of our Lord, just hours before He died, we learn our true reason for being…the only reason that we still call this planet home as a follower of Jesus Christ …we have been left behind to BEAR MUCH FRUIT.

So the question becomes….What is fruit and how do I know if I am bearing much, little or none at all?

For many, the biblical understanding of fruit is the winning of souls to Jesus Christ …and that would be whole heartily correct; but, if we examine other scriptures throughout God’s word, we would find this definition of “being fruitful” too limiting. Take for instance Titus 3:14 that reads, “Let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful.”

So in practical terms, fruit represents good works…a work of thought, attitude or action of ours that God values and that in our doing glorifies Him…the fruit from our lives is how God receives the honor and glory due Him here on earth.

Now, we produce inner fruit when we allow God to make us more like Jesus…to make us more Christ-like in the “fruits of the Spirit” which are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22…and we bear outward fruit when our labor for the Lord brings Him glory, which would certainly include winning others to the life-saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

So, whether you are raking leaves and doing yard work for the widow down the street or planting a church as a missionary in the deepest jungles of Africa, outward fruit is a result of your inward motive to bring God glory. No matter how small your task for the Lord nor how great its intended outcome, your dreams of serving God will always be too small…so remember this…

WE ARE STILL HERE TO FULFILL GOD’S DREAMS….AND TO BRING HIM GLORY THROUGH A REMARKABLELY LIVED ABUNDANT LIFE.

Just look in your fruit basket and check out how you are doing…..until next time,

Living for the Savior ….Bearing Much Fruit,

WPQ

Poem for the Day:

If you want to live for Jesus,

Have others see Jesus in you;

Then you should seek to abide in Him

In everything you do.

Your life should be an open book…

Each page tells His great story;

And all the things you say and do

Will bring the Father glory.

Abiding in The Savior…Sailing Life's Stormy Seas.

After yesterday’s thought, I hope you were left with the unequivocal assurance that you belong to Jesus and you have committed yourself to complete surrender. So, now your are ready to take the first step along the road to a fulfilling life in Christ ….ABIDING IN THE SAVIOR!

Before Christ left the Upper Room, he drew that small band of men known as his disciples into a tightly formed circle (my conjecture) and began to share with them his dying words. He spoke gently, but firmly to them, as he continued to teach them and to prepare them for what the next hours and days would bring. He told them in John 15. “ I am the true Vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Abide in me as I abide in you. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15: 1-2, 4a, 5

Did you catch all that? Do you hear the words of your Savior just hours before he began his journey to the cross of Calvary? Do you fully understand all that he is trying to tell each of us as He prepares us for what lies ahead?

I believe I can best illustrate what Jesus was saying by sharing a little of my history regarding my service in the US Navy…and some interesting parallels that will help us understand this concept of abiding.

Now, I was stationed aboard an old tin can destroyer, USS Strong DD-758, a World War II relic, if ever there was one. Our ship was tethered to the pier in our home port of Charleston, SC when it wasn’t in route overseas for a Mediterranean cruise or sailing about the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean. I learned early as a seaman in the deck force that the ship needed to be in the water to do the most good…to perform its duties and function as a member of the Sixth Fleet. I also learned that though it was good for the ship to be in the water, it was extremely BAD for the water to get into the ship.

The ship had to abide in the water or it was just a large chunk of metal that had little value…it could not fulfill its true mission as a naval vessel unless it was in the water; however, it made for a very bad situation if the water got into the ship.

Now in this example, the water is two very distinct things….it is Jesus and it is the World. For each of us to reach our highest and greatest potential, we need to be like the ship and abide in the water…Jesus. If we are taken out of the water, we will be of little value; not much more than a big pile of flesh and bones, waiting for the undertaker. In the water of Jesus, we are free to sail far and wide as we accomplish the things that we were created to do; but, in the water as the World, we face serious problems if we let the world inside of us.

Trust me, you do not want to be in the middle of the ocean and hear the command to “abandon ship”….the only place you have to go is into the water…and many a sailor has drowned at sea when they left the comforts of their vessel for the dark waters of a raging storm.

So how do we keep the water out of us, yet sail unfettered in this world in which we live…we abide in Jesus and we do as he taught his disciples….GUARD YOUR HEART!

Dr. Bruce Wilkinson’s book, SECRETS OF THE VINE, offers some helpful insights to help us understand how we can guard our hearts from the drowning effects of the water of the world…so, come back tomorrow and we will uncover these wonderful principles together.

Sailing in the loving waters of my Savior,

WPQ

Poem for the Day:

If upon life's seas your tossed

And water gets in the boat…

Abide in Jesus, just trust in Him

And you will stay afloat.

Don't put your faith in things you see

Or trust in your own power.

Life goes best when we abide in Him

Each day and every hour.

WPQ©March 2018

Surrender to the Savior

On my last writing, I posed the question, “ How does one go about abiding in the Lord” and how do we accomplish staying connected to “The Vine” in the tumultuous days in which we live? However, the better question to begin with is how do we know that we are indeed a “part of the Vine”

In scripture, we find my favorite story of the little man known as Zacchaeus in Luke 19, verses 1-11. Here, we see the total transformation of this tax collector as Jesus calls him down from his lofty perch and makes him his host for the evening meal. The Pharisees and others grumble that Jesus would have anything to do with such a sinner…. and Christ’s simple response, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he is also a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost!”

But notice in the verses just before Christ’s declaration of his life’s mission, Zacchaeus says, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will repay it fourfold.” It is in this declaration of this little man that we see a new heart born, filled with the love of God. It is that transformation that seals the deal and ushers Zacchaeus into a new relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth.

And the same must be true for you and me; before we can seek …before we can be offered  salvation…we must SURRENDER TO THE SAVIOR!!!!!

If we want to truly abide in the Son, we must first surrender our will to him…life can no longer revolve around what you or I want …it must revolve, evolve and involve the statement that Christ made on the doorstep of the home of this horrid little man that everyone despised…. we must surrender to Him so that we can seek and save those that are lost!

 Zacchaeus provides the perfect role model as he demonstrated submission to Jesus; he gave half of his wealth to the poor and sought to right the wrongs of his past. In other words, he repented and sought to live a new and better life. The same holds true for you and me. If we confess to belong to Jesus and truly seek to abide in Him, we cannot cling to our “old” ways, habits, shortcomings and idiosyncrasies…we must repent and refurbish the old life with the new indwelling of the Holy Spirit that is vital to anyone that wants to abide in Jesus.

So, today cast aside all the things that would keep you from complete surrender to Christ and begin ANEW in the freshness of the Savior…. listen for His voice, sing a new song, read His word and know that wherever you go, HE GOES…. so choose wisely!

Jesus came to seek and to save and if you will surrender your will to Him in a new and resolute way, you will be taking the first step to a new realm of personal intimacy with Jesus…. the life lived in abiding joy, peace and eternal fulfillment.

Come back again as we continue to learn how to draw close to Him…

Living in surrender…seeking the lost for the Savior,

WPQ

Poem for the Day:

You may attempt to persuade another

To change their point of view;

But nothing speaks more plainly than

What Christ has done in you.

So if another’s lifestyle

You are hoping to rearrange....

Testify how the Father’s love

Can make an everlasting change.

Seek to live a godly life;

Be a Beacon in the darkest night.

For those who call Jesus, LORD...

Will be His Salt & Light!

WPQ©March 2018

When the World Puts the SQUEEZE On....

We have all heard the old adage, “When the world hands you lemons, make lemonade!” This seems to be a strong statement of how we are to react when things don’t seem to go our way; however, I have a question that comes from a different vantage point that I would like for us to consider.

“What comes out of you when the world puts the squeeze on?” is a question that begs for an answer with a biblical bent. Now, we all know that if you squeeze fresh oranges, you get orange juice….with those little bits of pulp. If you squeeze lemons, you do indeed get the first ingredient of lemonade….LEMON JUICE. Grapes…grape juice! Apples….apple juice! Pomegranates….well, you get my drift!

But, what about when the world squeezes you and me….what kind of “juice” comes out? As Christians, we are to bear the “Fruits” of the Spirit and according to the passage in Galatians 5:22-23 that reads, “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

So when the pressures of life seem to be bearing down on you and the squeeze is on…. what “juice” comes out of you? Do you rejoice with a fellow employee that gets the promotion you wanted or do you belittle their worth with unkind words that reflect your attitude of “sour grapes”? Do you show kindness and patience when a rude driver cuts you off in traffic or do you fill the air with words that aren’t fit for use at church?

Whatever we do …wherever we go…. whatever we say…we should reflect the love and compassion of our Savior so that when the world applies pressure to our often tenuous situation …what is squeezed out of our mouth is characterized by His love, His grace and His mercy.

But how can we be sure that what comes out of us in times of intense pressure will be the fruit of the Spirit…. the simple answer is this…. we must abide in Him! Jesus told his disciples and us, on the night before his crucifixion, that we could do NOTHING without Him…that all of our hopes to accomplish anything for Him would meet failure …unless WE ABIDE IN HIM.

So no matter how we try to survive the real and on-going pressures of this world, we will fail… and what comes out of us WILL NOT be pleasing to our Heavenly Father, unless we learn to abide in the person of Jesus Christ.

If you’re not sure how to pull this off, yet you desperately want to have the fruits of the Spirit flowing from you when the world applies its devastating pressure; follow along over the next few days as we examine (from the Scriptures) how to abide in Jesus.

Abiding in Him…Enjoying the pressure,

WPQ

Poem for the Day:

Father, it is through your Spirit

We are filled with your love and power.

Please make us more like Jesus

Each day and every hour.

Teach us how to walk in faith

So that when the world presses in;

We will faithfully follow you

And stay far away from sin.

Keep us safe in your loving hands

Let no harm come our way!

But if it does, may this we know....

Your love is sufficient for us today.

WPQ© March 2018

The 3 C's of Godly Conviction....

There's a old saying that goes, "If you are not sure what you STAND FOR, then there's a good chance you will FALL FOR ANYTHING!" That is a statement that would have definitely been true for one of the great characters in the Bible...the prophet Daniel, if he had not been in possession of the three "C's" of Godly conviction.

Daniel 1:8 reads, "Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine he drank. So he asked permission from the chief official not to defile himself."

You see, Daniel was a young man in possession of the 3 "C's" ...Courage, Character and Commitment. He stood his ground before the King of Babylon because he stood firm in the Word of God that had been taught to him all his life. He had been instructed on what he could and could not eat as a Jewish man and his conviction was solid...and so was his character.

He could have beat his chest and told his captors that he would not be defiled and that there was not anything they could do to him to make him change his mind; rather he asked permission of the chief official and gave him an alternative plan that allowed him to stand on his conviction to honor his God and at the same time, give God a chance to show His great power.

His courage could have been further tested, but God honored this young captive and set in motion the plan to have Daniel find favor with the officials and allow him to rise to great prominence at a later time in the Babylonian kingdom that he now called home.

Time and time again, when one looks at the life of Daniel, we see him display his courage through his character...He was ALWAYS seeking to do God's will and to obey God's laws, even though the expedient measure would have been to do what he was ordered to do and stay on the good side of his captors...but that was not the man we know as Daniel. Daniel was a man of great commitment as he spend the majority of his life as a captive in a far-away land; always seeking to know what God's will was for him and then having the courage of his convictions to stand for Jehovah God...and in that stand, GOD NEVER LET HIM DOWN!!!!

Which brings me to the question for you and me...do we possess the three 'C's" when it comes to taking a stand for our God in today's sinful and perverse society or are we willing to compromise our values and beliefs for the expediency of tolerance or "political correctness"?

Heaven forbid this to be true!!!! May we as believers in the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth stand firm in our faith, courageous in our willingness to call out evil for what it is and back those that are committed to 4stand up for truth and justice before our God and before the eyes of a judging world.

It takes Courage....Character...and Commitment to be one of God's elect...what do you stand for today?

Standing firm in the Faith...Committed to His Will,

WPQ

Poem for the Day:

We are called to take a stand

And shine God's brilliant light;

By casting aside the darkness and

The evil of the night.

We are called to live God's truth,

Not to wallow in worldly lies.

To live a pure and committed life

Rather than seek to please man's eyes.

We are called to stand our ground

When all others turn and run...

For we our soldiers committed to

Jesus Christ, God' Son.

So take your stand my Christian friends

With no fear of what may come!

For one day when the battles oe'r

We all are going HOME!

WPQ © March 2018