What fruit?
I read this today: Luke 3 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (ESV) As I was reading this parable a couple of things occurred to me. The first is that the tree isn’t expected to bear fruit without the work of the vinedresser. The second is that there seems to be a limit to how long the master...
A Hope-full Future
I heard last night on the news that 2012 brings with it a lot of hope, if only because it isn’t 2011. It was a reminder of what the future always seems to represent – hope. Hope for what exactly though? Hope for change? Most people don’t like change. Hope for something better? We’d do well to be careful in what we wish for. No, the kind of new hope I’m talking about comes from an understanding of who you are as a born again warrior of God. My wife and I have been having some very serious discussions about some die-hard beliefs we have held to for a long time without any real understanding about why we feel that way. For some of those long-held beliefs, we have discarded them simply because they were not Biblical and...
Emergency!!
I had just arrived home from a business trip and pulled up into the driveway. My wife was waiting in the carport outside, when just as I opened my car door my oldest daughter came running . . . with fear on her face. “Mom! Come quick!” My wife went inside and I just let her go handle it as I grabbed my stuff from the car and headed into the house. I could hear some whimpering from the back of the house, and so I followed the sounds. In the bathroom my wife was pressing a wet wash cloth on the mouth of my youngest daughter while the oldest just stood there looking pale and worried. Whatever had happened, blood was definitely involved, and the oldest was obviously feeling guilty and responsible. Shaking off the exhaustion from hours of...
F4 The FEARLESS Christian Life
This is the fourth article in a four-part series . . . If you have been paying attention, and if you have read the previous three articles, you have been wondering what all this was building up to, and where it was all going. The only problem with the Fearless Christian life is that I believe so many Christian men wrongly believe they are there. Go back to the Floundering Christian life for a moment, and realize that when you ask God to use you, and God begins to take you into the deeper waters, there is panic. There is unease. There is a complete loss of control. When God intervenes, and we are taken back to the safety of the Favored Christian life, there is a tendency to pat ourselves on the back for having made the effort – never to try again. ...
Psalm 95: 1-7
Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. 3 For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
The Fruit of My Spirit is Sour
When I look at the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, I shudder a little. Because I don’t have them. It was easier for me to look at Galatians 5 and feel good about myself before I began to see myself through the eyes of my four-year-old daughter. Before, I believe that I thought I had most of the fruit well in hand. I would look at the list and say to myself, “Well, I think most people would say I am kind and loving, gentle, faithful, even joyful.” But my blind spot was spelled out in the first part of that thought: “I think most people would say …” That is how I view my character: through what other people think of me. So it’s instructive now to be subject to the all-day, every-day gaze of a child who...