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Overwhelmed?
Are our lives balanced properly between activity and rest? Or, are we overwhelmed by our
responsibilities and commitments? If we are overwhelmed, let's consider
reducing our commitments, reevaluating our ambitions and regularly
scheduling times of rest and solitude. Lets learn to trust God more and
our own efforts less and enjoy the rest that God gives to us.
A Prayer begins . . .
Our Father in heaven, you alone are God. Thank you for giving us the gift
of rest.
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Read every verse in the left column and on the banner with eyes, head and heart! Clickle
one or all and see a beautiful color graphic of each!
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Two selected book quotations begin . . .
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New Branches Get Special Care
Category: Christian Living
Keywords: John 15, vineyard, branches, Jesus, God, Father, Multnomah Publishers, Inc.,
Wilkinson, Bruce Wilkinson
"A sun-browned man came up to me and asked, 'Do you understand John 15?'
'Not completely,' I answered. 'Why?'
'I own a large vineyard in northern California,' he said, 'and I think I have it figured
out.' I offered to buy him coffee on the spot. . . .
'New branches have a natural tendency to trail down and grow along the ground,' he explained. 'But they don't bear fruit down there. When branches grow along the ground, the leaves get coated in dust. When it rains they get muddy and mildewed. The branch becomes sick and useless.'
'What do you do?' I asked. 'Cut it off and throw it away.'
'Oh, no!' he exclaimed. 'The branch is much too valuable for that. We go through the
vineyard with a bucket of water looking for those branches. We lift them up and wash
them off.' He demonstrated for me with dark, callused hands. 'Then we wrap them around
the trellis or tie them up. Pretty soon they're thriving.'
As he talked, I could picture Jesus' own hand motions when he taught in the vineyard that night. He was showing how the Father makes sure His crop comes in full and sweet. When the branches fall into the dirt, God doesn't throw them away or abandon them. He lifts them up, cleans them off, and helps them flourish again.' "
SoAmazing Review: Secrets of the Vine
spells out the special care God gives new branches to increase their fruit. It provides
a fresh, helpful and inspiring perspective on life. Don't miss it.
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Prayer Circle
Category: Theology
Keywords: reformation, discipleship, grace, costly grace, cheap grace, Luther, God,
Christ, Touchstone, Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Yet the outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther's perception of grace
in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the
place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price. All that was needed was a
subtle and almost imperceptible change of emphasis, and the damage was done. Luther had
taught that man cannot stand before God, however religious his works and way may be,
because at bottom he is always seeking his own interests. In the depth of his misery,
Luther had grasped by faith the free and unconditional forgiveness of all his sins. That
experience taught him that this grace had cost him his very life, and must continue to
cost him the same price day by day. So far from dispensing him from discipleship, this
grace only made him a more earnest disciple. When he spoke of grace, Luther always
implied as a corollary that it cost him his own life, the life which was now for the
first time subjected to the absolute obedience of Christ. Only so could he speak of
grace. Luther had said that grace alone can save; his followers took up his doctrine
and repeated it word for word. But they left out its invariable corollary, the
obligation of discipleship. There was no need for Luther always to mention that
corollary explicitly for he always spoke as one who had been led by grace to the
strictest following of Christ. Judged by the standard of Luther's doctrine, that of his
followers was unassailable, and yet their orthodoxy spelt the end and destruction of the
Reformation as the revelation on earth of the costly grace of God. The justification of
the sinner in the world degenerated into the cheap grace without discipleship."
SoAmazing Review: Bonhoeffer passionately encourages that
grace be coupled with discipleship. The grace of the committed is costly, not the cheap
grace of those looking for a quick fix for continued sinfulness. If you want to
understand the cost of discipleship, read Bonhoeffer.
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community? Don't even think about not doing it!
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