Come and See!

Hello...Here it is Monday again!  I trust that you have had a pleasant weekend and that today is the beginning of a good week for you.  Since I retired, Mondays aren't so bad...I rather like them. It's a day to get back on track from the weekend and to begin anew for a brand new week. It's kind of nice to ease into the day without feeling any pressure to do this or that...but on the other hand, it is also a time to go back over the things we learned over the weekend...perhaps at church...and put into practice what we've been taught.  So, as a part of my "One Word" for 2018 RENEW or RENEWAL, I am trying to apply what I've heard or read in God's Word and to see where it leads me in this path to renewal.

This beautiful dogwood blossom reminds me of the Cross...
We almost cut down this dogwood tree because it appeared to be dying...
I'm so glad we didn't follow our assumptions...

I hope you don't mind my sharing my notes from the Sunday Sermon with you here. I know you all go to your own churches and have marvelous pastors and teachers too, but this is an exercise for me as well as for you...it helps me to remember what has been taught before I get too busy and put my notes aside or in the trash when I clean out my Bible or purse...There is too much valuable stuff here to lose. So here goes:

Scripture: Read John 1:43-51, but the key verse is #46:

"And Nathanael said to him, 

'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?'

Philip said to him, 

"Come and see."

These azaleas and dogwood are blooming along a fence by an old house that has been sadly neglected...no one comes to care for them, and yet they bloom year after year...one might assume that nothing good could come out of there...but come and see...

They were speaking of Jesus here, early in His ministry when He was gathering His disciples together...in verse 43 He had just found Philip and said to him, "Follow Me."  Philip was so excited and thrilled at being called by Christ that he wanted everyone he knew to follow Him as well.  He recognized that Jesus was the One "of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."  But Nazareth was a small, dirty, unpopular little town, where no one of any good reputation had ever come from before. Nathanael assumed that anyone worth knowing could not have come from Nazareth.  

Oh! What a sad misconception! Thankfully, Jesus perceived Nathanael's thoughts and helped him reconsider his wrong assumptions before he missed out on the greatest opportunity of a lifetime...to follow Jesus Christ, the Messiah!

I wonder what wrong assumptions we have been guilty of in our lives? Perhaps many of us have been quick to judge others for other less thoughtful reasons...race, nationality, their appearance or clothes, the kind of car they drive or the side of town they came from...or perhaps we ourselves have been wrongly judged for the same reasons.  Maybe we've judged ourselves harshly because we feel inadequate, we lack self-confidence, have inferiority complexes because of whatever we've been taught, told, or experienced by the malicious assumptions of others.

We might assume that nothing good could come out of this very ugly, unusual, dead looking "tree trunk"

Sadly, we let these assumptions become our "hiding places"...they keep us from engaging with God at a deeper level.

We allow our assumptions to become limitations...they "close the possibility of growth, reconciliation, change..."  "No room for God to show up in our lives..."

We need to let God speak to our hearts...but in order to do that we need to be in a relationship with Him before we can grow and overcome these  false "assumptions".  "Our faith hinges on Jesus Christ being raised from the dead..."

These beautiful flowers (Carolina Jessamine) are growing and blooming out of that ugly trunk above...amazing, huh? 

"God loves you no matter who you are or where you're from..."

Christ in you..."God takes ordinary, fallible human beings and makes them do great things..."...Look at Moses, Paul, Peter...and many other examples throughout the Bible and history.

"Thankfully, God is not limited by our assumptions.  But we need to position ourselves to meet God"..."Come and See!"  

(Quotes are from Sunday's sermon, 2/25/2018 at First United Methodist Church, Interlachen, FL, Pastor A.C. Myers)

So now, what am I going to do with this information?  May God help me to apply it to my heart...and to put away those false assumptions that may be limiting my own personal spiritual growth.  Perhaps there is something here for you today as well?  

"Come and see!!"

Signs of Growth - Random Journal Day

Hello Friends out there in "Blogland"....It's Random Journal Day (click on link for more information and other great "Random Journal Day Blogs") again...time to look back in the past and bring it back to the future...you know, "That was then, and this is now..."  So here we go.  This post was originally written on 5/22/2012 ~ a little over 3 years ago.  A lot has changed in our lives since then...and in our home.  

May 22, 2012:

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase."  I Corinthians 3:6

The front yard of our home when this was originally written 5/22/2012 - see pictures below for update

I was chatting with one of the pastors at the church where I work today about "signs of growth".  He seemed to be a little discouraged about the lack of noticeable growth in the church even after taking big steps to reach out and plant new seeds by faith.  I was certainly able to empathize with him, having spent many years in churches where my husband and I labored in what appeared to be a vain effort with no apparent signs of growth.  Oftentimes soon after we left a church feeling discouraged, another minister would come along and reap a great harvest!

Recently I have been laboring in another kind of field...planting new trees and shrubs and flowers in the yard of our new home in the forest.  I have been watering our trees and flowers faithfully every evening since we are not getting any consistent rain.  I have begun to get a bit discouraged, because the trees have not been showing any signs of new growth. Not that they appear to be dying...they just haven't sprouted any new leaves or grown any taller or fuller that I can see. 

I thought about this as I spoke with my friend today...and it occurred to me that we oftentimes cannot see the growth that is taking place because it is developing so slowly.  I said to him that in churches (or people we are caring for), like trees, the early growth is actually growing under the surface as roots are reaching deeper down into the soil in search of the pure water and rich nutrients of the earth.  The foundation is being established by daily watering with the right combination of fertilizer and sunlight and hopefully some rain.  Before the new leaves and branches can spring forth and reach up into the sky the tree has to be rooted and grounded in solid ground...or else when the storms come the tree (or person) will not be strong enough to withstand the high winds and pounding rain. 

It takes patience to be a gardener and a tiller of the soil.  It also takes patience to be a gardener in the garden of God's church.  Oftentimes the pastor-gardener becomes discouraged because he has labored long and hard, breaking up the fallow ground, planting seeds and praying for a great harvest, with no visible results.

The Apostle Paul dealt with this same issue when he wrote to the Corinthian early church . He was frustrated with the people of this young church because after much teaching, preaching, and prayer, they were still not showing any signs of spiritual growth.  And then they would compare one preacher with the other thinking one was better than the other because some showed more signs of growth under one leader than the other.

Paul admonished them regarding this way of thinking in I Corinthians 3:6-11~

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.  So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.  Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.  For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building.  According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it.  But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

So, whether you are laboring in a field of trees, flowers or vegetables...or perhaps you are laboring in the field of teaching and ministering to the children of God (or even your own children)...don't lose hope when you can't see immediate results.  Be faithful to your task...cover every deed with prayer and love. When the "field" is ripe and ready for harvest or even if you find that you have to walk away and allow someone else to reap the harvest...remember that it is God Who has given the increase...in His time...in His way.  Just be faithful to do what you have been called to do and leave the results to Him.

Our Front Yard Today...September 4, 2015

And the surprise harvest of friends in the faith...a home Bible Fellowship started in our home last year...

God has truly blessed and blessed and blessed

Sometimes God surprises us with growth in places we'd never imagined when we first started...

so just be faithful to the tasks God places in your path and He will give the increase.