Prosperity, Success, and Accomplishments~

Greetings,

“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with My Word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it" (Isaiah 55:10-11).

Wherever God sends His Word, prosperity, success, and accomplishments follow. 

I'm on board for receiving all three.  If only I could somehow send out His Word and initiate the healing, help, love, comfort, joy, peace, faith, hope, provision, and protection that is the prosperous result of coming into contact with God's word.

WOW! Wait a second! When I pray,  that's exactly what I'm doing. When I get a hold of a scripture and apply it directly over my situation, I am promised that something good will come from it.

Recently I had a conversation with a buddy who is worried about the choices her young teen is making.  We looked up a couple of verses to pray:

"Don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, until the time is ripe and you’re ready" (Song of Solomon 8:4).

So we prayed: "Lord, we pray for ______ and ask that love is not stirred up until the right time. Keep ______from doing anything that brings the wrong kind of excitement."

It felt so good to pray a verse that was specific to that worry.

Whatever's on your mind today, I promise you there's a verse for that! In fact, check out this website. 

https://www.openbible.info/topics/ 

Type in your concern and Bible verses specific to your situation will pop up. 

PRAYER: Dear Lord, thank You for Your Word. We know the things You want to accomplish are only and always what's best for us. We need and desire the production of good fruit.  Guide us to the right verses to pray.  We look forward to prosperity, success, and accomplishments in our lives and the lives of those we love. In Jesus' name, AMEN~

Choke Our Worries~

Luke 8:7 “Other seed fell among thorns that grew up with it and choked out the tender plants.”

Greetings, all you beautiful and blessed children of God,

Repeat after me: I am a victorious and precious child of the living God, and therefore I am blessed today wherever I go and in whatever I do!

Back to farming…

So far we have examined seed that fell onto a hardened path where it won’t grow because the ground is impenetrable.  And we have looked at the gravelly ground where the seed, for the tiniest moment, sprouted only to wither away at the first hint of trouble.  Today we look at the seed that fell among thorns.

Jesus explains: “The seeds that were planted among thorns are people who hear the word, but as life goes on the worries, riches, and pleasures of life choke them. So they don't produce anything good.”

In this scenario the seed grew, but the thorns grew right along with them and eventually choked the life-giving goodness out of them. 

We will get to riches and pleasure later, but I will say right off the bat that there is nothing wrong with enjoying both.  But let’s focus on worrying, which sometimes has a way of occupying so much of our thoughts that little by little we squeeze out God until He is entirely out of the picture.

You would think that the more we worry the more we would turn to God for help and comfort, but that’s not always the case.  Sometimes, our brains tilt toward an overload of worry to the point that we completely forget about God.

Just ask the daughter who was so consumed with caring for her elderly parent that before she knew it a month had gone by without her praying.

Talk to the businessman whose company was in serious financial difficulty, and he was so preoccupied with trying to save his business that he pushed God into a corner and forgot about Him.

And then there’s the mom whose teenager was giving her trouble. In between trying to help him graduate high school and caring for everyone else’s needs, God kept going further down on her list of priorities until He was no longer on the list.

I am pretty sure we can identify with these folks.  Isn’t it interesting that initially, both the seed and the thorns grew side by side?  But left unchecked, the thorns choked them to where nothing good was produced.  No peace, patience, faith, endurance, or wisdom anywhere. 

We must all do some weeding, and by that I mean PRAYING!

PRAYER: Dear Lord, We come to You today and take this time to connect with You.  We are grateful that as we pray, You are choking the life out of the worry that sometimes consumes us.  Refresh our souls today.  In Jesus’ name, AMEN~  

A Gravelly Heart~

“A farmer went out to sow his seed...and some fell in the gravel; it sprouted, but withered because it didn’t have good roots...(Luke 8:5 Message Version).”

Lessons in farming cont…

Some of the seeds the farmer sowed fell in the gravel.  They actually sprouted only to wither

away without good roots to keep them in the ground.  Jesus explains that, “The seeds in the gravel are those who hear with enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn’t go very deep. It’s only another fad, and the moment there’s trouble it’s gone.”

Interesting, people, very interesting.  Right off the bat I am reminded of a story I once heard. 

A young wife and mother was struggling in her marriage. She and her husband were united in almost everything, but she was a church-goer, and he was not.  It became a really difficult topic between them, and she was very discouraged.  She wanted her husband to come to church with her and the kids, but he was not interested. Then one Sunday she came home from church super excited about the sermon she had just heard based on this passage: “Some husbands may not obey God's word. They are indifferent to any words about God. Their wives could win these men for Christ by the way they live without saying anything.  Their husbands will be captivated by their life of holy beauty. What matters is the wife’s inner disposition (1 Peter 3:1-2).”  

The game plan sounded easy enough: Don’t preach, don’t nag, don’t pester. Rather, cultivate inner beauty. The thought of captivating her husband and winning him to Christ by focusing on herself was appealing to her as well as encouraging.

But then reality set in.  That very same afternoon, hubby made a comment that if she hadn’t gone to church, they could have set out earlier to a football game.  And now there was so much traffic…

The words that she responded with can not be shown here, but honestly, I am inclined to give this girl a break.  Nevertheless, he knew how to push her buttons, and she, at the first sign of trouble, lost all her enthusiasm for taking the high road and keeping her mouth shut.   

What went wrong?  It sounds so judgmental to say that her heart was gravelly and that’s why the seed had trouble taking root.  Truth is, we all have gravelly hearts sometimes.  We know what God says in His Word, we know what we should do, we have every intention of doing it — of loving, forgiving, serving, giving, praying…but then something happens and we give up.  The Bible says we give up because the enthusiasm doesn’t go deep enough.  The way to get enthusiastic and stay enthusiastic about God is to connect with Him daily.  It is by communicating with God via prayer that we grow strong, deep roots -- roots that are deeply embedded in supernatural faith, the kind that is enough to survive setbacks and disappointments.  

PRAYER: Dear Lord, Thank You for not being mad at us.  You accept us even when we are less than enthusiastic that You are our Father and that all Your power, glory, and protection is available to us.  When we do have those moments when the seed withers away, You are right there reminding us to shovel that gravel away and make way for new seeds.  Thank You! In Jesus’ name, AMEN!  

Protect Our Hearts~

Farming cont…

Several years ago I visited Parrot Jungle, and like everyone else, I bought some parrot food and proceeded to feed the beautiful, talkative birds.  Just before I opened up my pellet-filled palm to a gorgeous red parrot with blue, green, and yellow plumage, I heard an employee say, “These parrots are harmless and fun loving…”

Next thing I knew the bird had eaten all the food and was ferociously clamped down on my knuckle. It hurt like crazy, but what was I going to do? Was I going to scream bloody murder in front of all the little children who were there?  I felt like punching the bird in the beak, but I just shook my hand vigorously slightly whispering, “Ouch! Ouch!” and it flew away.  The employee assured me that, “This has never happened before; he just really liked the food and got a little excited,” and then offered me a little bag of ice.  No need to call the paramedics as there was no bleeding. 

So I kind of know, through my painful experience, how much birds like seeds.  It’s an analogy that God uses in the Bible to describe one of the ways His life-giving Word becomes ineffectual in our lives.   

Luke 8:5 “A farmer went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the footpath and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.”

In verse 12 Jesus explains: “The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message, only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from believing and being saved.”

God wants us to have a rich, fertile, heart where the seeds of His Word will grow and produce a beautiful, nourishing crop – a crop that will provide every single thing we need to live a blessed life. 

But…

Sometimes our heart is more like a well-traveled footpath.  Everyone and everything has walked all over us and our heart is hardened.  Much like a trampled road, nothing can penetrate it.  The seed that does land there is quickly devoured by the enemy of our souls, and then come the consequences.  No believing, no saving, no nothing…

Birds will always go to where the seeds are; they will flock to them because it’s in their nature.  Likewise, the devil will also do his best to make sure the precious Word is devoured before it can produce any real benefits.

All these verses on the farmer were written to get our attention.  And as we continue in this series, we will end on good news. I promise!

PRAYER: Dear Lord, The most important request we have today is for You to heal our hearts.  Some of us have been through the wringer, and we need You to renew our hope and faith.  Soften our hearts to receive Your Word.  The enemy of our souls does not want us to have peace, but You do.  It starts with prayer!  Protect our hearts. In Jesus’ name we pray, AMEN~     

Rich Earth~

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. Some of it fell on the road; it was tramped down and the birds ate it. Other seed fell in the gravel; it sprouted, but withered because it didn’t have good roots. Other seed fell in the weeds; the weeds grew with it and strangled it. Other seed fell in rich earth and produced a bumper crop (Luke 8:4-8 Message Version).”

Greetings~

I read everyday by choice.  No one is forcing me, and this shocks the people in my family.  None of them reads for relaxation or for fun; they only read when it’s required.  I love getting all cozy under Rayray’s old pink and white and tattered quilt – a relic from her teenage years – putting on my +1.25 reading glasses, loudly announcing that “I am going on an imaginary escapade with the cast of characters who are in the book I am reading at the moment so don’t bother me,” and locking the door!

If my door is locked, no one dares interrupt unless there is an emergency. And it is behind that locked door where I immerse myself in all kinds of adventures.  Mostly spy, but I am truly drawn to anything that’s lying around.  That’s how I found out I was married to a farmer.  Well, the etymology of Jorge’s name means, “farmer, a person engaged in agriculture, which is the cultivation of plants used to sustain and enhance human life.” (Thank you, Wikipedia).

And we would all be wise to be farmers ourselves.  It is vital to our Christian lives to produce a crop, and when we do, we too will “sustain and enhance human life,” mostly our own.

 Lots of stuff, however, gets in the way of successful farming.  Birds eat up the seeds, seeds land in gravel and don’t grow for a lack of good roots, and seeds fall on weeds and try to grow but those weeds strangle them.  But then there’s the seed that falls on rich earth.  It produces a bumper crop – an overflow, extravagant, and over abundance of blessings.

But what exactly does the seed represent? And the birds, gravel, and weeds? How about rich earth?  We will look at each of these in the next few DEVOs, but here’s a sneak peak.  “Rich earth” is symbolic of those people who with good, noble, perfect, and honest hearts are able to produce what is good no matter what! That’s what we want for us and our families!

PRAYER: Dear Lord, Prepare our hearts to be rich earth.  This is the kind of soil that allows for an overflow of wonderful blessings, and that’s something we all need. In Jesus’ name, Amen~