ESTHER’S WARRIORS MINISTRY
Blessings to you and yours. We are moving through the last month of summer gatherings with family and friends. Summer is a more light hearted time with much outdoor activity to enjoy. It is a season with its own brand of pleasure, sights and tastes to delight everyone. For many of us summer is a time to spend in nature. Perhaps we garden to provide wholesome food for our family. Perhaps we enjoy planting and nurturing a plethora of blooms and colors to enhance our little corner of the world. Perhaps we just like to walk and enjoy the fruits of others labors.
Things Can Change in an Instant!
There was a young man putting mulch in my gardens one evening this past week. He had just stepped away from the wood line when he said the most deafening sound occurred and the entire ground trembled as a tree fell from the woods that border my backyard. He ran toward the house thinking the whole woods was coming down. A most terrifying experience to be sure.
As I surveyed the damage I was thankful that the mulch man and my lawn mowing man were not hurt. Both were back and forth right in the exact place the tree fell. My neighbor and I surveyed the damage and the tree had simply rotted and fallen. No wind blew it down. It simply fell over. I have seen storm damage and fallen trees but never have I seen a tree simply fall over.
In Everything Give Thanks
This incident gave me much to consider. First and foremost, I was thankful no one was hurt. God had honored my morning prayer to place hedges of protection around my property. Prayer is powerful. Before you put your feet on the floor in the morning thank God that He protects you, your family, your property, your neighborhood, your town, your state and your country. It only takes a minute but we have no idea how God’s hand safeguards during a day everything we have prayed forward.
Check Your Connection
The fallen tree had rotted at its base even though there was still growth at the top in green leaves. How often do we stand in the forest of life looking as if we are alive and bearing fruit yet perishing at our foundation? Our root system decays with offense, unforgiveness, bitterness, gossip, pride and judgment until it takes little to nothing to simply topple us over.
If we stay closely connected to the life-giving vine, Jesus Christ, we are the branches filled with growth. Jesus tells us in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit: for without Me you can do nothing.” If we are grounded in Him we will bear much fruit. If not we will rot at the foundation and fail to thrive or provide sustenance to those around us. Looking at that beautiful, stately tree it appeared solid on the outside. However, once toppled it was evident that the base was not much more than saw dust.
Fulfill Your Appointment
Jesus goes on in John 15:16 to say, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He shall give you.” We are chosen, appointed and anointed to bear fruit that keeps on well after we are gone from a situation, a relationship or even from this earth. Check your heart (it is always a heart issue) this week and do whatever you need to do to clear ungodly issues. In the power of the Holy Spirit let it go. Whatever it is that is keeping you stuck is not worth forfeiting your destiny. Let God handle it. You let it go.
We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and it is time now that we arise and live our lives as such. We are not going to get a do-over. We need to take responsibility for our thoughts, our attitudes, our actions and our heart issues and line them up with the Word of God. Then and only then will we be able to receive whatever we ask in the name of Jesus. We have long played church. The time is now to be the church of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. Arise, clean up your heart issues and bear fruit that will remain long after God has moved you.
‘Pray the States’
Join us this week as we ‘pray the states’ toward the 2012 Presidential election. We are praying for each state in the order of admission to the Union. Please cover Wisconsin admitted to the Union May 29, 1848 in prayer. Pray for wisdom and discernment for the political leaders, pastors and church leaders, the people residing in Wisconsin and for all in our Nation. Each state is important in forming our United States of America. We commit to pray for a different state each week so we not only provide prayer cover but also to make us aware that our country is bigger than the space we personally occupy in it. These are our United States. Let us pray that we will arise united ‘for such a time as this!’
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“The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests.”
President Andrew Jackson
A Prayer Request and Personal Blessing
Thank you for your continued faithfulness to pray. Please keep our servicemen and women and their families in prayer for salvation and safety. They are our frontline on the battlefield, let us be their frontline in the spirit. Also, let us cover all who have come home wounded that they and their families will receive the kindness, help and support they need to go forward in their lives. God bless all our military personnel and their families. May God richly bless the United States of America and keep her safe.
May God richly bless each of you this week. May we strengthen our foundation in Him this week as we release heart issues not of Him in Jesus’s name. Amen and amen!