I am the vine; you are the branches; remain in me...and bear much fruit - John 15:5

I love growing things!  My grandparents grew beautiful roses and gardenias; my mother at 91 is the "gardner" at her assisted living center.  Even living in Texas, I cherish the blooms that sometimes appear!  One thing I have learned: when a branch is separated from its nourishment, you get nothing from it...no fruit, no flowers, no life.  It remains withered and useless.

It's the same for you and me.  Our verse for today are Jesus' words to his beloved disciples the night before he died on the cross.  He wanted those he loved - and knew would carry on his work - to know this one thing:  without remaining (abiding) in Him, they would have no power and no fruit in doing kingdom work.

The Christian life is not about doing more, it's about abiding more.  "Abide" is to stay closely connected...He used that word more than 10 times in the chapter...do you think He thought it was important?  Listen to what Bruce Wilkinson says in THE SECRETS OF THE VINE:

In abiding, you seek, long for, thirst for,

wait for, see, know, love, hear, and respond

to...a person.  More abiding means more of

God in your life, more of Him in your activities,

thoughts and desires.

Our Vacation Bible School was this past week.  I had the most wonderful group of 4th Graders (showing them off in picture).  Some made professions of faith - the most important decision they will ever make!  I have prayed for them to become sturdy fruit trees for the Lord.  They will not do that apart from the indwelling Spirit's power.

He began a good work in you (Phil 1:6)...are you abiding with Him?

For further study: Psalm 23:6, Psalm 42:1, Psalm 91:1, Matt. 1:23, 1 Cor. 3:16, 2 Cor. 6:16, Galatians 5:22-23,  Ephesians 2:22, Ephesians 3:17, Colossians 3:16.

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly

For we are made by God to do His work - Eph. 2:10

I'm running to the One who knows me

Who made every part of me in His hands

I'm holdin' to the One who holds me

'Cause I know, cause I am

I know who I am 

I am sure, I am Yours

Lyrics from"Who I am" by Blanca

It's hard to read about the creation of the world in Genesis without realizing the attention to detail and the purpose for everything created - including us!  Gen. 1:26 says "Then God said 'let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness..."  We are His work made for His purposes!  We are His very own masterpiece...what an incredible mystery it is and yet what an incredible gift to be made by Him for Him!

Sometimes I am not very brave...if something breaks or doesn't work, I think it's the end of the world. How very sad that I let my emotions rob me of the joy (fruit of His Spirit!) of being His.  We are worthwhile not because of the circumstances of our lives, or what we do or even who we are...we are worthwhile because He created us as His very own with His own purposes.  

Darlene Sala says in her book CREATED FOR A PURPOSE:

No matter what you are today - or what you were

in the past - you are not a mistake.  You are a

potential work of art in which God wants to reveal His power, glory,

love, and creativity.  God can take your suffering and

turn it into a blessing for yourself and others.  Don't hold

a grudge against God.  Let Him work with you as you are

and turn your life into the masterpiece He has planned

for it.

So the question is:  how are you responding to His creation of you today?  I saw a little girl in the checkout line yesterday just go to the front of the store and do a cartwheel!  I just loved her freedom and her joy...guess what: she wouldn't have done that if she had let her joy be robbed!  My sweet friend, Chuck Musfeldt, said "it would be ungrateful to not have joy on the journey".  By the way, he is now with the Lord doing cartwheels, I think!

I say let's do a few cartwheels today and be about His work and His purposes.  If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have the potential within to be something wonderful!  There is no power in heaven or earth that can stop you from being an effective and beautiful work of art!

For further study:  Psalm 33:11, Psalm 139:13-16, Proverbs 19:21, Isaiah 43:7, Isaiah 46:11, Acts 5:38-39, Romans 12:1-2, 1 Cor. 12:2, Philippians 1:4-6, Revelation 4:11.

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly

I will sing of the Lord's great love forever - Psalm 89:1

If you happen to have read past posts (and thank you if you do!), you know singing and gratitude are two of my favorite things!  Many of my posts have these as key ingredients...I just am a happier person when I do both of them...they are related in my mind...when I sing, I'm grateful; when I'm grateful, I sing!  They propel me to be a better person.

The book of Psalms is essentially a hymnbook of the ancient Israelites and for hundreds of years these songs have been used in worship to celebrate God's goodness to a people who are His.  Almost half of them are written by David (today's was not) and every range of emotion is covered.  It is a means of focusing on God.  Max Lucado wrote today in his devotion about worship being the act of magnifying God.  "As we drawer nearer, he seems larger...our perception changes...like a magnifying glass."  That's what, I believe, singing does...it draws us near to Him.  It's not that He gets larger - He never changes - but our view of Him does.  Are you singing today?

It pleased me so on Easter Sunday to see Keith and Kristyn Getty showcased on a network news program with a program "In Praise of Hymns".  They are a very gifted couple who recently wrote the fabulous hymn "In Christ Alone".  One of my absolute favorites.

Keith wrote an article that gave 5 reasons  "Why You Need to Sing Loudly in Church".  In a nutshell those 5 reasons are:

1.  We are commanded to sing. (Scriptures cite more than 250 places "to sing")
2.  Singing together completes our joy
3.  Singing is an expression of brotherhood and unites generations.
4.  We are what we sing.
5.  Singing bears testimony to our faith.

Hope you might find and read the whole article.

It saddens me to watch people in church not sing...it is a terrible loss to the participant and a terrible witness to someone (young or old) standing next them looking for someone with joy.  I find myself singing along with the choir many times because I can't help but sing.  You don't have to have a gifted voice (I do not!) to sing with joy.  If your heart has joy in it, your mouth will sing it! Our worship, with singing a very important part, is known to the Lord.  He knows what we worship and how we worship.

Are you singing today?

For further study:  Deuteronomy 32:3, 2 Sam. 22:50, Psalm 30:4, Psalm 59:16, Psalm 101:1, Acts 16:25, Ephesians 5:18-20, Colossians 3:16-17, Hebrews 13:15, James 5:13.

May you be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,
Holly

The LORD will fight for you;you need only be still" - Ex. 14:14

Don and I were blessed to be able to take a 30th Anniversary cruise recently and if you've ever been on a cruise ship, you know you're not always sure where the front is!  I loved the carpet in the hallways of our ship that showed fish swimming forward so you always knew which way that was!  (Of course my picture is upside down so it looks like they're swimming backwards, but indulge me here for a moment!)

Our verse for today is Moses speaking, after the Israelites had escaped bondage in Egypt, standing before the Red Sea, with the Egyptian army pursuing them from behind.  They were, if you will, "between a rock and a hard place"!  They were confronted with obstacles to progress and fear set in.  The stillness comand here is not a ceasing of activity, but a ceasing of fear.  They could not move forward if fear was ruling them...they would have to have a calm settle before they could choose to do the right thing.

The obstacles God allows are never insurmountable...we must simply act on our faith.  Picture a bridge between "fear" and "faith" and you can see how you must step forward with courage (away from fear) in order to get to the other side.

Listen to Don Raney in our Sunday School curriculum recently:

Faith does not remove obstacles.  Faith empowers

us to move forward in the assurance that God will enable us to move past the

obstacles.  But faith requires that we step out and follow even when we

cannot see the path or the way around the obstacles.

Moses had confidence in the God who gave him instructions on what to do...he had seen His presence at the burning bush; He was still directing, as well as moving the pillar of cloud guiding them to the rear as a means of propelling them forward!  When they did take that first step, a miracle happened: the waters parted, every one of them ran across, the waters closed up and the Egyptian army was doomed.  I just love it when one of God's best plans comes together!!

It was God's word that moved them forward (14:15) and it will be God's word that moves us forward. Are you reading it every day?  Are you allowing it to fill every part of you so that you recognize His voice when He tells you to move?  I am grateful for a God that when I am desperate He is not!  He knows the way that you take and He will guide you forward.

For further study:  Deu. 1:28-31, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 46:10, Psalm 107:20, Isaiah 30:20-21, Zechariah 2:13, John 16:13, Philippians 3:13-14, Hebrews 13:6, 2 John 6

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly

God has called us to live in PEACE - 1 Cor. 7:15

30 years ago this month, Don and I married in Coral Gables, Florida.  We were in our 30s and not naive or unrealistic about what we were bringing to the union.  I can only speak for myself to say that I had a very "independent" streak that needed to be adjusted to live with my man!  God has been the strength of our marriage - He has shaped and molded and caused us to love and to submit to each other.  How grateful we are that His "grace was sufficient" for even us!  We do not pretend to be perfect parents, but we knew how very important a good and peaceful marriage was to our boys.  And, guess what, those boys are now gone with wives of their own and it is just my man and me!  Too often we spend more time giving attention to our children and then when they move on, guess what you have left in your home?

God's word has taught us every day of those 30 years.  Had we not yielded to it more than we fought it, I'm not sure where we would be today.  Paul, in our verse for today, spoke to a believing wife married to an unbelieving spouse, but the truth still applies:  "God has called us to live in PEACE".

There are many enemies to peaceful homes today.  A few are:  discontentment, selfishness, busyness,  too much ambition, stress, conflict  temptation...and I believe Satan is the author of them all.  He is doing his best to destroy the home today and I believe the home is the most critical influence in our world today...certainly in the lives of our children and many of our neighborhoods.  The opposite of peace is showing up in too many places.

Listen to Steve Stroope and Kurt Bruner in IT STARTS AT HOME:

The foundation of every stable home is a thriving marriage.  Is it

any surprise that our Enemy's chief strategy for undermining

lifelong faith is to undermine the sacred bond of marriage.

Happy homes echo the intimate joys of heaven.  Broken, 

troubled families, by contrast, imitate the loneliness,

isolation and anger of hell.

Jesus said in John 16:33: "...in me you may have peace".  Galatians 5:22 says: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...".  Ephesians 2:14 says about Jesus Christ: "...he himself is our peace."  Apart from making the Lord the center of our home, we cannot have a peaceful home.  Yielding all that we are to Him is the beginning of bringing peace to our homes.  What does your home - or mine - feel like today?

For further study: Gen. 1:27, Prov. 17:1, Isaiah 26:3, Matthew 5:9, Romans 12:18, Ephesians 4:29, Col. 3:15, Phil. 4:11-12, Hebrews 12:14, 1 Peter 3:1-4.

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly

BLESSED - Matt. 5:3-12

The word "blessed" has become a bit of an issue lately - the social media has given it more of a false-humility/self-promotion kind of meaning...people using #blessed to draw attention to their own accomplishments.  It grieves me to have such a treasured word or state of being be given such a tainted image.

Blessed is a word used many times in the Bible.  We see it used most often in Matt. 5:3-12 in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus spoke the message of the Beatitudes to his disciples...describing the kind of people they should be (the "be attitudes"):

Blessed are...
--the poor in spirit
--those who mourn
--the meek
--those who hunger and thirst after righteousness
--the merciful
--the pure in heart
--the peacemakers
--those who are persecuted

The Greek word for "blessed" is makarios, 'the happy state of those who find their purpose and fulfillment in God".  John Stott (one of my very favorites!) says

Happiness is a subjective state, whereas Jesus was making

an objective judgment about these people.  He is declaring

not what they may feel like...but what God thinks of them

and what on that account they are:  they are "blessed".

That surely takes away any idea of this being some worldly definition of great luck or accomplishment.  The very notion that He thinks of me as blessed challenges me to be much more of the descriptions above.  It makes me want to think less of me and more of Him; it makes me sad when I'm not sensitive to the needs of the world; it makes me want to be more holy, to be more merciful, to be a women of greater integrity; it makes me want to be a peacemaker in my home and neighborhood and to pray for those who are dying for the cause of Christ.

One more thought from Dr. Stott:

The Christian cannot be expected to be thanked for 

doing any of these things...but we can have

the approval of God and find self-fulfillment in that happy

state.

I consider myself "blessed" beyond all I could ever have imagined for my life.  Absolutely none of that blessing has anything to do with my accomplishments.  It has to do with what God's great love for the world and what Christ did on the cross for me...and for you.  Hoping you are feeling blessed today.

For further study:  Gen. 1:22, Numbers 6:24, Deu. 28:1-14, Psalm 1:1-2,  Psalm 32:1, Psalm 128:1,

Proverbs 21:18, Ezekiel 34:16, John 12:13,  Acts 20:35, James 1:12

Be blessed (!) in your understanding of God's word.

Love,

Holly

The joy of the Lord is your strength - Neh. 8:10

A group of us recently went to the Fresh Grounded Faith conference with Jennifer Rothschild and Ann Voskamp.  Wish I could sit over a thousand cups of coffee with each of you to share the blessings of what these two precious women shared with us.  Jennifer, legally blind for many years, shared delightful words about how we are not defined about our feelings...we are defined by who we are in Christ.  Some day maybe I'll tell you more.  However, today I want to share with you what Ann said about joy. Much of this is taken from her book ONE THOUSAND GIFTS.

One of Voskamp's key themes comes from the word eucharisteo, the giving of thanks.  Charis means grace, chara means joy - very much related to each other and wrapped up together.   She said (in talking about Jesus' giving of thanks in all his hard days): "as long as thanks to God is possible, then joy in God is always possible".  Are you looking for joy today?  Where are you looking?  Are you allowing circumstances or relationships to rob your joy?   Ann says about our verse for today...

If you let someone steal your joy, they steal

your strength.  If you don't fight for joy, it's

your children, your husband...all lose because

of it.

She said we are going to have to pursue it, run afte it, chase it...joy will not come easily but because it is the gift of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), it is very much available to us.

Nehemiah knew this principle. Ezra had just read from the Book of the Law and the people knew they had not obeyed it...they were mourning and weeping over their sins.  Nehemiah instructed them not to mourn but to celebrate.  Are you celebrating your salvation today?  Your forgiveness?  His great love for you?  Or are you letting your own past rob you of joy?  Or the circumstances of your life?  The people who have failed you?

If, in Jesus' suffering, He gave thanks, I believe there is nothing in all the world that can rob me of my joy...and I simply will not let it.  He died that His joy might be in me and might be complete (John 15:11).

Philippians 4:4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always".  1 Thes. 5:16-18 says: "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances..."  "The joy of the Lord is our strength".  Are you feeling pretty strong today?  If not, run after it.

For further study:  1 Chron. 16:27, Esther 9:20-22, Psalm 21:6, Psalm 51:12, Psalm 66:1, Proverbs 12:20, John 15:11, Romans 12:12, Gal. 5:22-23, Philippians 4:4-7

Be blessed in your understanding of God's word.

Love, 

Holly