You Can’t Love Without Giving
If anyone has this world’s goods (resources for sustaining life) and sees his brother and fellow believer in need, yet closes his heart of compassion against him, how can the love of God live and remain in him? Little children, let us not love [merely] in theory or in speech but in deed and in truth... (1 John 3:17–18 AMP)
I’ve heard it said that you can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving. Notice this verse tells us that love isn’t just about our words or thoughts; it’s about our actions.
That Brings Forth Fruit in His Season (Psalm 1:3)
I used to think of spring as the first of the four seasons and winter as last. That isn't so. January is raw blistering winter. So God's agricultural cycle starts with cold, lifeless, leafless, iced-over improbability. Creation began that way. The earth “was without form and void...” But winter is a rich time. That is when planning, dreaming, expectation, and vision develop. Faith operates in such a cold sterile environment. It knows that “the time of singing birds” is near. So it fires the shop stove and sharpens plow blades and prepares seed for the next change in weather.
How Is Jesus?
1 John 4:17 (KJV)
Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world.
Let me ask you, how do you think Jesus is?
Is He sick? No!
Is He fearful? No!
Is He defeated by the devil? No!
Jesus is victorious!
And as He is—strong, courageous, victorious—so can you be in this world as you are flowing in the power of the Holy Spirit. Satan has no power over you, the believer. When people see you, they will see Jesus!
The Price of Children - What Are They Worth?
I have repeatedly seen the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is the first time I have seen the rewards listed this way.
The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family. Talk about price shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.
But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:
- $8,896.66 a year
- $741.38 a month
- $171.08 a week
- A mere $24.24 a day!
- Just over a dollar an hour.
The World's System Is Designed To Fail
God’s system of success is not positive thinking or a scheme dreamed up to work in the world system. It works in the spiritual realm. It works out of the human spirit, not out of man’s intellect. If you only confess out of your head (your mind), the system won’t work because it’s a spiritual operation.
"Provide yourselves bags which wax not old…." Let your spirit produce what you need. Let it be the ground in which you deposit the seed of God’s Word. Out of that seed good things will grow and you will reap the harvest on earth.
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