Darwinster

How To Multiply Your Harvest September 21, 2011

Posted by darwinster in Love of God.
1 comment so far

Friend, God is your gardener.

And God wants to prune you.

How do I know?

Jesus said, 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 prunesso that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15:1-2)

Why does God want to prune you?

If you want an adequate life, no need for pruning.

If you want an abundant life, then it comes with a price.

And that price is pruning.

If you’re content with a living a mediocre life, receiving a mediocre harvest, achieving mediocre dreams—go right ahead living the way you live…

Don’t submit to God’s pruning.

But if you want all that God wants for you, and if you want to fulfill the God-sized dreams for your life, I urge you today: Submit yourself to God’s pruning.

To have an abundant harvest in every area of your life, some things in your life will have to go.

Sometimes, God allows failure, sickness, retrenchment, separation—so that there’ll be space in your life for new and better things.

Did your boyfriend dump you? Thank God. Someone better is coming your way.

Did your company retrench you? Thank God. A better job is coming your way.

Did your business fail? Thank God. A better business is coming your way.

Did you get sick? Thank God. You’ll learn how to live a healthier lifestyle, and better health is coming your way.

Did a thief steal from you? Did a partner cheat from you? Thank God. You’ll learn from this painful experience, and God will return double what you have lost.

Remember: God’s pruning isn’t God’s punishment. Yes, it feels like it. When bad things happen, you want to cry, “Lord, why? I’m a good person. Why are you doing this to me? Have I done something wrong to displease you?”

No, God isn’t mad at you. God is madly in love with you. He’s doing something wonderful in your life. At the end of your life, you’ll tell yourself, “Thank God He pruned me!”

Let me tell you what God removes or prunes from our life…

Two Things That God Prunes

Gardeners cut away diseased and pest-ridden branches, so that the disease and the pests won’t spread to the other parts of the tree…

1. What Destroys You

Gardeners cut away sick branches.

God is a gardener. And He does the same thing in your life.

God wants to cut away sin from your life. Lying. Greed. Selfishness. Bitterness. Lust. Etcetera.

God’s focus isn’t on removing but on adding.

He just doesn’t want to remove lust. He wants to add the joy of purity. He just doesn’t want to remove greed. He wants to add happy generosity. He just doesn’t want to remove the habit of lying. He wants to give you the freedom of honesty.

Let me give you an example.

As a single person, I wasn’t physically promiscuous. But I was mentally promiscuous. Because of porn, I was sexually active in my mind.

It took years, but I finally cut away that part of my life.

After pruning comes abundance. I’ve experienced it.

How? My married life is now so rich and deep and beautiful today. Because I’m mentally and emotionally monogamous. I’m faithful to my wife in my body and in my mind.

Yes, there is power in focus. What you focus on grows! My wife has grown lovelier in my eyes because I’ve decided to focus on her.

I’ve met married people who have fallen into emotional adultery. And then they complain why their marriages aren’t life-giving, why their spouses are terrible, and why they’ve fallen out of love.

These are diseased branches that must be cut if you want fantastic abundance in your life.

Are there things in your life that are destroying you?

Alcoholism? Gambling? Materialism? Lying? Theft? Greed?

Cut them away.

2. What Distracts You

Gardeners also cut away healthy branches, if this will make the tree bear more fruit.

Most of the time, they do it to increase light penetration. If the branches and leaves are crowded, very little light is able to enter the thick foliage. Thus, the pruning.

In the same way, your life can be so crowded with a lot of good things, you’re so busy, very little of God’s light enters your life.

Here’s a fact. Good things can steal away your attention from the great things that God wants you to do.

Ask yourself: What good things distract you from great things?

Let me give you an example from my ministry. Each year, a lot of parishes invite me to preach. I could fill 365 days of the year just preaching in parishes.

But most of the time, I turn down parish invitations. Reason? I feel God has called me to speak to the unchurched. To people who aren’t religious. (Now you know why we hold our Feasts, our weekly spiritual gatherings, in malls and theatres.) We bring God’s Love to the people who need it the most.

By the way, preaching in parishes is fun. There’s a homecourt advantage. Everyone is open. Everyone laughs at my jokes. Everyone is willing to sing, “Lululalulalulalulalei…” and “Ang Buhay ng Kristyano ay masayang tunay…”

But I can be so busy doing this fun thing, I won’t be able to do the great thing that God wants me to do—to reach out to those who are far from God. To those who don’t even know how to pray the Our Father without missing a few words.

First things first: Identify the great thing that God wants you to do. And then prune your activities. Remove distractions that will take your time, attention, and energy from this great thing.

This includes recreation.

For 2 Months, I Became Addicted To Games

Recreation is supposed to re-create. When you do your recreation, it’s so supposed to create a new you. It recreates within you a new perspective, a new passion, and new possibilities.

For many years, I never played computer games.

I just felt it was a waste of time.

People ask me, “Bo, how can you do so much—writing, speaking, publishing, leading…” I think one reason is that I don’t watch TV or play computer games.

I’d rather play with my kids, or write a book, or read a book, or prepare for my talk, or play the piano, or play the guitar, or making plans, or expand my business…

But something happened last year.

One day, my friend said, “I play with my sons a computer game called Plants vs. Zombies. It’s a strategy game and we have so much fun.”

I got intrigued. So I bought the game online. And I invited my two sons to play together. Soon, my wife joined us as well.

My friend was right. It was great fun. And having my youngest son on my lap, playing the game together, was wonderful.

But I had a problem. The game was addicting.

I noticed I was getting addicted. How did I know? I usually write after the kids are in bed. I write my articles or prepare for a talk. But at 10pm, I found myself opening my computer to zap zombies with pea shooters!

There were nights when I actually slept at midnight. Or even at 1am. I actually spent two to three hours zapping zombies!

I had to make a decision. The game had to go.

I had been playing Plants vs. Zombies for two months.

If I played 2 hours a day, that means I spent 60 hour playing that game. I could have written one book. I could have read 5 books. I could have created a business plan. Oh, I could have done so many things!

I decided to quit cold turkey.

Choose Real Re-Creation

Here’s a list of activities that nurture me:

- Prayer and Meditation
- Exercise
- Reading great books
- Listening to inspirational Talks
- Watching really great movies
- Being with people you love
- Playing a musical instrument
- Listening to uplifting music
- Hobbies

Here’s a list of activities that I believe don’t nurture but actually drain people. (This is my personal opinion; There may be rare individuals out there who get nurtured by these activities.):

- Watching mindless TV
- Playing video games for hours
- Reading non-consequential stuff (gossip and showbiz pages)

Note: There’s nothing wrong about watching mindless TV. There’s nothing sinful about playing Bejeweled and Farmville and AngryBirds. I’m not saying we can’t play games. I think we should! But we do so with moderation and discipline. But if you spend so much time doing them, they could be distractions, sapping your time and energy dedicated to fulfill God’s dreams for your life.

Focus On The Prize

No doubt about it. Pruning is painful.

Growth usually happens through pain. There is truth when your gym teacher says, “No pain, no gain.”

God’s Word says, No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. (Hebrews 12:11)

But pruning doesn’t kill you; pruning heals you.

Here’s the challenge: While going through the pain of pruning, don’t focus on the pain; Focus on the prize!

St. Paul says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)

My wife and I go to a Bikram Yoga class. (Note: No New Age stuff; Just exercise.) The class is done in a really hot room. And in that oven, we tryto do 26 postures that only Plasticman can do.

The key word is try; I end up splattered on the floor, wondering why I’m torturing myself to become a human pretzel.

Yoga is painful for me. I’m so inflexible, when I bend, I can’t even touch my toes.

But I don’t focus on the pain. I focus on the prize. One day, my body will become flexible, strong, and (ehem) sexy. To my wife!

Are you going through a pruning right now?

Don’t focus on your pain.

Focus on the prize that God has in store for you after the pruning process is over.

Let me end with a story…

Submit To His Pruning, Submit To His Purpose

One day, Bill’s wife died suddenly.

Bill was so distraught, he turned to heavy drinking. Everyday, he stayed home and tried to drown his sorrows away with alcohol. (Have you noticed? Sorrows are good swimmers.)

Bill’s Pastor heard about it and visited Bill in his house. Seeing the mess that his house was in, he did something totally unexpected. He volunteered to do the laundry for him.

Every week, this Pastor would visit Bill and do his laundry.

Curiously, Bill waited for his Pastor to castigate him for his drinking. But the Pastor would not speak one word about it. Instead, the Pastor would talk about the great dreams that God has for Bill and his family. “You’ll have a wonderful life. Your kids will grow up to be wonderful adults. You’ll be playing with your grandkids….”

One day, Bill just stopped drinking and regained his life. He was set free from alcoholism and depression because one man loved him.

God is like that Pastor.

God visits you, not to scold you, but to do your laundry. To wash your soul with His forgiveness.

And God wants to prune the things in your life that destroy you or distract you. But He won’t let you focus on the pruning. He’ll let you focus on the purpose behind the pruning.

Friend, focus on His purpose!

Focus on your magnificent dream.

Go to God now.
Submit to His pruning.
Submit to His purpose.

May your dreams come true,

Author: Bo Sachez
Shared By: Liezel Tagac of IMG

Be the Instrument of God’s Undying Love May 12, 2011

Posted by darwinster in Love of God.
1 comment so far

God’s Kind Of Love
By Andrew Wommack

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love”

 (1 John 4:7-8).

Most of us think that we really understand the love of God, but our experience proves otherwise. We feel lonely, depressed, discouraged, and defeated. Every one of these negative emotions would be turned to positive by a proper revelation of God’s love for us.

As for loving others, most of us would admit there are some people who are very difficult to love. Since we do not fully understand God’s love for us, we fail in loving others. We can’t give away what we don’t have. If we receive a full revelation of God’s love for us, it becomes easy to love others with the love that we have received.

When we struggle to believe that God’s promises to us will come to pass, that’s unbelief; but the root of that unbelief is a lack of love. Galatians 5:6 says faith works by love. That means love is the driving force behind our faith. Remove or diminish love, and faith ceases to be what it should be. Many of us try hard to believe when we should be seeking a greater revelation of God’s love for us. Then, faith would just naturally work.

Just a few months after Jamie and I were married, we were in a desperate situation. I had quit my job, believing that the Lord wanted me to go into full-time ministry. The result was that we were hurting financially. It had been days since we had eaten. We had nothing but a few Cokes that a friend had given us and a bag of Fritos that we had been rationing out. Our faith was beginning to waver. We were fighting with all we had, to believe that the Lord was going to supply our needs, but our circumstances and empty bellies were screaming unbelief at us.

One morning, Jamie took our last fifty cents and our car and drove to the laundry mat to do some laundry. While she was gone, I did some serious business with the Lord. I was crying and saying, “Lord, I don’t understand. I would give my right arm to feed Jamie. I believe You love us more than I love Jamie, and yet You aren’t taking care of us.” I had let circumstances blind me to God’s love. That’s the main reason my faith wasn’t working.

The Lord spoke Luke 12:32 to me very clearly. That verse says, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Suddenly, I realized my unbelief was because I had forgotten how much God loves us. God delights in our prosperity (Ps. 35:27). He gets no pleasure from watching us starve. As the revelation of God’s love for us came flooding over me, all doubt that our needs would be supplied was instantly gone. When Jamie returned from doing the laundry, I told her that we were going to eat meat that day.

We had Fritos and Coke for lunch. We skipped supper because we were tired of Fritos and Coke. At church, a friend asked us to stop by his apartment after the service. We thought, “Maybe they are going to feed us.” We stayed and talked for over an hour, but there was no food. As we were leaving, however, the man gave us loads of fish that he had caught. He also gave us all the vegetables to go with them. We rushed home, and Jamie fixed us a feast. Just a few minutes prior to midnight, we ate meat to our fill. The next day was my birthday, and a woman in the church gave us a large box full of porterhouse steaks. We went from a starvation diet of Fritos and Coke, to having enough steaks for a month in just a matter of hours because love made my faith work.

When our friend gave us the fish that evening, he told us that he had sent his wife by our apartment earlier that morning to deliver the food. Our car was gone, though; so she supposed we were not there and didn’t stop. The only time that car was gone all day long was when Jamie went to wash clothes and I was praying in that apartment. At the exact moment that I got a new and fresh revelation of God’s love for us, our supply came through. It took us a few hours to see it, but God moved instantly. He wanted to supply our need more than we wanted Him to. My lack of faith in His love hindered Him. As soon as I opened up to His love, my faith revived and He supplied.

There is more than just a superficial knowledge that God loves us. In Ephesians, chapter 3, Paul prayed that the Ephesians would get a greater revelation of God’s love for them. He said, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph. 3:14-19).

Notice in verse 18 that God’s love isn’t just one-dimensional. There is height, depth, length, and breadth to it. Many Christians only see God’s love as they would see a painting, in one-dimension. They’ve never seen the multi-dimensional reality of God’s love.

In verse 19, Paul said as we experience God’s love, which is superior to mere knowledge of God’s love, then we would be filled with all the fullness of God. What a statement! Are you lacking in any area of your life? If so, you lack a revelation of God’s love. Experiencing God’s love equals fullness.

I’ve said all of this to say that a deep revelation of God’s love for us is the most important thing we can receive. First Corinthians 13:13 says, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (God’s kind of love).

There are many ways that Satan uses to try to block the revelation of God’s love for us. One of the most subtle, and therefore the most deadly, ways is that he has deceived us into thinking that God’s love for us is tied to our performance. We think we have to do something to earn God’s love. We have to merit God’s love. That is not what the Bible teaches.

In the natural world, you get what you deserve. Employers don’t hire you based on their love for you. You have to perform. If you perform badly, you are punished or fired. The same thing is true in most relationships. I’ve had hundreds of married couples essentially tell me, “They don’t deserve my love.” However, the nearly-too-good-to-be-true news of the Gospel is that we don’t get what we deserve. Praise the Lord!

God’s love for us is unconditional. That is, God doesn’t love us because of some virtue we possess. God loves us because “God is love” (1 John 4:8), not because we are lovely.

Religion is one of the biggest propagators of the conditional-love-of-God lie. Most “Christian churches” teach that God’s love for us is conditional, based on our performance. If we pray, go to church, pay our tithes, etc., then the Lord loves us and answers our prayers; but if we fail, then the Lord won’t answer our prayers. That’s not true.

There is a disease in the church that I call “spiritual dyslexia.” Dyslexia is where a person sees things backwards. A dyslexic person sees the word “god” as “dog”. There’s a huge difference between God and a dog; yet dyslexics don’t see it.

“Spiritual dyslexia” has a similar effect on people. Those infected with this “spiritual dyslexia” see scriptures backwards. For instance, 1 John 2:3-5 says, “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.”

A dyslexic Christian sees these verses and says, “I want to know God, so I must keep His commandments.” These verses are saying just the opposite. Keeping God’s commandments is a result of knowing God. You can live a holy life without knowing God; the Pharisees proved that. However, you can’t know God without living a holy life as a result. When God’s love is perfected in us, keeping God’s Word will be the result (verse 5).

Any attempt to reverse this order is “getting the cart before the horse.” It won’t work; and yet this is what the majority of Christians are trying to do. They are seeking to know the Lord better by living a holier life. It’s just the opposite. Experiencing God’s love more will produce a holy life.

This dyslexic condition has caused many to tie God’s love for them to their performance. When they do well, they let God’s love for them flow. When they do poorly, they condemn themselves. They think God is condemning them, but He’s not. In many cases, it’s not even the devil condemning them. Satan has caused them to believe a lie, and they are condemning themselves.

We all need a greater revelation of God’s unconditional love for us! I have a special series designed just for that purpose. A revelation of God’s unconditional love for me is what turned my life around in 1968. It’s still impacting me today. These teachings reveal the things God showed me about His love. I believe that if you open up your heart, the Lord will grant you at least as much revelation on this as I have, and it will change your life. Please order the album entitled 

God’s Kind of Love: The Cure for What Ails Ya today.