Fruitful

Continuing on our series of “2009 being the most focused, fruitful and fulfilling year we’ve ever had”, Pastor Art Evans talked about being fruitful.

·         John 15—without Him, we can do nothing.

o   Ask yourself, “How much of my life do I live without Jesus in it?”

·         Luke 13:6—when we don’t bear fruit, we are cut down

o   In the parable, thank God for the vinedresser (Jesus) who says, “Just one more year”!

o   What did the vinedresser do?

§  Dug up the ground around it—what junk in your life do you need to have Jesus “dig up”?

§  Fertilized it—live in faith through “crappy” circumstances

·         To be fruitful, you have to be faith-filled.

·         Root out the bad fruitàliving for pleasure, living for personal gain, living for the flesh

·         Plant a new seed in your lifeàthe Word

·         Psalm 1:1-3: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers.

o   What would it be like to know that what you do every day will be lasting, it won’t wither and that everything you do prospers?

o   How do become that fruitful? “delight in the law of the Lord AND meditate on it day and night”. 

Faith

Pastor Art Evans on faith:

• ·         Hebrews 11:1—What is faith? Having a conviction that what you hope for will happen and what has not been revealed through our senses is a reality.
  
• ·         We whine and say, “Look at my problems!” and God responds, “Look at My promises!”
  
• ·         God says, “Your limitations are not a problem for me. But your doubt is.”
  
• ·         Build up a reservoir of faithàwhen problems come, you’re ready.
  
• ·         “I don’t need to read the Bible today because I’m feeling holy” No, but someone else might need a word and you need to be filled to overflowing.
  
• ·         Jesus walking on water: “That’s just how I roll”.
  
• ·         Focus on God while the “mountains” are there. Matthew 14àthe winds and the waves were still there, but faith superseded the natural.
  
• ·         Hebrews 12:2 (Amplified): “Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher, [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
  

Focus

The church I attend, San Diego Christian Worship Center, is going through an exciting season. Pastor Art Evans has been preaching on the church’s vision for 2009 which is: “2009 will be the most focused, fruitful and fulfilling year we’ve ever had.”

His first message on being focused was incredible. Here are some highlights:

·         On the subject of focus in the purpose of our church: “Think of a target. The bull’s eye is the focal point, but you need the rings to gain your focus and know what’s most important. You don’t ignore the rings, but they are not your target.”

·         Ephesians 1:17—“wisdom and revelation” We need both, not one or the other.

·         Ephesians 1:18

1.       Hope of your callingàPurpose

2.       Riches of His gloryàProvision

3.       Greatness of His poweràPower

4.       Purpose + Provision + Power = Partnership

·         Matthew 16

·         Verse 16: Who is Jesus?

·         Verse 17: You have to see Jesus yourself

·         Verse 18: Peter means “pebble”. Jesus is saying you’re a part of the Rock(Jesus) and when you  are part of My plan even the gates of Hell won’t conquer you.

·         Nehemiah 6:3—Nehemiah is building the walls and two leaders of the surrounding area were trying to “harm” Nehemiah. “Harm” here means “distract” or “distort”.

·         Nehemiah’s response: “NO, I will  NOT come down” Don’t get distracted. Don’t let your purpose be distorted. 

Speechless

For an English teacher to run out of words is a fairly serious thing. I have literally run out of “excitement” words at this point. “Hooray” seems too cheap. “Yay” is more like “Yay, I found my socks” and “Huzzah!” is much too Pirates of the Caribbean.

Nevertheless I cannot tell you how excited I am that two of the dearest bloggers and sisters in Christ you have ever met received VERY EXCITING NEWS THIS WEEK!

Both the Gumms and the Slonigers are leaving next week to bring home their kids from Ethiopia!

Please pray for their safety, their health, and their kids (both here and in Ethiopia) as they travel.

You can meet the two new Gumms here and the newest Sloniger here. 

Acholi Beads

There are a few things in life that I am truly passionate about, that I will talk your ear off about. One of them is Acholi Beads.
If you do not know the story of Acholi Beads, please take the time to read about this amazing initiative. James Pearson is a family friend and his heart for the people of Uganda is enormous. It touches everyone he meets, I being one of those people.

If you're looking for a Christmas gift that will make a tangible difference in someone's life, go check out the handiwork of some lovely women who are escaping poverty, lack and hopelessness because you are wearing their beads and sharing their story.

The School of Prayer

So I got behind in blogging and now you're just getting a whole slew (isn't "slew" a great word!) of blogs that have been sitting in my edit post pile for a while. 

Pastor Art on Wednesday night does what he calls The School of Prayer. It's a time of teaching devoted solely to prayer. Now some people might say, "Well, it's just prayer. I mean no one has to teach me what to do. I just talk to God." That's what I thought too. Until Wednesday night. Here are some quotes that blew me away:

-James 1: 5-8 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

-Maybe the reason your prayers never get answered is because you are a "double-minded man". 

-Stop asking God without believing He can do it! You must ask with faith! Many of us still pray "double-minded" prayers.

-God has asked us to come to Him with all our mind, spirit, soul, and strength. When one of those parts of us is not focused on God, we are double-minded.

-If someone watched you pray without hearing your words, would they know you were praying? Does your body posture match your prayers?  

-The reason God's people criticize God's church and its leaders is because their prayers aren't getting answered so they turn to people to meet their spiritual needs. 

-Jesus' number one command to us was to love God with your WHOLE being.

-You've been bought by blood, not rented.

-You're not your own anymore. You can't just say what you want. You can't just do what you want anymore.

-If you're living by the Spirit, you crave the Word.

-A lot of times we say to God, "Love yah, mean it, bye!" and then wonder why are prayers aren't answered.

-Prayer is not a holy grenade thrown at the last minute. 

Getting the whole picture

I was reminded in a big way today that we only see half the picture. No, not even half. We see 1/200th of the picture when it comes to the reality of other people's lives. 

Because I'm the advanced ESL teacher at school, I get the opportunity to help students edit their personal essays for college applications. So I sat down tonight to go over one student's essay and I just about cried. Her life was so much different than I had imagined. I knew she came from a poor country. I knew that she was a motivated young woman. But I had missed everything in between, the whole picture of her life, the whole, completely devastating picture of her everyday existence. 

It reminded me of how we tend to make judgements about people even thought we do not know the whole picture. A co-worker is snippy to us and we automatically tag them as a mean, spiteful person. A family member forgets to do something for us and we assume they don't really love or care for us. 

We're not seeing the full picture. We're not seeing that the co-worker just came out of the boss's office discovering her workload had just increased 10 fold with no extra compensation. We're not seeing how someone belittled our family member so on the drive home all they thought about was the negative words said to them, not the list of to-dos.

But as you well may know we can't simply withhold judgement from anyone. That's impossible. But we can ask for the whole picture, ask the One who sees everything to give us His eyes and His ears. Something amazing happens when we ask for this...life becomes less about us and our feelings and becomes more about serving and loving and speaking life into the lives of those around us.

Lord, today I'm asking for the whole picture. I want to see with Your eyes and hear with Your ears.