John 15:16-17 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
Farmers and gardeners plant with great expectations. An abundant harvest is their vision as they sow the seeds for crops and vegetables, fruit, or grains. But everyone who plants, even the most amateur gardener, soon discovers there are competitors for the soil's nutrients...called WEEDS. Weeds are ambitious, resilient, and relentless, and they will affect the harvest if not removed. Every farmer and gardener needs a strategy to deal with weeds.
We also want to be fruitful as believers, and so we need to "weed" our own gardens. How would you identify the various "weeds" in your own plot of ground? What is sapping the nutrients which ought to be feeding your cash crop?
In this present spiritual climate, weeds have ample opportunity. The world is in such turmoil, the temptations so abundant, we need tremendous vigilance to pull up and clean out the useless thoughts, speculations, preoccupations, obsessions, and fears, which are multiplying like weeds! These will choke and starve the fruit of the Spirit.
Cast out fear. Pull it up at the roots. Let love grow abundant and free. Excavate your doubts and wash them away with the water of the Word.
Friend, seek the Lord hard now in brutally honest confession asking Him to reveal and pull up your weeds at the roots. Your crop is far too precious and valuable to squander or be stunted by worthless weeds. Your Father intended you for an abundant harvest, thirty, sixty, even one hundredfold. Don't let the weeds steal any of it!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]We live in a day and age that everywhere we turn, there’s a “self-help” theory. Books, videos and dvds, websites, world-renown speakers, you name it — all dedicated to helping us “feel good about ourselves”. Yet somehow, still many of us struggle with self-consciousness, even as Christians!
Early in the last century, sculptor Gutzon Borglum gazed at the cliffs of South Dakota’s Black Hills. As any great artist would, He saw what no one else could the sculpted faces of US presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. After 14 years, he finally completed his project — Mount Rushmore.
Counselors, encouragers, and people who offer care to others often encounter those whose past failures threaten to define them and hinder their development, healing, and sanctification. Our enemy capitalizes on our failures and regrets, pressing home the current influence of what we could have, would have, or should have done, if only we were wiser, more courageous, honest, or godly.
A careful reading through the life of the Apostle Paul will yield insight concerning those who surrounded him. In this brief devotion, I want to focus on two of Paul’s friends — Luke and Demas.
Throughout the world, millions of dollars are spent on priceless works of art. I’m always amazed at how much people will pay for one painting — some are considered virtually priceless. But what makes a masterpiece? It’s not a what — it’s a “who” — a master makes a masterpiece!
I heard a story about a man who was imprisoned during Napoleons reign. While sulking in his dungeon one day, he etched on the wall the words “Nobody Cares”.
We are on the brink of something huge this year— it’s REVOLUTIONARY. If you’re following Worthy News, you’ll see we posted an interesting article yesterday about the rise of Artificial Intelligence and the ability to produce the Bible in untranslated languages more quickly because of it. I guess God can use anything to further His Kingdom!