Intro:
Our focus is going to be about how awesome it is to be a part of God’s family and God’s house, and how amazing it is that we can live an abundant life. Hello, this is Dorette Schaal with an encouraging word for your day! Because of Jesus, we can now have a relationship with God, and then have authentic dynamic relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the family of God in our local churches. What a great mission statement this would be for each Bible believing church…..to reach and influence the world by building a home for God’s family that changes mindsets and empowers people to lead and impact others for the cause of Christ in every sphere of their life. Let’s do it! This is your week to join a TeamLife Group! Here is your dailyeword.
I love being out doors and making things beautiful in my yard. I love growing…. vegetables and herbs, flowers and bushes, and fruit trees, really just about anything. Even at the end of the growing season here in Idaho, there are so many lessons we can learn from the garden. A few important things are: prepare thoroughly, plant selectively, maintain religiously, and water regularly. Cultivating fruitfulness can happen the same way. First prepare your heart and be ready, then find places to put your seeds in, pull weeds that come up and prune as necessary, and continue to shower your seeds with good words. Okay, that may be a little simplified, but we can make a plan to be fruitful, just like we plan a garden. One of the things I have grown in my flower beds are boxwood bushes. I usually had to trim them 2-3 times in the growing season, and it was quite fun. I keep them shaped, and any new growth that gets out of the planned shape gets cut off. That can be in our lives like the time we mess up in our actions and all of the sudden unkindness raises its ugly head. Take out those trimming shears and cut it off. Don’t allow it to keep growing. In our life, that probably means asking for forgiveness, and then promising to God to watch our tongue more carefully next time. If we want our life to look like a carefully trimmed boxwood, we have to cut off what isn’t appealing and encourage growth in the areas that are desirable. What is interesting with plants is that you can train them to go the way you want them to go. And guess what, we can be trained as well. Let’s be trained to be fruitful.