HANG IN THERE
Today’s Reading: John 15-16
Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion on the right-hand side).
Orange trees are planted in the rich soil beneath Mount Herman in northern Israel.
GOOGLE MAPS – To see where Reynold took the photo, click HERE.
Key Verse: John 15:4
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
Those delicious oranges pictured above must be connected to the branch and the branch must be connected to the trunk in order to be all that they were meant to be. This is the design of the Creator. The example Jesus uses is the same. He is the Vine and we are the branches. In order to fulfill the purpose for which we are created, we must keep connected with Jesus 24/7. This is not a struggle; it’s simply abiding. We just hang in there. We rest in Jesus and His life flows into us. The ingredients of His life are listed here in our reading – LOVE (15:9) – JOY (15:11 & 16:22) – THE HELPER, THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH – (15:26 & 16:7) – PEACE (16:33). Relax, abide, and let His life flow. We should take note that what He desires will also flow into us. Our desires will be His desires. This is the secret to receiving what we desire. We must find out what He desires and ask accordingly. It will “be done for you” (15:7 & 16:24).
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Lord Jesus, I’m abiding, hanging in there, relaxing in the sure knowledge that Your life is flowing into me and through me to produce delicious fruit. When someone picks my fruit, may they taste the Fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Amen!
100 PERSONAL WORDS:
At times in life I have, figuratively, taken myself by the scruff of the neck and tried to drag myself into doing what I knew I should do. Frankly, it doesn’t work. It’s frustrating, hard work, and produces rotten fruit. In the early 1970’s, we had a peach tree in our back yard which bore delicious fruit. Early one morning I went outside to pray, and I learned the lesson of the peach tree. I observed that it didn’t struggle. It didn’t push. It didn’t jump up and down in its effort to produce the fruit the Creator intended. It just simply knew enough to “abide.” I relaxed and decided to do the same. I prayed only for those things I knew Jesus desired. I knew His desires because I was faithful in daily reading what He had to say to me in His Word. This blog is an extension of that understanding. He is the Vine. I am a branch. Perhaps the Internet is the twig that enables the fruit to be there for the picking and eating.
Yours for productive lives,
David
A few days ago we read John 9, which referred to the pool of Siloam. This week on the 100 Huntley Street telecast a Jewish archeologist was a guest. He shared about the healing of the blind man who was instructed to wash in the pool of Siloam. It was new and exciting information for me. Check out this interview from this past Tuesday’s telecast by clicking here!
Northern Israel looks like one beautiful area. Those oranges would feed a lot of people. Thank you Reynold for such a lovely photo.
I was blessed to be born into a practicing Christian family. Often wonder how a person who isn’t, ultimately grasps onto living the Christian life and believing in our Lord and Saviour. God does work in mysterious ways.
I love your prayer for today Rev. DM. Amen.
Watch 100 Huntley every day. Wonderful, wonderful guests. May God bless your programming as long as there’s stars in the sky.
Amen sister!
This is a 5-yr. old Russian girl playing the harp. Enjoy!
http://www.chonday.com/Videos/harprusialg2
If there was a like button, I would have pressed like. Beautiful! thnx for sharing…
An angel on earth–a gift from God to uplift and inspire–simply awestruck!!
When I was a child my father planted a grape vine at the back of our property. While he was alive he looked after it, pruned it and every year it produced lots of fruit. After my father passed away no one looked after this vine and every year it produced less and less fruit. Eventually, I thought it was dead, so I cut down a lot of the dead branches, and just left the trunk. The following year, new branches grew and the grape vine produced so many grapes we couldn’t eat them all.
For me seeing a principle of the Kingdom of God at work, helped me to understand what Jesus meant about the Vine and the branches, and the need for pruning. If God doesn’t prune us, we become as unfruitful as the grapevine at the back of our property became. And no matter how dead the branches were the Vine still had Life that once the dead branches were removed it could bring forth new branches that would produce fruit.
Sometimes in our modern world the power of our Lord’s parables get lost because we have moved off the fields into the cities, but when we get a chance to see these parables lived out in nature, like I did, and like David did with the peach tree– we can really see the everlasting nature of the illustrationd Jesus chose to explain the Kingdom of God to us.
Some of us on this blog may be experiencing a season of pruning in our lives, it is always difficult but if we accepted the pruning we will become more fruitful as a result. So as David said– Hang in There.
hanging in there…
Amen Donna, dear sister-in-Christ!
WOW!
The referenced link with Moira shares great archeological information which confirms the validity of the Bible once again.
I am also enjoying Burning Questions with Dr Andy at 8 pm on Sunday evenings on YES TV.
Shalom,
Graham.
…”It just simply knew enough to “abide.” I relaxed and decided to do the same. I prayed only for those things I knew Jesus desired. I knew His desires because I was faithful in daily reading what He had to say to me in His Word. This blog is an extension of that understanding. He is the Vine. I am a branch. Perhaps the Internet is the twig that enables the fruit to be there for the picking and eating…”
The internet is a conduit for many kinds of fruit. Yesterday’s interview on 100 Huntley Street was truly enlightening. This amazing blog is a miracle of God.
I am very thankful that it exists. Thank you David Mainse and family for keeping this blog alive.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Have a blessed day blog friends…
Good blog and photo!
Thank you again and a thousand more times “thank you”. You are teaching me how to live this awesome Christian life. My parents did not know how to do this. I hardly knew my grandparents, so they could not help. My church does a great job, including adult bible classes, small group studies and top rate Sunday worship and sermons…but your daily leading is the crowning jewel of my daily walk with Jesus.
How can I be of any help to you?
Blessings, George W
Dear Rev. David M. and all my fellow bloggers,
Todays title, Hang In There, from the Gospel, seems to do a full circle of how The Father, Son and Holy Spirit kept me strong while being bedridden for the past week.
It gave me the oppertunity to spend quality time with Jesus and enjoy 100 Huntley even on the new Yes channel at night.Wonderful interviews, so uplifting.
This morning, I was well enough to attend the Billy Graham MY HOPE evangelist documentary called HEAVEN soon to be released. All of us were delighted to see the amount of people from many churches including a full bus load of high school studentsready so eager to evangelise THE GOOD NEWS.
Keeping you all in prayers, my fellow saints.
XOXOXO Carole
Keeping you in my prayers, Carole! God bless you, dear sister-in-Christ. God’s overflowing light and love and the precious blood of Jesus Christ wash over and heal you!
“Leaning on the everlasting arms, safe and secure from all alarms”
Thanks you Jesus!!
My heart is stirred by Your Word, Jesus. We are honoured to be branches clinging to Your vine. We are never alone, for You are always with us. You are the peace within us, divine. Though we may face struggles along the way and at times the road seems long; we are assured by the sacrifice You have made and already overcome. We testify as Your children and witness to the great fruit You have produced in our lives. For You alone are Holy. You alone are Holy. We live for Your honour and glory.
Great to hear from you Beverlee and sounds like you have the victory. Praise the Lord. Glad you are feeling better, Carole. God bless you both.
My heart is racing! this morning the manager put a R I P sign for Halloween where the road divides to upper or lower….I was shocked! We’ve never had anything like that in the 20 years I’ve been here so I spoke to the person and indicated that I was not happy with this sign! I stated I don ‘t wish to bring attention to Halloween and if the manager wants that sign then put it on their own property! Praise to the Lord, 1 hour later it was down! I thanked God, I had someone prayer a prayer of thanksgiving! I am going to give some flowers to the manager and thank them for taking down the sign and also tell them that this act is honouring God! The manager is Christian and I would ask for prayers for their relationship! I am so glad everyone is feeling better! thank the Lord for lthis blog!