Psalm 84:11 (The Message)
All sunshine and sovereign is God, generous in gifts and glory.
He doesn't scrimp with his traveling companions.
It's smooth sailing all the way with God
A Tale of Two Butterflies
Ephesians 4:17-24 (The Message)
The Old Way Has to Go
And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along
with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They've refused for so long
to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself.
They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in
sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.
But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have
paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we
have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance,
everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to
go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new
way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working
itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.
1 John 2:15-17 (The Message)
Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world
squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the
world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear
important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The
world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does
what God wants is set for eternity.
Hebrews 4:7 (The Message)
Today, please listen, don't turn a deaf ear . . .
John 15:1-6 (The Message)
The Vine and the Branches
"I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of
me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes
back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I
have spoken.
"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a
branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't
bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with
you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant.
Separated, you can't produce a thing.
Psalm 84:11 (NIV)
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.
A Tale of Two Butterflies
Ephesians 4:17-24
Living as Children of Light
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as
the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their
understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that
is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they
have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of
impurity, with a continual lust for more.
You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him
and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were
taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is
being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your
minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness
and holiness.
1 John 2:15-17
Do Not Love the World
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love
of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful
man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not
from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the
man who does the will of God lives forever
Hebrews 4:7
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
John 15:1-6
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, and I will 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 a man remains in me and I in him, he
will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain
in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers
I'm a brand new man, I'm a conscious man
I’m a man who’s burnin’ for you
The mistakes I’ve made have been chased away to the bottom of the ocean blue
I’m a brand new man in a foreign land, I’m a man who’s feelin’ that fire
And it’s all so clear when I’m standing here at the peak of my desire
I know you’re all alone in a crowd full of friends
I can see it in your eyes that your fadin’ again
Checking out, moving into your hole
Where the light can’t touch any part of your soul
But hold up and let the river rush in
You can turn around and start livin’ again
Cause your life is a beautiful bloom
In the image of the one that created you
Woke up in a sweat, those ghosts in my head
Had a grip, but I slipped on by
It’s a whole new day as the darkness fades
And the sun’s shinning in the sky
I concede, my love, that I need your love
I’m before you, a broken man
And it’s only you, no substitutes who can renew this soul again
You got me higher than Kilimanjaro
Got me believin’ I can “save the day”
I’m up and running like there ain’t no tomorrow
I’d rather burn for you than fade away
I’d rather burn for you than go my way
I’m a whole new guy with a whole new vibe
Changed inside – more flame in the fire
Can’t stop, won’t stop praying for desire
Like the bunny on the screen feel so energized
Old shell gone without a trace, new face
No more shortness of breath, new pace
Live life now without the taste of fear