Never Give Up!

How Does Your Garden Grow? Part 6
Our house faces the south. My husband tells people we live on the south loop of Tipton (it's a joke). For those of you who may not know, Tipton is a town of less than 1,000 and has only one light. Not a stop light - just a flashing warning light at a 4-way stop. Since we are the last south street in Tipton, across the street is out of city limits and it is a field. So, the front of the house gets straight south wind and hot, hot wind in the spring and summer. But despite that, every spring I get excited! I like to plant flowers. I look for pretty colors and spend time getting it all ready. Last year my parents gave me money for my birthday and I bought flowers. I got a gift card from my in-laws and I bought a wreath with flowers on it for the front (south-facing) porch. I also bought one of those small garden flags - you know, the pretty little ones?

A week after I got the front area all fixed and looking nice, we had a wind storm. It blew and blew and blew and blew and blew (do you get the point??!). It blew all day and all night long. The next day, I went out to look at my flowers, my wreath and my flag. Some of the flowers were gone, containers were dumped, the wreath was missing several things it had had, and my little flag was no where to be found.

I asked myself, “Why do you do this every year?” “Why do you try planting flowers knowing that south wind is going to blow hard most of the time?” Why? Because flowers are pretty. Planting and watching them grow is neat. It’s something the kids enjoy, and my husband and I enjoy. They remind us of God’s creation of beauty.

The next day, guess what I did? I went out and bought more plants!! I know. It sound ridiculous!

In our lives, the winds are going to blow, the storms are going to come, and even the weeds will pop up their ugly heads more often than we want them to. In the garden of our spiritual life, just like in our flower or vegetable garden, we shouldn’t give up. If we give up working in our flower or vegetable garden - give up watering, give up caring for it - that garden will die. If we give up working on our spiritual garden, we will not be doing God’s Will, but our spiritual garden will also wither and die..

Galatians 6:9 says, Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Our spiritual gardens, just like real gardens, need care to help them grow. By Growing with God (Part 1), Abiding in Jesus (Part 2), Reading His Word (Part 3), Deepening our Discipleship (Part 4), Expecting Weeds (Part 5) and striving to get rid of them, and by Never Giving Up, our spiritual gardens will grow to maturity.

After a seed is planted and grows and grows and reaches a certain stage of maturity, the flowering plant will begin to bloom. Well, guess what? GOD WANTS YOU TO BLOOM, TOO!

Maybe you don’t feel like blooming. Maybe you want to keep growing, you’re content with the way thing are now and you don’t want to change anything. But God says, “BLOOM”! Bloom and show your beautiful flower! Maybe you don’t want to bloom where you are. Maybe you want to bloom somewhere else. You want to be transplanted. But, God says, “BLOOM!” Show your beautiful flower! Maybe you feel too old, too young, too tired, or too busy. Maybe you want others to bloom and you don’t care to. But, God says “BLOOM!” Show your beautiful flower!

GOD SAYS "BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED!!"

To bloom is to fulfill your purpose in life. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that God had specific works in mind for each of us (uniquely each of us!)before we were even born! What an awesome thought! "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Doing the job that God has give you to do the best of your ability. Blooming is doing whatever you can for God where you are - where you live - right here and right now. We all want to live some day in Heaven with God.

I pray these lessons will help you as you grow your spiritual garden. Remember to BLOOM!

Expect Weeds!!

How Does Your Garden Grow? Part 5
Flowers take a lot of work to grow, but weeds don’t take any work to grow, do they? They take work to make them NOT grow! The weeds in our spiritual garden are the same way. Christians striving to live by the example of Christ are going to grow good fruit. We are striving to allow the Holy Spirit to develop fruits in our life as Galatians 5:22-23 explains: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control."

Sins in the Christian’s life are just like weeds. Left there to grow and multiply, these sins will begin to take over our lives. They will begin to choke out the good fruit growing in our lives. But, God’s Holy Spirit will help us get control over our weeds, if we will live by the Spirit.

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful natures. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law." Galatians 5:16

We know that we were given the gift of the Holy Spirit at baptism because we are told that in Acts 2:38-39: "Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call."

And I don’t know about you, but it helps me to know that God’s Spirit is in me and ready to help me grow the kind of fruit that God wants me to. I can not do it on my own. God is ready, willing, and able to help us rid our spiritual gardens of those pesky weeds!

Deepen Discipleship

PART 4 - HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
Flowers pollinate. That’s how they multiply and grow. But how does pollination work? Well, it all begins in the flower. Flowering plants have several different parts that are important in pollination. If the flowers have those parts then they can successfully help make other flowers. Only 10% of flowering plants are able to pollinate without animals or bugs or assistance from people. Those 10% of plants, pollinate by wind or water. God, as our awesome creator, made flowers to be this way. God, as our creator, also made us this way.

Remember when Jesus called the apostles? What did he say to them? “Come and follow me” it tells us in the first part of Matthew 4:19. As a child of God we are also disciples. By definition, a disciple is a follower, one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another. The end of Matthew 4:19 says “and I will make you fishers of men.“ A Christian disciple is a person who accepts and assists in the spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ. Just like the pollen of a flower is transferred to another flower, God’s Word is taken from us to someone else.

Jesus wants us to be fishers of men - just like he wanted those first disciples to be. We want to be children of God, we want to abide in Jesus, we will even read His Word, but we sometimes we tend say, “God, I can’t go….I can’t tell... I can‘t fish!!”

ONE TRUTH TO REMEMBER: THE GREAT COMMISSION IS FOR ME!!

That is a command that Jesus gave to us through God’s inspired Word. We will never do God’s Will if we are not fulfilling our purpose as His disciples. Jesus wants us to be His true disciples and follow him daily. Luke 9:23 "The he said to them all: If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

He doesn’t say deny yourself and follow me when you want to. He doesn’t say "deny yourself and follow me when it is convenient to". He doesn’t say "deny yourself and follow me when you get everything else done". Jesus wants us today, tomorrow and every day of our lives.

My husband attended a workshop last year where one of the speakers made this statement: "Many people are church "goers", not "Christ’s disciples"." Many people in the church today believe that all there is to being a child of God is regularly attending every worship service....thinking that is all there is to being faithful to the Lord. While attendance is very important in our service to God, there are so many more things that are just as important as we strive to abide in Jesus.

Many people, after they retire, decide to quit teaching classes, quit helping out in various ways with church activities, they quit being involved with the church. But what does the Bible say? When does the Bible says we should retire? WHEN WE DIE!! We can still be Christ’s faithful disciple up until the very end of our lives. Our service may change, who we serve may change, but we will still be serving. We will still be Christ's disciple.

Abide in Jesus

PART 2 - HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
The second way to grow our spiritual gardens is to "ABIDE IN JESUS". The Bible has many examples of gardens and flowers and also talks about the problems of weeds and stones. Jesus used gardening-type talk several times in parables when he spoke. Let’s look at one of those examples when Jesus is speaking to the disciples.

John 15:1-5. "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. "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

These verses tell us that we are the branches and that we should bear fruit, but we also must realize that it is only because of God being the gardener and Jesus being the vine that we can bear fruit. We can do things and be successful in the world’s eyes, but we will only truly grow if we are connected to Jesus and grow the way God wants us to.

It would be so easy if flowers, fruits and vegetables just grew, never needed tending to, and took care of themselves, but they don't. It is the same in our lives. Good fruit will not just grow in our lives, either. Throughout the Bible, fruit is referred to as what is within us. Christians should have good fruit within us because we are children of God.

Jesus is our example. He came to this earth to show us and tell us the way to live. He came to show us and tell us what type of fruit to bear. We, as His disciples, are to walk in the same manner as He walked, which means to live as He lived.

I John 2:6 Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.

How, then, did Jesus live? Jesus did not live to please Himself.

John 8:29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him”.

Instead, He lived to glorify God. Jesus’ purpose was to do God’s Will on earth as it is being done in heaven and to accomplish that which He was prophesied to accomplish by the prophets long, long ago. So to abide in Jesus means to live our lives denying ourselves, serving others, bearing fruit, and striving always to do God’s Will. We have to be careful, though. We can get so caught up in doing for Him, that we forget to just BE with Him. We have to be careful not to be too busy to "Abide in Jesus".

How do you strive to "Abide in Jesus"?

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Many of you may have gardens or grow flowers and plants and enjoy doing this as a hobby or maybe even for food. Some of you were raised in a family who farmed or maybe you are involved in farming now. We all know that growing food, plants, & flowers takes a lot of time. It takes work.

It would be so easy if flowers, fruits and vegetables just grew, never needed tending to, and took care of themselves, but they just don’t. Weeds just grow - they don’t need any work to grow, but they take time and effort to keep them from growing. It is the same in our lives. Good fruit will not just grow in our lives, either. And sin, like weeds, will come about in our lives if we don’t work to rid our lives of those sins. Throughout the Bible, fruit is referred to as what should be evident in the lives of Christians. The fruit is visible evidence as to what is growing within us. We should have good fruit within us because we are children of God.

This week's daily blog posts will look at our lives as a spiritual GARDEN and find out what it takes to make them grow. I like acrostics because it makes points that are easier to remember. I hope that you do, too!

G - GROW WITH GOD.
In our world we are bombarded with all kinds of things that we can learn and so many different ways to gain knowledge. We can buy CD’s, videos, and attend seminars and read books. We can go to college for years and years and obtain any type of degree we can imagine, but while that knowledge is good and may bring us success in life (worldly wealth and financial gain) it can not become what is most important in our lives. I want to grow with God - grow how God wants me to grow - that’s what is truly important in life. I hope you want to grow with God, too.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. I Corinthians 3:7

To "Grow with God", we must get close to God. If you want to get to know someone - another human being, you have to grow closer to them, don’t you? It’s impossible to get close to someone without spending time with them. Think about your spouse or friend. How did you become close? By getting to know one another. You talk to each other. You hang out with each other. You share with each other. You do things together.

When we do the same with God, it’s called prayer. The more we pray to God, the closer we will become to Him. The neat thing about prayer, though, is that God can’t wait to hear from us! Do you realize the fact that God cares about every single thing in your life? Do you think that God only cares about the big things? No! We must believe that God cares just as much about the famine in 3rd world countries as he does about the pain we may be having in your big toe. So talk to Him...about EVERYTHING!

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

"Getting with God" not only involves prayer, but also worshipping - worshipping Him alone in a quiet devotional time, but also with your congregation during worship services. Worship is not confined to a building or to a certain time or day. Coming together as a congregation on Sundays (and many on Wednesdays)is the congregation’s way of worshipping and obeying the commands of God, but we can and should worship God alone and on every other day, as well.

So, first of all, in our spiritual gardens, we must grow with God. Tomorrow we'll look at "A".

Have a blessed week!