My \u201cto do\u201d list is overwhelming today! And so I set it aside and get on my knees. Then: God speaks. I listen, tuning out all else. I hear Him! I now write down what He says (Habakkuk 2:2) to me, and to anyone out there that He is calling to absorb the full meaning of what I detect that He says to me:<\/p>\n
The life worth living is not a life of doing. It is a life of being. You are, by My design, a human being, not a human doing. You are a branch; not the Vine. \u201cI am the Vine and you are the branches (John 15:5). A true branch of the true Vine \u201cdoes\u201d nothing; it only clings to the Vine . . . in faith. You are called to \u201cbe\u201d not to \u201cdo\u201d: BE still. BE fed. BE filled. BE renewed. BE fruitful. \u201cThey said to Him: \u2018What must we DO to be doing the works of God?\u2019 Jesus answered them, \u201cThis is the work of God, that you BELIEVE…\u201d (John 6:29). To believe is to abide. The branch that bears the most fruit is the same that abides: clinging to the the Vine around the clock. Living in a natural world but fully dependent upon supernatural resources.
\nYou argue with the Vine, saying: \u201cThere is so much work to do today! Just look at my \u201cTo do\u201d list!\u201d But anything you do apart from the Vine is a waste of time \u201cfor apart from Me you can do nothing\u201d (John 15:5). That is, nothing fruitful. The Vine has all the power; the Vine does all the work, but only through the submissive, dependent, abiding branch. Ask the most fruitful branch his or her secret, and that branch will say: \u201cI do nothing. But, with each breath I take, I simply share my guilt, my shame, my sin, my flaws, my fears, my pain, my confusion, my foolishness and my weaknesses, with Jesus-the-Vine, as I cling desperately to Him, and He does the rest.\u201d The branch that clings the tightest and most consistently always receives the most sap. What is the sap? The life of God, the Spirit, with all of His grace, comfort, ane empowerment.
\nAsk the most productive mortal man in history, Paul the apostle, his secret, and he explains the mystery so well: \u201cHis grace to me was not without effect. I \u2018worked\u2019 harder than all of them \u2014 yet not I but God who was working through me by His grace\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My \u201cto do\u201d list is overwhelming today! And so I set it aside and get on my knees. Then: God speaks. I listen, tuning out all else. I hear Him! I now write down what He says (Habakkuk 2:2) to me, and to anyone out there that He is calling to absorb the full meaning of what I detect that [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/scottlownsdale.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}