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I heart Brad . And please do not misunderstand me…it takes NOTHING away from the deep, true love that I have for my Handsome honey . He is my one and ONLY! But I love hearing Brad preach. So….in effect, it isn’t Brad at ALL, but the power of the Holy Spirit, and that is what I truly, honestly love. He just paints a picture of the Heavenly Father in SUCH A WAY, that people are drawn to Christ because of it. He has a God-given gift for speaking….browse his website, it’s inspiring! You can even hear his messages!
My Pastor is simply wonderful, but I love having that extra shot when Brad preaches.
He painted this visual picture, that as a mother, I understood, and I immediately thought of my own husband as a Dad. Brad said to picture Christ as that Father, when we become new Christians, He holds us close, cradled in His arms, safe and protected, as one would hold a brand new baby. As we mature, like a toddler, He shifts us to the hip where we are eye to eye with Him, sharing in conversations and seeing what He sees. Our faith matures even more, and we are shifted to His back, legs and arms wrapped tight around Him, and He holds onto us behind our knees. Our warning is: “I’ll pave the way, you bring up the rear.” And away you fly! Doing things you never imagined, but only with our Heavenly Father plowing the way ahead of us…we are just along for the ride….can you SEE that? Can you picture that?? Finally, as we continue to trust, continue to stay intuned with God, we are shifted to His shoulders. We see what He sees. We think how He thinks. We have become supernatural thinkers, and He exalts us!
THAT’s what I want….I don’t want to just sit on His hip….I want to FLY!
He took us through John 15, which I’ve read and studied before and I LOVE it! And I was JUST talking about bearing goof fruit from Matthew 12!
John 15
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
If Christ is our CENTER, if we KNOW Him, you will bear fruit. We do not revolve around ANYTHING else: not cute, adorable clothes from Gymboree, not work/school, not friends, not CHURCH, NOTHING else. We stay CONNECTED to Christ Almighty, He is our center, we will never WANT to depart from Him. And we will bear good fruit. Evidence of our faith in Him.
And I want to ALWAYS bear fruit…GOOD fruit. The next paragraph tells us why…
John 15:6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
Not a happy existence…this would be the epitome of what we want to AVOID. Burning=bad
And he ended Sunday morning going through Isaiah 11. Really incredible….I have notes all over the place…I seriously need a notebook to keep notes in instead of my system of chaos I have going on right now. LOL Cuz it’s totally not working for me. 😉
If we are saved, our NATURAL selves should not look at the NATURAL and deny what WE know the TRUTH is! We don’t look at our circumstances, whatever situation we are in, and fail to look at the TRUTH that is: Our God came to RESCUE us! He gave us LIFE-GIVING, LIFE-CHANGING words of love, and wisdom, and mercy, and we need to look at whatever we are going through ONLY through those TRUTHS, and not whatever the world tells us to see. We need to fine tune our senses to only see and hear THOSE words of Life and Truth and nothing else.
Holy Spirit, I surrender my ears to hear ONLY Your words….
My prayer is that I will always be fruitful. When I’m no longer fruitful, just take me home. I desire to stay so closely connected with my Father, that I see only what He sees. I think as He thinks.
Oh yes, just know that I am not perfect. Don’t look for my trip-ups and wait for my failings, because they are gonna happen. I’m aware of that. It was ME who left this incredible weekend, only to be confronted HEAD ON with the bills that can’t be paid yet, and I just wanted to sit in the parking lot of the gas station and sob. Oh yes, that was me. I looked with my natural eyes at the bills I have, and the money that was spent on a weekend FULL of GOD and opportunities to do GOOD things, and I lost all hint of my Great Rescuer. I looked at my empty gas tank, my phone bills, and I lost sight of what it was about.
So I know I will fail. But my goal is to make those failings less and less. The more I concentrate on growing that faith, the closer I STAY connected, the fewer failings I will have.
I am saved by GRACE. And I want to bear GOOD fruit. And that has been my prayer this week: Plow ahead Lord, I’ll take up the rear. Send me. Grow me. And please don’t let it hurt too bad…
And I was able to see BEAUTIFUL and WONDERFUL and POWERFUL things…
….with the possibility of seeing them again in the future….wouldn’t it be nice to do THIS for a living? 😀
