God Plans on Fruit at our Wedding

We love flowers, but God wants fruit. After all, a dying world needs fruit. Flowers are necessary, but only the fruit gives LIFE. The flower of the vine is meant to last only a short time before it gives way to the fruit. Yet too often we praise the beauty of the flower, and treat the fruit as incidental. Jesus said that “every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:2). God desires fruit which is a result of the branches being united with the Vine.

Unless the flower fades away, there will be no fruit. Fruit brings life. It is for the purpose of the fruit that a vine is planted. The flower is necessary, but incidental. God is the vine dresser, His Son is the vine. We are the branches. Too often we want to emphasize our flowers, our beauty. Most training of Pastors and workers is aimed at the “Flower”, the program, the organization, the promotion, the “soul of natural man”. The aim is to make us independent, confident, quick-witted, slick, organized, confident, self-assured, – beautiful to the eye of the beholder (visitors, congregation).

God is actively engaged as the Vinedresser of the bride of His Son. He has promised His Son a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph 5:27). As we will be a spiritual bride clothed in NEW Heavenly bodies, these spots and wrinkles are on our soul. Our Eternal Vinedresser must check and deal with these unfortunate growths and wrinkles. He is constantly cutting them off, performing “plastic surgery” on our soul and spirit-that which we will bring to the wedding.

God is actively engaging us on two fronts. First to bring us to the place where we are living by the life of His Son-the exchanged life, the abiding life, planted within us by the New Birth. Second, He is doing a direct work in our hearts to weaken the fund of our natural resources which led to Adam’s sin in the first place. For the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14)

Everyday true Christians are learning these two lessons-a rising up of the Life of Christ as our life, and a checking and handing over to death of that natural, soulish life.

In the process, the world may view us as weak, ignorant men who confess “I do not know – but He knows, and that is enough”. After all, it is all about His Fruit, not our flower. May God deliver us from today’s “Arrogance of the Soul!”

From the MudPreacher:Flowers Smell Great, are Less Filling, but Fruit Gives Life!

When Reckoning Doesn’t Work

“knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin… Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:6,11)

What do you do when the knowing and the reckoning don’t produce results? You can know and know and reckon and reckon until you are brain dead. But sin is still very much alive. On the ledger books it says that I should be dead to sin, but in the practical book of life experience, I know the reverse is true. Why even Brother Paul struggled with sin!

But, and Praise God there is always His but!; (isn’t it interesting that when Moses asked to see God’s Glory, he only allowed him to see His backside? no dishonor meant, but keep that in mind next time you wonder if God has any power in your life. He does, in fact He is always ahead of you so look ahead and you will see Him in front of the problem). BUT Paul was lead to exclaim “I THANK GOD!” Paul’s eyes were open in the midst of his despair to an amazing TRUTH of God’s Way.

Our Christian walk and life must be ENTIRELY from and by God! We can not live the righteous Christian life by our own effort. The faith life is lived by resting in Divine Revelation and relying on Divine Empowering. Flesh and blood does not reveal to our hearts that Jesus is OUR Christ. Neither does our own knowing and reckoning reveal the Power of the Life of Christ within us. It doesn’t make sense to our feeble brains. It doesn’t make sense to all that our physical senses tell us. We are too controlling, too self-reliant.

Only God can open up our hearts and reveal the Power of our ONENESS with Jesus Christ. Once He does, you will be ASTOUNDED at His Power over Sin in your life. You will be amazed at the Powerlessness of sin in your life. You will desire this NEW LIFE in Christ so much that you will never be content with the self-life again. The life that you live will be by Him and through Him. You will wonder why others do not see how great the Christ Life is.

Prayer: Father, open my heart to the Power of Christ living in me. Cause me not to lean on my own understanding, but to rely entirely and utterly on Christ alone.

The Uplifting Power of Christ is Ours

God gave Christ to be head over all things, to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all. (Eph 1:22)

Is Jesus Christ our ‘ideal’, to be arrived at only after much suffering, self-sacrifice, striving and then finally dying?

Perhaps to one who sees through fleshly eyes. But from God’s perspective, Christ is His LIVING gift to us. He is not only for LIFE in the future tense, but for LIFE in the present tense. 

Scripture teaches that if we die to ourselves, we live to Jesus Christ. The life of a disciple is the way of the Cross, the way of death to what we want. When we place our lives in our Savior’s hands, through the New Birth we are raised up to sit together in the heavenlies with King Jesus! (Eph 2:6). We are sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise, securing our future Bodily Redemption (Eph 1:13,14).

The reality is that just as Christ reigns at the right hand of His Father, so do we reign with Him!

Do we doubt this? There is a 21 “LCD computer monitor on my desk. I do not look at my desk and say over and over “there must be a monitor here, there must be a monitor here!” and by some magical encantation the monitor appears. No, it was there all the time. I simply open my eyes and see it.

Faith is no make-believe, no magical encantation. Faith allows us to take hold of the unseen FACTS of what God has done. God has placed us IN CHRIST through the power of the New Birth. THAT IS FACT. It is an accomplished work. When we dare to venture our faith upon those facts, the Holy Spirit is present to prove them true. Whenever you feel your life is overwhelmed by sorrow or struggles, whenever you feel your faith struggling, look to the Christ who fills all in all, and the Holy Spirit will fill you with His sustaining and uplifting power!

Prayer: Father, open my heart to see that I am in your Son, and that together we reign over any problems in my life. Holy Spirit, make me to know the reality of Christ’s uplifting power!