ISDAMan
03-04-00, 01:39 AM
God Bless you all for returning to read another installment of the FNS. I have enjoyed this greatly all the time that God has given me to work with you all. I really wish that I had more time to spend together with you all. I’m not sure just how long it might be before I have a more free work schedule again. I expect that I will be more freely able to talk by June. I pray that these past and future FNS’s have been a blessing to everyone. I do ask that you would please pray for me and that you would drop me an e-mail from time to time to let me know how you view the progress of what is going on here. I think it’s more useful to ministries that you send encouraging letters than it is to send money. I look forward to future opportunities to serve you. God is a great teacher!!! AMEN People sometimes call me Solomon because they say that I am wise. Yet, I am a fool to try and use any wisdom in my own life. It is only when I seek help and review and pay close attention to the things I do to help others that I can see the application in my own life. I am dumb to my own needs. However, God, in all His greatness, ensures that, as I act to distribute His Love and wisdom, as He directs, I am also stained with it. It is a mark that cannot be removed. It is a mark that cannot be gained any other way. I thank God that though He has made me wise, He has humbled me greatly. I’m a man that can’t remember a name or important number or date to save my life. Like I said, the wisdom He gives me only applies to me if I use it first with someone else. He has made me physically stronger than most while, at the same time, He has made war with fat a life long battle with me that I can’t even take one minutes rest from. He has stricken me so that I would be knocked down and would have to look up in order to see. He raised me up when I finally did see Him working and called out to Him. He has shown me that I am nothing. He is everything! I thank God that as He reveals Himself to me more and more each day, I can see more clearly that I do not measure up. I thank God that when I look up to Him with those eyes of a loving child and my spiritual arms outstretched, He reaches down and picks me up each and every time. It’s nice being little. It means you fit nicely inside when cradled in Daddy’s Loving arms. Get to know the Father. Know that He loves you and wants to keep you safely in His arms. Know that He desires to raise you up strong and send you out into the world as a champion. Know that “Papa don’t take no mess”!!!!!! He will correct your vision problem of not seeing Him in the proper perspective. Know that He is always there to help you along. He will help you make good choices. He will not simply and always make them for you. He will be a good leader and a model for you life and the lives of your children. AMEN!
Well, it’s on to the FNS.
<< Read Verses 1-6 >>
Now, the marital aspects of those verses were clearly presented. I don’t think that much more needs to be said on that except that we all need to remember that marriage is to the death. There are no excuses.
Moving on the meaning of the picture being painted here, I would like to point out that Paul wants us to see just where we are rooted. Here’s an example. A good tree planted in good ground will bare good fruit. A good tree planted in bad ground will bring forth bad fruit if any at all. The husband (husband means farmer), if he is good, has the ability to make bad ground good for his wife the good tree. If he is bad, he will ruin even good ground. In this example, we are the wives. God is the good husband. Satan, the father of sin, is the bad husband. Our circumstances would be the ground. Look back at verse 4. Know this. Death is separation. When you get right with God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, He will take your bad ground and turn it into good ground. You are dead (separated) from the old. Don’t argue with Him and say, “God, this looks like the same old place I’ve been all my life.” Stop looking for results in your own way. You just do like the good tree does. Grab hold of the nutrients God provides and pass it along throughout your system like you’re supposed to. If you’ll just stay faithful to the little bit that you have been set to do, though it seems so tiny and worthless, you’ll be surprised what fruit you will yield through faith and faithfulness to God! Your circumstances are not above God. The dirt you are planted in might be worst in the world. I assure you of this: God will not be mocked!!! Those who bare no fruit and bad fruit will be destroyed. We know this already. Though, at times, you may suffer pruning, you, being counted as righteous by your faith, will not be cut away. No matter what Satan tries to tell you. You are not better off dead! Things are not so bad that they can’t be repaired. Nothing is beyond hope when your hope is in God, the good husband (farmer). You are not a worthless slug. We’ve discussed how God’s system is a system where His creation has value. Not only has He created you; He has recreated you in giving you life anew. We have already discussed in other areas in this BBS that we are made higher than the angels and joint heirs with Christ to all the riches of our Father in Heaven. You are special!!!! It’s not because you are unique or some other junk that people will tell you. It’s not because you have achieved certain goals in life. It’s not because your spouse tells you so. It’s because God has claimed you as one of His and He has gone so far as to adorn you with the very Living Spirit that is His own Holy Spirit. You are special because God has made you so. Paul is telling us not to give up. He is reminding us of our hope and eventual outcome. Your limbs might be stumpy now but,... you’ve been drinking Grace. One day soon, Grace will have grown you big and strong. God will feed the world around you on the very fruit you bare after the winter that must come into every life. He will make you a shelter in the storm to those that are timid. He will make you food to the hungry. He will make you to stand tall against the mighty winds that would try to blow you down. It all starts with being faithful to Him now. Trust in Him now. Pass on that good thing He has given you now. Do not despair when some reject it. Trust God anyway.
<< Read Verses 7-13>>
Let us talk more about pruning. This is when God, with His professional tree doctor (the Law of God), points out our dead spots that need to be cut away. Without the help of this guy, we could not know what should and should not be about us. All the rotten, malformed, diseased and dead limbs that we had previously thought of as just other limbs now can be seen for what they truly are. Why? Because of the tree doctor (the Law of God). That’s why! The tree doctor didn’t do anything wrong to those branches. He simply pointed out what was wrong so that we could know too. Now, wrong is wrong to us too. What would have killed us can now be cut away. Let me warn you of this. God is always sending around tree doctors to visit His children. These doctors will come to you in more forms than you can imagine. They always do the same thing however. They point out the sinful branches. Beloved, let me tell you. You can either be thankful or you can get irate. Nothing will change the fact that you have been made aware of the condition of your tree. You will have no excuse before God! In fact, if you do not deal with it properly and immediately by taking the matter to God to have it cut away, the cancer will metastasize from one small branch into the very core of your soul. All sin is deadly stuff. Learn to take criticism well. Take that criticism and measure both it and you by God, who is the perfect measuring stick, as He has revealed Himself to us. The laws God has given us and the Laws He reminds us of through others are notches on His Holy measuring stick, which reaches up to Heaven with Him as the GOAL. The things you do are your limbs. Measure them by God’s standard. What does the doctor (God’s Law) have to say?
<< Read Verses 14-25 >>
Paul is telling us to hand over the keys. We need to give control of this vehicle that we’re on to God. Let me stop yon know if you think that this is a passage that Gives you a right to sin. It does not!!!! Paul is clearly showing that he does not have the power to fight the sins that well up in him at times. It is all that he can do to focus upon God. This, of course, is the key to defeating repetitive sin in our lives. We need not focus on defeating the sin. We need to focus on the one that will deliver us from the sin. All this time, I have equated us to trees. Which way do trees grow? Up,… right? Well, not just up, but toward the sun. Do you know which way the growth of your tree should be headed? It should be toward the Son!!! The minute you stop growing toward the Son, that’s the very minute the weaknesses of your flesh will come to bare upon you and never let up. Do you want to know that you have value and worth in the Lord? Keep growing. Don’t bother looking down to see that you’re in the same old field that you’ve always been in. Keep growing towards the Son. God will take care of the rest. You’ll sin less. You will not be sinless. You will be a blessing to everyone around you. Focus your mind on growing toward the Son. The foul language, selfishness, falsehoods, and all manner of sins will fall away. None of it is by your own power. It is simply by your faith as you look up to Him and as you exercise your faith in passing on the nutrient rich Life He has given you. Remember, you are part of a unique tree. You are a tree alone and a tree that is part of a larger tree made of other trees just like you. You are not the only one. Share the good and share the bad. Grow toward the Son. Don’t just say that you are. Do it! How will you know if you are? Well, David said it best when He said that He didn’t want to give a sacrifice to God that didn’t cost him anything. It would be no sacrifice at all in that case. How much is it costing you to serve God? There’s a whole world of sin out there. Do you have leisure time that you don’t know what to do with? Do you find yourself board quite a bit? Do you feel like your life has no direction? If any of this is true of you, you must not know that there’s a war on!!! You can’t fight it all but thousands of souls are being lost to hell day by day! What will you sacrifice in order to be able to win one more soul to God? Do you want to know if you’re giving your all? How much does it hurt? Don’t thing that I’ve made a correct stand? Try lifting weights. When will you know you’ve given your all? You’ll know it by the pain. You’ll know it by the hours you spend doing nothing else but that. You’ll know it by what it costs you. Which way are you growing? How do you know it? Make proof of it by God’s Word!
With Love Brethren,
ISDAMan
Well, it’s on to the FNS.
<< Read Verses 1-6 >>
Now, the marital aspects of those verses were clearly presented. I don’t think that much more needs to be said on that except that we all need to remember that marriage is to the death. There are no excuses.
Moving on the meaning of the picture being painted here, I would like to point out that Paul wants us to see just where we are rooted. Here’s an example. A good tree planted in good ground will bare good fruit. A good tree planted in bad ground will bring forth bad fruit if any at all. The husband (husband means farmer), if he is good, has the ability to make bad ground good for his wife the good tree. If he is bad, he will ruin even good ground. In this example, we are the wives. God is the good husband. Satan, the father of sin, is the bad husband. Our circumstances would be the ground. Look back at verse 4. Know this. Death is separation. When you get right with God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, He will take your bad ground and turn it into good ground. You are dead (separated) from the old. Don’t argue with Him and say, “God, this looks like the same old place I’ve been all my life.” Stop looking for results in your own way. You just do like the good tree does. Grab hold of the nutrients God provides and pass it along throughout your system like you’re supposed to. If you’ll just stay faithful to the little bit that you have been set to do, though it seems so tiny and worthless, you’ll be surprised what fruit you will yield through faith and faithfulness to God! Your circumstances are not above God. The dirt you are planted in might be worst in the world. I assure you of this: God will not be mocked!!! Those who bare no fruit and bad fruit will be destroyed. We know this already. Though, at times, you may suffer pruning, you, being counted as righteous by your faith, will not be cut away. No matter what Satan tries to tell you. You are not better off dead! Things are not so bad that they can’t be repaired. Nothing is beyond hope when your hope is in God, the good husband (farmer). You are not a worthless slug. We’ve discussed how God’s system is a system where His creation has value. Not only has He created you; He has recreated you in giving you life anew. We have already discussed in other areas in this BBS that we are made higher than the angels and joint heirs with Christ to all the riches of our Father in Heaven. You are special!!!! It’s not because you are unique or some other junk that people will tell you. It’s not because you have achieved certain goals in life. It’s not because your spouse tells you so. It’s because God has claimed you as one of His and He has gone so far as to adorn you with the very Living Spirit that is His own Holy Spirit. You are special because God has made you so. Paul is telling us not to give up. He is reminding us of our hope and eventual outcome. Your limbs might be stumpy now but,... you’ve been drinking Grace. One day soon, Grace will have grown you big and strong. God will feed the world around you on the very fruit you bare after the winter that must come into every life. He will make you a shelter in the storm to those that are timid. He will make you food to the hungry. He will make you to stand tall against the mighty winds that would try to blow you down. It all starts with being faithful to Him now. Trust in Him now. Pass on that good thing He has given you now. Do not despair when some reject it. Trust God anyway.
<< Read Verses 7-13>>
Let us talk more about pruning. This is when God, with His professional tree doctor (the Law of God), points out our dead spots that need to be cut away. Without the help of this guy, we could not know what should and should not be about us. All the rotten, malformed, diseased and dead limbs that we had previously thought of as just other limbs now can be seen for what they truly are. Why? Because of the tree doctor (the Law of God). That’s why! The tree doctor didn’t do anything wrong to those branches. He simply pointed out what was wrong so that we could know too. Now, wrong is wrong to us too. What would have killed us can now be cut away. Let me warn you of this. God is always sending around tree doctors to visit His children. These doctors will come to you in more forms than you can imagine. They always do the same thing however. They point out the sinful branches. Beloved, let me tell you. You can either be thankful or you can get irate. Nothing will change the fact that you have been made aware of the condition of your tree. You will have no excuse before God! In fact, if you do not deal with it properly and immediately by taking the matter to God to have it cut away, the cancer will metastasize from one small branch into the very core of your soul. All sin is deadly stuff. Learn to take criticism well. Take that criticism and measure both it and you by God, who is the perfect measuring stick, as He has revealed Himself to us. The laws God has given us and the Laws He reminds us of through others are notches on His Holy measuring stick, which reaches up to Heaven with Him as the GOAL. The things you do are your limbs. Measure them by God’s standard. What does the doctor (God’s Law) have to say?
<< Read Verses 14-25 >>
Paul is telling us to hand over the keys. We need to give control of this vehicle that we’re on to God. Let me stop yon know if you think that this is a passage that Gives you a right to sin. It does not!!!! Paul is clearly showing that he does not have the power to fight the sins that well up in him at times. It is all that he can do to focus upon God. This, of course, is the key to defeating repetitive sin in our lives. We need not focus on defeating the sin. We need to focus on the one that will deliver us from the sin. All this time, I have equated us to trees. Which way do trees grow? Up,… right? Well, not just up, but toward the sun. Do you know which way the growth of your tree should be headed? It should be toward the Son!!! The minute you stop growing toward the Son, that’s the very minute the weaknesses of your flesh will come to bare upon you and never let up. Do you want to know that you have value and worth in the Lord? Keep growing. Don’t bother looking down to see that you’re in the same old field that you’ve always been in. Keep growing towards the Son. God will take care of the rest. You’ll sin less. You will not be sinless. You will be a blessing to everyone around you. Focus your mind on growing toward the Son. The foul language, selfishness, falsehoods, and all manner of sins will fall away. None of it is by your own power. It is simply by your faith as you look up to Him and as you exercise your faith in passing on the nutrient rich Life He has given you. Remember, you are part of a unique tree. You are a tree alone and a tree that is part of a larger tree made of other trees just like you. You are not the only one. Share the good and share the bad. Grow toward the Son. Don’t just say that you are. Do it! How will you know if you are? Well, David said it best when He said that He didn’t want to give a sacrifice to God that didn’t cost him anything. It would be no sacrifice at all in that case. How much is it costing you to serve God? There’s a whole world of sin out there. Do you have leisure time that you don’t know what to do with? Do you find yourself board quite a bit? Do you feel like your life has no direction? If any of this is true of you, you must not know that there’s a war on!!! You can’t fight it all but thousands of souls are being lost to hell day by day! What will you sacrifice in order to be able to win one more soul to God? Do you want to know if you’re giving your all? How much does it hurt? Don’t thing that I’ve made a correct stand? Try lifting weights. When will you know you’ve given your all? You’ll know it by the pain. You’ll know it by the hours you spend doing nothing else but that. You’ll know it by what it costs you. Which way are you growing? How do you know it? Make proof of it by God’s Word!
With Love Brethren,
ISDAMan