God wants ALL His Children, including LGBTQ to be bursting
with JUICE to overflow on others.
December 16, 2017
_____________________________________________________________
While harvesting Blackberries by the
vineyard at my Dad’s place a few years back the Lord spoke to me and asked me
this question,
“ARE YOU JUICY?”
As I continued to harvest the
Blackberries, with my fingers turning purple from all the juice, I began to
ponder that question over and over in my mind. “ARE YOU JUICY?” What kind of
question is that Lord; I kept asking over and over? Then these scriptures came
to my mind: Jeremiah 17, Psalm 1
and John 15.
Let’s examine these scriptures together
and see if we, as Straight or LGBTQI+ Christians, are truly “JUICY”.
In Jeremiah 17,
we see that we must put all our trust in the Lord. If we put our trust in man
we will fail at what God has called us to be. In Jeremiah we see that without
the water from the stream the tree withers and dies. Like the tree, if we are
NOT grounded in the Word and drinking in the Water of Life {John 4:14},
we too will just succumb to the flesh and wither and die. If we are not full of
the “JUICE” from the LIVING WATERS, fear
will set in and you will not yield the FRUIT of the SPIRIT of GOD to help
others {Galatians 5:22-23}.
It is truly God’s will that we flourish in His bountiful Love and Support, so
we can be a “JUICY” tree that helps others come to know the giver of LIFE GIVING WATERS that will give them a more rewarding LIFE. Here we
see that the living waters will give us fullness just like the water gives
fullness to the trees and the vines to bear “JUICY” FRUIT. Being full of JUICE
will bring people healing through the giving of “JUICE” for LIFE.
“Heal me oh
Lord, fill me with the LIVING WATERS till I am overflowing, so that I may be a
blessing to others. Lord I want to be “JUICY” for YOU!!!” AMEN
According to Jeremiah 17:4-15,
we need to be grounded by the LIVING WATERS, so we can flourish and be a
blessing to others.
Thus
says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in and relies on mankind,
Making [weak, faulty human] flesh his strength, and whose mind and heart turn away from the Lord. “For he will be like a shrub in the
[parched] desert; and shall not see prosperity when it
comes, but shall live in the rocky places of the
wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and
trusts in and relies on the Lord And whose
hope and confident expectation is the Lord. “For he will be [nourished] like a tree planted by the waters,
That spreads out its roots by the river; And will not fear the heat when it comes; But
its leaves will be green and moist. And it will
not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought nor stop bearing fruit. “The heart is deceitful above all
things And it is extremely sick; Who can understand it fully and know its secret motives?
“I, the Lord, search and examine the
mind, I test the heart, To give
to each man according to his ways, According to the
results of his deeds. “Like the partridge that hatches
eggs which she has not laid, So is he who makes a
fortune in ways that are unjust. It will be lost to him
before his days are over, and in the end he will be
[nothing but] a fool.” A glorious throne, set on high
from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary (the
temple). O Lord, the hope
of Israel, All who abandon You will be shamed. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have abandoned the Lord, the
fountain of living waters. Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; Save me and I will
be saved, For You are my praise. Jeremiah
17:5-14
Here again in Psalm 1 we see that GOD desires that HIS CHILDREN be PLANTED by the
WATERS OF LIFE so they will bear FRUIT. If we CHOSE to follow in the steps of
man we will wither and die in our sin. However, if we CHOSE to follow GOD, HE
will plant us in the WORD which is the WATER OF LIFE. It is so much better to
be full of WATER so you can be “JUICY” for the Lord and produce much fruit.
Blessed
[fortunate, prosperous, and favored by God] is the man who does not walk in the
counsel of the wicked [following their advice and example], Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit
[down to rest] in the seat of scoffers (ridiculers). But
his delight is in the law of the Lord, And on His law [His precepts and teachings] he [habitually]
meditates day and night. And he will
be like a tree firmly planted [and fed] by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season; Its
leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he
prospers [and comes to maturity]. The wicked [those who
live in disobedience to God’s law] are not so, But they
are like the chaff [worthless and without substance] which the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand [unpunished] in the
judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord knows and fully approves
the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked
shall perish. Psalm 1
In
John 15
we see Jesus teaching us about the VINE and the BRANCHES that produce “JUICY”
fruit. When we decide to follow JESUS we become part of the VINE of LIFE,
extending into the world, to produce FRUIT for GOD. Jesus lets us know in this
Parable that the GARDNER “GOD”, will prune or CLEAN the BRANCHES so they will
produce “JUICY” fruit. I see here that it will be painful at times but the
GREAT GARDNER “GOD” will cause your faithfulness to HIM to produce much fruit
for HIM. Being a vintner
has taught me a lot about the significance of pruning to produce the most
“JUICY” fruit. If left untamed and not pruned and vineyard will become wild and
unmanageable. So I see from this parable that PRUNING is so necessary to keep
us in line with GOD’s perfect will for our lives. God loves us so much that HE
sent HIS SON, JESUS to teach us how to be the “JUICIEST” fruit we can be for
HIM. Here in this parable we learn that LOVE is the greatest commandment of
GOD. We learn that LOVE will conquer ALL the EVIL in this world. If we as
branches bear “JUICY” fruit through the LOVE we show others, God will continue
to PRUNE “CLEAN” us so we can be the EXAMPLE the world needs to see in order to
actually KNOW GOD. We know through the EXAMPLE of JESUS that the WORLD hates
GOD because HE purges and reveals the sin in our lives that KEEP US from
becoming the “JUICY” fruit that HE wants us to be. However, God has sent us the
HOLY SPIRIT to be our guide, our help, and our strength to overcome the HATE
through ABUNDANT LOVE that flows from the LIVING
WATERS of HIS WORD.
The
Vine and the Branches
“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 prunes so that it will be even more
fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to
you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit
by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you
remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I
in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do
nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown
away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and
burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever
you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that
you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “As the Father has
loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my
commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s
commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and
that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I
have loved you. Greater
love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You
are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you
servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I
have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have
made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed
you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that
whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command:
Love each other. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me
first. If
you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not
belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why
the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater
than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you
also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They
will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one
who sent me. If
I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but
now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as
well. If I had
not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of
sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my
Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They
hated me without reason.’ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to
you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he
will testify about me. And
you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. John 15
So I ask you, just as
God spoke these words to me:
“ARE YOU JUICY?”
May the GOD of CREATION
{Genesis 1:2-25} plant you in you the
WATERS of LIFE that will never run dry {Psalm 1:3}.
May you and I be the
JUICIEST FRUIT we can be to this world that is suffering from THIRST {Revelation 22:17}.
God, my prayer is that
we all come to the GREAT GARDNER, that we may be pruned “CLEANED” {John 15:2} to become the JUICIEST
FRUIT producers we can be for YOU. Lord, continue to train me to be the BEST
GOOD SHEPARD I can be to the LGBTQI+ Community. AMEN
In His Service,
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